Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Buying a multimeter

I was thinking to buy a multimeter for myself. I am using the fluke multimeter in lab, it is a very good, solid, reputable multimeter.

But fluke is not something affordable and I am not using multimeter for safety critical work, so fluke is like an overkill.

I am surveying some cheap multimeters online, and I was extra cautious. Cheap thing doesnt come with quality.

After reading some reviews, I am planning to buy mn35, manual multimeter from Extech.
It has features like:
Type K Temperature
1.5V and 9V Battery test function
Data Hold locks reading in the display.

Beside that, the reviews from amazon are good, make it a valid reason as it is a decent multimeter for that price.

Conveniently, it is also sold at Mouser Malaysia for RM81.96. After registered with mouser, and put the multimeter in cart and proceed to checkout. I notice there is a shipping fee required, RM20.
That mean I have to pay extra quarter for multimeter.
Element14 and RS have free shipping, so I was hoping to get free shipping if I buy more than RM100, so I add another item in the cart. Nope, also no free shipping.

I choose to buy the second in my list. Cheaper one but with similar functions, vc830l. It is made by China manufacturer "Victor", it is considered a branded multimeter in China aside Atten, and Uni-t. I was sceptical, but sparkfun is selling it for a very long time. There must be a good reason why sparkfun is selling it? Maybe. Sparkfun has custom white colour skin vc830l - look nicer, and there are a mixed reviews on this multimeter, but I decided to give it a try. After all, you cant argue with the price - RM32 at Cytron.

Myduino is selling the exact model (vc830l) but white colour version. The price is RM58.00 which is almost double than the yellow colour version. I decided to go with fluke yellow look alike multimeter. Appearance is not important.

After I make a purchase on cytron website, I saw another teardown review on a Taiwan blog. For the one he bought, the rotary part get loss, and he adds another paper below to tighten it. Starting to doubt at my decision.

For the one I received vc830l from cytron, look good.

Unfortunately, it is broken.



Luckily I will get the replacement from cytron.

I get the reply in one day, that is very efficient.

Since, I will get a new multimeter, I will tear the broken vc830l in the coming few days.


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