[TheHWcave] found a Fluke 27 multimeter that looked like it had had quite a rough life. At first, the display flashed an overload indicator until he gave it a good smack—or, as he likes to call it, percussive maintenance. Even then, it would not give good readings, so it was time to open it up.
The display did work, so the obvious theory was something wrong with the analog board. Removing the shields showed what looked like a normal enough PCB. Or at least, the components looked fine. But on the solder side of the board, there was some corrosion on two contacts, so some careful cleaning and resoldering fixed the meter to be as good as new on at least some scales.
Tracing the pins, the corrosion put a resistor between two pins of an op-amp. The only remaining problem was the milliamp scale, but that was a simple blown fuse in the line. Since it was working, it was worth some time to clean up the ugly exterior, which is only cosmetic but still worth a little effort. He left the plastic case cracked and beaten, but he put a lot of effort into clearing up the display window.
You might wonder why you’d fix a meter when you can get one so cheap. However, these name-brand meters are high-quality and new, quite expensive. Even older ones can be worth the effort. While you usually don’t need an X-ray machine to fix something like this, it can’t hurt.
If it works, it’s a Fluke!
B^)
Never mind the price.
What you get from a more expensive meter is safety.
Do you think your $5 meter from Horror Fraught will really meet the requirements of even a CAT II safety rating for a multimeter?
https://www.fluke.com/en/learn/blog/safety/multimeter-guide
An old meter from a good manufacturer is a better bet than a piece of random, cheap crap that has never been safety certified.
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“What you get from a more expensive meter is safety.”
If you don’t understand the safety requirements of what you’re working on, the multimeter’s not going to save you anyway. And if you do understand it, you’ve probably got a need for that $5 multimeter in low-voltage situations because god knows you always need 1 more voltmeter than you have.
I totally understand people’s safety concerns with cheapo meters, but I don’t know why they suddenly think some guy messing around with metal probes on line voltage is magically going to be safe just because the meter is. Every time meters come up, people say “buy these because they’re safer” but it’s really just “don’t mess around with line stuff unless you know what you’re doing” and that’s… just universal anyway.
I mean if you’re going to come out and say “use this Fluke, it will let you work on line voltages safely!” that’s just as scary as the $5 multimeter.
Meters dont kill people, people kill people.
THAT. My Fluke(s) are not just measuring instruments, they’re literally part of my PPE.
This. Exactly.
Yes, I should have known better-
If you check the battery of a Fluke meter using the meter, it screams bloody murder with alarms you didn’t know it had.
Doing the same with a HF meter just kills it.
hahaha i never would have considered such a thing. makes me think of the unpleasant noise my cheap digital scope makes if i accidentally ground it to something insufficiently isolated
Am I wrong to think that if your nice Fluke meter has internal corrosion problems you probably need to work on your storage solution?
I mean, after 2 or 3 decades having to spray a little DeOx on that many-contact switch would be reasonable but this sounds like a very different level. Unless maybe you live on a boat…
On instruments I actually care about, I’ve moved the the practice of using only lithium primary cells. Yes, they are more expensive. However, they last a lot longer and I’ve never had one leak and destroy a battery holder–no matter how old the cell or how long the instrument sat on the shelf before use.
If you watch the video, the Fluke’s cracked at the corners, which probably means it was dropped at some point. Once it’s cracked, moisture ingress is just a matter of time.