Decent digital voltmeter?

[bamberg]

I want to buy a digital voltmeter but looking at customer reviews, so many of them seem to be crap and fall apart before they’re taken out of the box, or they fail to function. Can anyone recommend a worthwhile one, not too expensive ?

[scarry]

Fluke is the way to go,heaps of different models depending what you are going to use it for.Have a look on their website.

They are not the cheapest,but are very accurate,reliable and robust,seem to last for ever.

[Rok_Dr]

I've had a dick smith one for years which has never failed to work. A couple of years ago I got a digitech from jaycar so I could of read v. high resistances and have had no problems with it either.

Cheers

Steve.

[Discomark]

I have a fluke and a digitor Dick Smith one and both are around 15 years old and no issues with either of them.
Dick Smith has a 12% discount online code at the moment which should help with postage.
12% off a wide range of products T&Cs (http://www.dicksmith.com.au/apologise-promotion)

Cheers
Mark

[Blknight.aus]

Id reccommend almost any of the jaycar ones. (any from this Jaycar Electronics - Search Results for multimeter digital (http://search.jaycar.com.au/search?w=multimeter%20digital) link should do what you need for basic auto work)

but thats an aussie mob.

The meter that came out of aldi a few years back did the job quite well.

[Basil135]

It depends a lot on what you want to do with it.

I have a Fluke that is kept in the cupboard, and used when I need accuracy.

I have a cheapy that stays in my tool bag to tell me if a circuit is live or dead, and if a battery is putting out 12 v or 4 v.

[spudboy]

Jaycar have pretty good ones, at a reasonable price. Not as good as Fluke perhaps, but nowhere near as expensive.

I got one of these for about $140 I think, and it has done sterling service:

http://www.jaycar.com.au/products_uploaded/productLarge_11031.jpg

[Tombie]

I got a nice deal on a Kincrome unit a couple of years ago to replace my stolen fluke.

Cant fault it...

[bamberg]

I just want to be able to check the batteries in my Land Rover. I heard that even when a voltmeter shows "all good", the CCA can be way down and that a separate device such as one made by SOLAR is needed to check this, but I wonder if this is just sales pitch.


I don't know what to do. I hate throwing away money on rubbish that should never have seen the light of day, which seems to be the case with a lot of the cheap stuff (voltmeters), which is just hit-and-miss. I'm not in Oz and couldn't find on German or British websites the ones that have been recommended on this site. I want something modestly priced (I would have thought that around Aus$30 should get something good enough. Why should low-cost mean crap and rubbish? Thank you, China.

[Discomark]

I'd agree with this and I recently had a battery that showed good voltage when unloaded but failed rapidly while under under load. Thats where battery load testers come in whereby a heavy load is placed on the battery over given time period usually 5 - 10 seconds. In my case the battery failed to pass the intial 5 second load test and voltage dropped from 12.3vdc to 10vdc in under 5 seconds when a 300AMP load was placed on it.
This was with a heavy duty carbon pile load tester but you can get smaller portable testers but not in the same price range a DMM.
http://www.projecta.com.au/Products/BatteryMaintenance/BatteryTesters/BatteryLoadTesters.aspx#!prettyPhoto

[p38arover]

I have a couple from Aldi that seem ok.

[Tank]

I bought 2 from Aldi's a few years back for $9 each, gave one to my Son, both still working no problems, Regards Frank.

[SlowRide]

Like others, I was going to suggest Jaycar or Altronics stores... then I saw you live in Germany so scratch that recommendation.

Mate, i'd go to Ebay and search for Fluke DMMs. Get one at your price point and you should be happy. Unless you're very rough with your tools i'd be surprised if you didn't get at least 10 years service out of a unit.