Your DMM

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was walking in Lowes to get some tile stuff, went down electrical isle, saw a 3pc Southwire set for just $24 (sale). bought it. neat little 10A meter, catII catIII UL. bought it because its not auto-ranging, and it reads rather fast. the auto ranging one i have takes 1-2-3 sec to range out and display the reading. i found this delay to be a tad annoying. pros & cons. but heck, now i have another set of "beep, power there" pencil (which has small led flashlight on the end), and a "idiot gauge" plug-in tester. now i look really professional ;)
 
FionaZuppa said:
was walking in Lowes to get some tile stuff, went down electrical isle, saw a 3pc Southwire set for just $24 (sale). bought it. neat little 10A meter, catII catIII UL. bought it because its not auto-ranging, and it reads rather fast. the auto ranging one i have takes 1-2-3 sec to range out and display the reading. i found this delay to be a tad annoying. pros & cons. but heck, now i have another set of "beep, power there" pencil (which has small led flashlight on the end), and a "idiot gauge" plug-in tester. now i look really professional ;)
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My Fluke is auto ranging but you can override that and pick the range that best suits your needs for a particular task.
 
Besoeker said:
My Fluke is auto ranging but you can override that and pick the range that best suits your needs for a particular task.
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ah, but your Fluke is not a $24 item. auto and manual ranging is a nice feature.
is the purpose of auto ranging merely a "i have no idea what voltage that may be"? that sounds dangerous though. like CAT-III(1kV) in auto-range connecting up to that unknown which is 1500v !!

or is auto ranging just to take care of laziness of having to set the range, either by dial or menu button?
 
FionaZuppa said:
ah, but your Fluke is not a $24 item. auto and manual ranging is a nice feature.
is the purpose of auto ranging merely a "i have no idea what voltage that may be"? that sounds dangerous though. like CAT-III(1kV) in auto-range connecting up to that unknown which is 1500v !!

or is auto ranging just to take care of laziness of having to set the range, either by dial or menu button?
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If you have any expertise on the kit you are checking you would have, or should have, a fair idea of the voltage to expect and set your meter accordingly.
 
Besoeker said:
If you have any expertise on the kit you are checking you would have, or should have, a fair idea of the voltage to expect and set your meter accordingly.
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sure, but in auto-range mode there is no "setting" of the dial. it can read only up to its max and down to its min, etc.
and i do not disagree with you, one needs to be fairly confident about what it is they are about to measure. crazy bizarre accidents do happen, but hopefully we keep those events rare.
 
I prefer to operate my meter in manual.

Here lately I just use LoZ, it only has one range & no capacitive coupling readings to mess with my head.

No probing printed circuit boards with LoZ though.
 
Yes, LoZ means low impedance. That seems to be the standard marking on the selector switch.

It is not wise to use that mode on a circuit board, because you might be trying to read the voltage across a one meg resistor & the 2.5K ohm would present itself as a short circuit, damaging up stream components.
By the way that was the voice of prudence, not experience speaking.
 
ramsy said:
For some reason ~2.5kΩ refers to low impedance, and seems standard for eliminating measurements caused by Capacitive inductance
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I would not call it capacitive inductance. Capacitive coupling, for sure, and capacitive induction in a pinch, but never capacitive inductance!

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
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