Looking for recommendations on reasonable price DMM

NoobyMarty

New Member
Hi guys, I know this gets asked alot, however as things change so quickly these days i'm looking for recommendations for DMM.

In an idea world I would go for something like a tenma 72-7755 second hand, however the only one I found was imho extortionate (>£100 SH).

So first budget.......roughly around £40-£50 (I dont mind second hand in good useable condition).

Functions I would like....thermocouple temp sensor (if I must I can live without )
audible continuity not negotiable lol
low A capability and upto max 10 A

able to show and be reasonably accurate measuring 10's mA
Voltage dosnt have to be above ~240V AC
Voltage DC able to display and capable of reasonable accuracy in 10's mV

Or if possible can people tell me what they use and what they think of it?
Not looking for packed to the brim useless features and something that is gonna be knackered in 6 weeks!

Thanks guys and sorry again for asking what every noob asks, I did search on here but like I say, things change new models come out etc etc.

Regards

Marty
 
Ive ordered one from Amazon!
Remarkable bit of kit for the price! I tried ebay but most were unbranded on the front and from china claiming to be Aneng8008.
Even with sunday premium delivery its was much cheaper than I expected to pay! Thanks for the recommendation.

Currently I have a UNI-T UT30B, it was given to me ages ago. Its been ok (well kinda meah), while it does enough for now I do really really hate the probes and for whatever reason I cant put my finger on, ive only used it a few times as there is just 'something' about it that puts me off using it.

No idea what, but i have never enjoyed how it feels etc when I have used it. I used a borrowed Tenma at work for a while (just basic 12v stuff we use), I really loved using that, again nothing I can put my finger on but it felt good to use...

Im looking forward to having a mess with the new one tomorrow.
 
Probe quality is always a major concern, as I have had many types break with poor strain relief or poor sharpness.

The Aneng appear to be good with two types.

This model does everything except keep your coffee warm and uses a rechargeable Li Ion battery.


 
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That meter quite interesting, DC accuracy a tad better than the 8008. And
rechargeable......

But probe cables exiting out bottom, so no back bail to set on desktop to tilt.

As an aside here is a simple solution that will talk to you if you have to work on
something remotely or cannot see the meter for whatever reason. Note it is
not a real DMM, just a DIY basic project you can mod to your hearts delight.



Regards, Dana.
 
Dana, was that the right link for tilting the meter in post #6?
 
I ordered the first one last night and it will be here tomorrow, saw some knockoff ones on ebay China (so now the Chinese are are making knock offs of Chinese products, is it me? Or is the world really this messed up? . But found same on Amazon uk and it will be here tomorrow .

Good point about the probes, it just blows my mind when you technology like Oscilloscopes from even 15 years ago, and what those things cost at the time. And many are now out classed by hobby class stuff of today.I wish I was young enough to see what come in next 3 decades.

Having said that........I did see a great looking AVO meter on ebay that was older than me!

Marty
 
I'm wrapping up a Hairball 1176 Rev A build. I've been using this shitty little $12 DMM I happened to have but, for calibration, I wanna use something better because this thing sucks in just about every way there is to suck

What are you using that you like? Auto-only, please.
 
Well quick update..

My Amazon order came today with the DMM!!
However I unboxed the package and put it straight back in the box, sealed it up and tomorrow its going back....
WHY?

Because the above statement is Literal, all that turned up was the meter! No bag, no, probes, absolutely nothing else in the box....
Dont worry it gets worse, I dont use Amazon much as I have a nephew who works in a fulfilment centre for Amazon, just on principle of how they treat staff I try NOT to use Amazon. The other reason is, I was unaware that when you send anything back you are given 2 choices..

1. wait 24-48hr AFTER they get the package back and have the money refunded to your AMAZON account (so you got to spend the money with them anyway or

2. Wait 10-14 days AFTER they get the package back and have it transferred back to your bank account! they blame the 'Banking system, funny how you can go into your banking app and pretty much instantaneously transfer money to anyone anywhere.

So you might be wondering why such a sum is so important to me.

Well that part is my utter nightmare of a situation I found myself in last night, my phone has ALL my bank accounts on it and all credit cards (Both business and personal) which is a fair few accounts (I have separate accounts for most things, especially on the business banking side.

My charging port (USBc) was getting more and more difficult to get the charging cable in, so yesterday morning I thought rather than dig around inside the USB port and get all the fluff and crap out myself, I would be sensible and goto a local phone repair shop and pay them to do it in case I 'F'ed' it up, keep in mind that without access to that phone many of the accounts I am effectively locked out of with no one to really go to (Bank wise) to help me install the apps on another phone (hence the age of this old Galaxy A71).

The guy did a great job of removing the fluff etc and brought the phone out after 5 mins, and in front of me put a USB cable in (not connected to anything but the phone), sure enough the new cable they gave me fitted like a glove and the phone was working perfectly. So I happily paid the £35 to have it cleaned with free cable .

Late last night my phone beeped as normal to tell me to charge it up, I plugged it in and........Nothing! When I took a really close look (as close as you can on them things anyway) I was horrified to discover that the copper contact traces inside the port were all ripped up from the pcb.

So I phoned the shop and they said nothing we can mate we cant get the USB board thing as they are no longer made for my phone!
SOOOO, my first electronics project isnt going to be 100 ways to flash a LED, instead I went back onto amazon and have ended up having to buy a phone take apart kit thing (£35), a antistatic tray thing for repairing phones, something called a BGA rework station and soldering thing?? (~£235) A USB Microscope ~£170,(I watched a few you tube vids to see if anyone had taken one of these apart before) Lucky enough there was a half decent video.

However it was clear from the video that you cant even really see the screw heads they are so microscopic! and I have very old eyes. I forgot to buy solder and liquid resin/liquid flux?? and liquid solder, I didnt even look at the cost of those.

the battery is now dead so im effectively locked out of all my accounts as they are locked to that phone and all have biometric Access control on. main concern was the business accounts so I rang them, only to be told that because they are no passwords or pin codes to access the accounts and they dont have physical branches, there is zero they can do without me getting Biometric access to the apps.

All my worst nightmares come true, so my first electronics project is now going to be, Taking apart a phone almost completely, just so I can reach the usb Board, AND by some miracle desolder the the actual socket from the board and solder a new one on, just so I can get enough charge in the phone to gain access and switch the accounts to another phone!

Sleep well tonight, i'm 99.9999% sure I will be bombarding you all with questions on things I know zero about! I soldered a 5mm through hole LED the other day, which is about the third time in my life I have held a soldering iron!
Please dont tell me just how bad this is likely to go, I am very aware of how badly this is likely to end, but one positive thing is, I cant F it up anymore than it is already! and the shop isnt prepared to replace just the usb port, they would only consider doing replacing the entire USB board for the phone, which I cant get.

Electronics was meant to be a bit of a hobby so I could make an environmental controller for my mini eco system im making, I have wasted so much money buying crap like oscilloscopes that stopped working after 3 days etc etc, stuff I thought I would need but turns out I didnt.


So it has been a baptism of fire! IF I am remotely successful (yes like I said I know those odds!) well I figure if nothing else I am about to have a steep learning curve and a crash course in learning how to solder things I cant even see without a bloody microscope! and zero soldering experience as such. But I can read and watch vids, slowly i'm getting my head around datasheets, but if ANYONE has any advice or tips, I would truly be so very very grateful.

I would of paid one of you guys to have a go at it for me (like I said I got nothing to loose), but one account in particular I need access to by 5pm tomorrow at the latest, and yes Murphy, made sure that the one account I need quick access to, is the hardest one to just reinstall on another phone...

The meter looked ok but honestly I wasnt in the mood to bother with it seeing as in the UK they are a long way from $19 to buy, and I wasnt going to pay for new leads when I had already paid for THEM!




*****RANT OVER*****


I hope the rest of you are having a much better weekend


Kind Regards

Marty
(Officially now the biggest NOOB to join the forum) Look you gotta take whatever win you can lol

PS, what hell exactly is a BGA rework station????
 
If your post was a request for advice, here's the advice you didn't ask for but everyone should listen to...

1) There is a reason Samsung, Apple, LG and Google offer (and recommend) cloud backup. My level of service costs $1.99/month from Google for a business phone (Android) and $1.99/mo from Apple for a personal phone synched to my iPad. That's $4/month and 8-years of service would be paid for with the price you're paying for the BGA rework station and microscope. Whether you drop it, get it wet or break the charging port - your data is still available.

2) how Amazon treats their employees is a function of how the collective group of employees behave once they start getting checks from Amazon. People moving up to an Amazon job after working in fast food or retail are quite happy with the pay - so happy they feel the need to buy a better car and move to a bigger apartment. But then they are stuck - the only alternative job option they have is fast food or retail and those won't pay for the newer car or apartment so they can't go back. Once they realize this, they worry about getting fired so they never say no to their managers and the downward spiral begins. Even if they are empowered enough to say no, their coworkers don't say no out of similar fears. The one who says no gets fired. Lesson, don't spend or commit the money until you're sure you like the higher paying job. Fast food and retail may be better for your mental health. I'm not going to give up my next day delivery in protest of how Amazon treats people - my driver seems happy and I get what I order 99% of the time.
 
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On my personal phone I do use both one drive and google drive, however on our work phones we are not allowed to do this, what we are told to do is backup to the internal SD cards we are given......
What I dont think anyone realised was the sd cards auto encrypt the card to the device. So I needed to get enough charge into the battery so I could access the data I need and swap the information onto a new phone using NFC.

Samsungs wont do back ups or restores when your charge is under something like 80%, so this wasnt an option, the phone was working fine, I had been very busy during so forgot to charge the phone until it beeped at 12%. I plugged in the phone to charge and thats when I found out it wouldnt charge.

So......

Took the phone apart (awful job!!) and finally had the charge port board out of the phone. my thought process was the USB C socket had probably worn out, no one was prepared to do board level repairs and couldnt get a replacement charge board.
So I thought I would try and replace the USB port, get enough charge in the phone and swap the data onto the new phone.

Thats when I discovered the USB C connector isnt actually a USB C connector! Its part of the actual PCB board with a metal housing soldered on.

Long story short....I eventually managed to desolder the shroud and plugged the usb power cord back in, still absolutely nothing, even when I plug the phone into my laptop usbc port the computer dosnt even notice something has been plugged in.

Measured voltage on the battery with a bench DMM and the Voltage of the battery is 3.78v. thinking about it 3.78 seems hi considering the battery bitched to be charged and turned off when it reached zero?? the phone is apparently completely dead. I have got access to most bank accounts again, however the critical data I need is still on the phone and more importantly is my contact number list is still on it.

I am just guessing but I figure next step is take it all apart again and by pass the USB board and charge the battery directly, I dont wasnt to remove the battery as its well stuck down onto the back of the screen. so next question is....

What voltage and current would be best to use? keeping in mind I will be completely bypassing the any doodah regulator things (no idea correct term sorry. I had to get one of them USB microscopes with a screen, charge dosnt last long but sure makes things way easier to see with eyes like mine!

If anyone is interested I will take pics of this next tear down!!

Regards
Marty
 
That may be the case in the USA, in the UK the drivers dont have time to stop for a pee, hence why many pee in bottles while driving, you are free to choose what you like, personally a very hard working relation of mine gets treated like dirt, so I am not keen to give amazon my money when I can help it. Again freedom of choice.

Regards
Marty

P>S google drive and just about anything else you can name is way more expensive here, the DMM posted in other thread is $19. Same meter on uk Amazon was £38 (rough guess $45), I have seen the same model but it didnt actually have the branding on it and cost £28, again just a rough guess but probably around $35.
 
It sounds like Thomas Jefferson and his friends made a good decision. The only explanation is the high level of taxes - it ain't cheap having a royal family that works so hard cutting ribbons at grand openings of cancer wards or new grocery stores. I mean, how would these places ever have a first day of business without a king, queen or prince in attendance.
 
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