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I am in the market for a meter. I do LOTS of electrical troubleshooting, and its time to replace my 20 year old meter. I will pay up to about $400 or even $500 for the right meter. It will probably be a Fluke.
I like the 233A except I would like to have a duty cycle feature. It has a removable readout so you can read it regardless of where it is connected. It also has a hold feature which is nice for leaving it overnight to babysit a parasitic drain.
What is your favorite meter and why?
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If you do a lot of electrical trouble shooting then personally I would invest that money towards a 4 channel scope it can do everything a multimeter can do and so much more I personally just use a fluke 115 for the basic electrical checks but as soon as it gets more in depth you need a scope especially dealing with Can lines or signal wires on modern vehicles ( I tend to deal mostly in vehicles within warranty) being able to see the wave form or duty cycle accurately is invaluable Ps dont get suckered into buying the fluke 123 it claims to have scope capabilities but is way to slow to be useful in an automotive setting.
ya I personally dont see any advantage for spending anything over $100 on a multi meter for automotive stuff…. here are some that do graphing…. but I uselly will switch to a o-scope that will give me better graphs that a small slow LCD…. ya like $400 will give you a 50 MHz scope easyly…. that is more then you need for automotive work….its a little bit more bucky but thats what I like better… pesonalyy I would spend the extra $$ on probes… they got some really good probles that can be used for backfeeding to your tool…
Well, I thought replied earlier, but the post isn’t here for some reason.
I have a really nice four channel scope with probes, vibration sensors et al. It actually belongs to the shop, but it stays on my bench and I am the only one who has used it since I have been there. I find a meter with duty cycle handier than a scope for many things. A good, high input impedance multimeter seems worth having. If the 233A had a duty cycle function, it would be pretty ideal for me.
Thanks for the. Comments and feedback. I hope everyone will keep offering their opinions and experience.
I’ve used a fluke 87V for most of my automotive needs as fluke is a great name in DMM. But i recently purchased a TPI model 194 along with a set of LoadPro leads and i love the setup. I use it in conjunction with my powerprobe III and between those two i can handle anything that’s thrown at me. I’ll link you to the two products i mentioned and you can read on from there. It’s just as accurate and robust as the flukes but for a bit cheaper. Infact, snap on rebrands the TPI meters themselves, so when you look at the TPI models and check out the snap on models they’re the same thing only snap on is red and TPI is yellowish green.
Fluke 28 II Rugged Digital Multi meter. It is on my list of stuff i need to buy later on. atm i have been doing ok with an extech.
As for the 233 i doubt u will be able to use it with tons of interference in the area.
I was checking out Nissan’s tech tools. The Nissan grand multi-meter no longer available. They must have upgraded and run it through a computer system.
I really like my fluke 88v so far. I’ve had it around a year now. Even though I still consider myself a noob(I’m slow with it) to electrical diag it has yet to let me down on anything I have asked it to do.
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[quote=”MBDiagMan” post=172521]I am in the market for a meter. I do LOTS of electrical troubleshooting, and its time to replace my 20 year old meter. I will pay up to about $400 or even $500 for the right meter. It will probably be a Fluke.
I like the 233A except I would like to have a duty cycle feature. It has a removable readout so you can read it regardless of where it is connected. It also has a hold feature which is nice for leaving it overnight to babysit a parasitic drain.
What is your favorite meter and why?[/quote]
Being in Biz as an ASE pro you want to find the highest quality multi-meter but Radio Shack is good enough for the DIY weekend warrior.Now with so many computers being installed in vehicles you want a lower ohms slot to test electronic modules
Nissan suggest a multi-meter capable of handling at least 10Megaohms for testing the knock sensor circuit.
I would stick to a simple yet sensitive high quality DMM such as a low model number Fluke and use an oscilloscope with at least 2 channels.
Score yourself a good used vantage pro, then make sure you get a good fluke, 88v, etc. I’m still using my fluke 78, its 18yrs old. Are you going to be servicing hybrids? If so, then that’s a whole nother can of worms. Even if you don’t, we have the higher voltage circuits of GDI to contend with. Yes the new meters are rated for 1000v, but that’s not going to help you. With higher voltages, things behave differently. 12v systems, even 24v, you don’t have the issue of arcing, or leakage. When you get into the 48-60v range, you do. With those, in order to check for leakage to ground, you have to give an adequate pressure test. Conventional meters give a very small voltage when measuring resistance, which is ok for 12v systems. When you get into higher voltage systems, that is like pressure testing a coolant system at 1psi and if you see no leaks, call it good. You may want to consider a DMM that measures gigaohms(yes giga, not mega), and does insulation tests. I snagged a cheap one for a couple of hundred off amazon from OTC. Fluke and Snapon will cost you over $1k. Wait until we start getting worn insulation on GDI injector harnesses causing misfires or poor running.
As an electrical engineer, I have a ton of Fluke meters. Yes they cost much more, but I find them to be the most accurate and well made. I also have a couple Keithly Bench Meters
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