A Fluke fluke?

[chris kennedy]

Strange thing happened with my T+. Friday and Saturday I was reading 48V on 120V and 120V on 208. I used it today and it was accurate??? It still has the original 2 AAA bats in it. I cant find the paperwork for it, will go to the Fluke site and try to down load it.

Has anyone with a T+ or T+Pro seen this? If this is an indication of battery end of life, its pretty poor engineering. Tester is less than a year old and in very good shape.

Thanks.

 

[iwire]

TWI? :grin:

 

[jumper]

My Fluke, model ??, showed 268v on a 240v line once on a low battery. I said WTH (heck).:-?

 

[chris kennedy]

TWI? :grin:

LOL:grin::grin::grin: Took me a minute to get that. My testers never drink on the job.

 

[ohmhead]

Strange thing happened with my T+. Friday and Saturday I was reading 48V on 120V and 120V on 208. I used it today and it was accurate??? It still has the original 2 AAA bats in it. I cant find the paperwork for it, will go to the Fluke site and try to down load it.

Has anyone with a T+ or T+Pro seen this? If this is an indication of battery end of life, its pretty poor engineering. Tester is less than a year old and in very good shape.

Thanks.

Well Chris its the batts but it also could be the beer you drink at lunch time you just have to cut that out during work ! Sometimes when you have it on dc it will do that just ask my helper !

 

[chris kennedy]

Well Chris its the batts but it also could be the beer you drink at lunch time you just have to cut that out during work !

I'm not in my 20's, try 50.

Sometimes when you have it on dc it will do that just ask my helper !

This tester requires no adjustments.

 

[ohmhead]

I'm not in my 20's, try 50.

This tester requires no adjustments.

Well iam 57 but ive not stopped yet just a little bit .

Ok its the batts or the tester is out of wack .

 

[cadpoint]

I got one and it's already indicated Dead battery with a little Icon.

Spring for some batteries...

Manuals page they have the actual manual behind sudo fire wall and not allowing a direct link to it there are three manuals on the T+PRO!...

 

[chris kennedy]

I got one and it's already indicated Dead battery with a little Icon.

Spring for some batteries...

Manuals page they have the actual manual behind sudo fire wall and not allowing a direct link to it there are three manuals on the T+PRO!...

I got it, thanks Jude. I think I have a problem, says "When batteries are depleted, self test won't function". Well, self test still works. Also says the only serviceable parts are test leads and batteries.

 

[mivey]

I've got one but never had this problem. I keep fresh batteries in my meter cases. Thanks for the heads up and I'll keep it in mind.

 

[mcclary's electrical]

I have two of these and never had a problem. Most digital meters I own,,,,when the battery gets low, it will read HIGH on voltage, not low. Like Jumper said, 260-270 on a 240 volt circuit, 520-530 on 480 volt circuit. I have never had one read lower than actual voltage due to a low battery.

 

[ramsy]

Strange thing happened with my T+. Friday and Saturday I was reading 48V on 120V

My T+ found 12V and 120V at a receptacle, thru an abandoned half-hot switch leg.

T+ beeper chirped very fast at 12v, but we couldn't find any 12v lighting. I had visions of a miss-wired 12v ballasted light growing pot in some crawlspace. I wonder if a bad appliance motor or wall wart could do this? There was a water cooler running on the same circuit.

 

[chris kennedy]

There was a water cooler running on the same circuit.

No, Friday on a new 208y/120 system then yesterday on a 240 1? system. Today swapped out a bad GFCI device and it worked fine. I would like to add that the test leads are clean.

 

[hillbilly1]

Could be broke wires in the leads, I've had that happen before, if the leads are just at the right angle, readings would get funky.

 

[jumper]

I have two of these and never had a problem. Most digital meters I own,,,,when the battery gets low, it will read HIGH on voltage, not low. Like Jumper said, 260-270 on a 240 volt circuit, 520-530 on 480 volt circuit. I have never had one read lower than actual voltage due to a low battery.

Whew!! I was starting to think that I was a "fluke", so this happened to you also?

 

[mcclary's electrical]

Whew!! I was starting to think that I was a "fluke", so this happened to you also?

I have a few meters that do this.

I had a plumber friend swapping out a water heater in a SFD. He put his meter on the water heater and it read like 380 volts. He called the power company and got them out there.

Guess what was wrong?

yes, bad battery

 

[poeboy]

I think all of my battery powered testing equipment does funny things when the battery gets low..... Voltmeters, tick tracers, circuit tracers, camera, IR thermometer,,,,,, you name it....

I've learned that when I get very odd readings, the first thing I do is change the batteries. In almost every case that does solve the problem. If for some reason the problem doesn't get corrected, then I carry several different types of testers (many have redundant features, and some specialized features) and just pull another one out to verify both are reading the same odd reading.

I think the theory is the same for all of it AC or DC... if it ain't got what it needs, it won't do what it is supposed to do....

I carry spare batteries, almost all are rechargeable and a 15 minute AA & AAA recharger (that works on a 12 V power source).

 

[chris kennedy]

Update!

Update!

It appears to be caused by sweat on the leads. I hang my tester around my neck and at the time this first showed up I was hot-checking a large project, so it hung around me neck for a couple days straight. (and it was hot and humid) Once it dries out it works fine. I figured this out when I was leaning over, one lead hanging in mid-air, the other touching my sweat soaked shirt and the continuity buzzer was going off.

 

[ohmhead]

It appears to be caused by sweat on the leads. I hang my tester around my neck and at the time this first showed up I was hot-checking a large project, so it hung around me neck for a couple days straight. (and it was hot and humid) Once it dries out it works fine. I figured this out when I was leaning over, one lead hanging in mid-air, the other touching my sweat soaked shirt and the continuity buzzer was going off.

Well we dont sweat up here Chris !

 

[mcclary's electrical]

It appears to be caused by sweat on the leads. I hang my tester around my neck and at the time this first showed up I was hot-checking a large project, so it hung around me neck for a couple days straight. (and it was hot and humid) Once it dries out it works fine. I figured this out when I was leaning over, one lead hanging in mid-air, the other touching my sweat soaked shirt and the continuity buzzer was going off.

I've never read anything with wet leads, but's that's interesting. and could be dangerous