Thread: Need to buy a multimeter- some guidance sought.

Firstly, what is it being used for? You might find a cheapie like recently on sale at Aldi quite good enough. I have two of them among my collection of 7-8 (or more) analogue and digital multimeters dating back to my first (still in use analogue I made as a trainee technician in 1965).

There are some applications where the old analogue meter is more suitable than a modern digital.

Define "the basics".

Still, this might be timely. Bruce knows his stuff.

Hi POD and as Ron posted, what will you use it for?

In most cases a cheap one will work fine.

Like Ron, I have about 10 of them.

While my 240 vac powered units get used the most while at my work bench, I actually use two cheap digital multi meters the most but probably not for the reasons you may think.

Over the years I have used expensive battery powered units and without fail, just about every second time I go to use them, they had flat batteries because I forgot to turn them off the last time I used them.

About ten years back I go fed up with having to go buy batteries right when I needed to use the meters, so I bought two cheap meters that turn off automatically after about 10 minutes.

These were about $35 each.

They have well and truly paid for them selves by the amount of money and time I have saved, not having to continually buying and changing batteries.

Just a suggestion!

'cat iii' or 'cat iv", also 'true RMS'.

The Cat rating is the meters suitability for not blowing your hands off when used to measure low impedance energy sources (like the power grid). If you are not planning on poking the probes into mains powered equipment or distribution infrastructure then it's pretty irrelevant to you.

The other scary part about Cat ratings is they are often faked. I have a Cat IV 1000V meter here that would likely self destruct and take me with it if I put the probes into a power point.

True RMS is for measuring AC. Cheap crap meters assume a perfect sine wave and will measure the peak voltage and report the peak voltage divided by root 2 (~1.414). A true RMS meter will either use a very fast ADC to measure the waveform, or a thermal converter to actually measure an accurate Root Mean Square voltage of the AC. Again, mostly irrelevant unless you are doing Mains.

I bought my last set of meters from the Aneng meter store on Aliexpress. They're cheap, accurate, small, cheap and cheap. They have CAT ratings that are absolute works of fiction, but for what I use them for they're perfect and they have all the features I need (like the auto turn-off). Did I mention accurate? They're all within a coulpe of counts of my calibrated 6.5 digit bench meter for all the ranges I've tested. Cheap and good. Win.

If you actually need a Cat rated meter, then you know you need to spend $$$ to get a real one. You probably don't.

For the car, I have an Aneng ST206. Does AC/DC Clamp and the basics. I also carry an AN8008 in the tool box and an AN870 in my lectronics kit.
When I bought them the 8008 was $30 and the ST206 was $42. Both a world above what you'll find at Supercrap or equivalent.

Prior to the ST206 I carried a cheap DT830 meter in the car. I think it cost me $2 on sale. It did the job, but I really wanted a DC clamp.

Difficult to define my use as I dabble in all manner of things ('Messing with things I don't understand'). I had an analogue meter and it was ideal for reading the fluctuating voltage on my old Ford tractor charge regulator but I'm told that a quality digital meter will also do that. I need to buy one soon as I will be checking for parasitic battery drain on my Jaguar that is flattening the battery when it stands for several days. Week before last I wanted to read our mains voltage as we had a brownout. I'll be using some old switchgear on the low-voltage control circuitry of a VFD I'm installing to operate a 3-phase motor on a lift I'm building for my mezzanine; I'll be needing to check when the limit switches are open or closed etc. So, all manner of stuff that varies from week to week. I know so little about electronic circuitry that I'm unlikely to be testing componentry- but then again I have wanted to test transistors in the past.
I hope that kinda describes what use I might put it to.
Cheapies that I've had have generally functioned ok but the probe wires and connections have broken on a couple- I don't want to be stuffing about with gear that is not well put together. Turning things off after use is not generally a problem (wish I could say the same for remembering where I put things).

I use my AN870 with Mains. The again, I also use my 30 year old Protek 506 with mains. The smaller meters will probably work ok, unless they don't. The cheap meters tend to have safety clearances squeezed, so I don't risk them with mains.

The issue with mains is the grid is seriously low impedance. If something in the meter lets go, an arc is hard to extinguish. Meter and probes can and do go bang in the most spectacular manner and injury is pretty much guaranteed if they do. So if you are planning on playing around with mains then you'll want to spend a bit extra for some safety gear. I'd be tempted to check somewhere like Altronics or (wince) Jaycar. They tend to specify their cheap Chinese meters with a better level of safety.

I have a few, like the others here. I have a PowerProbe one that came with my kit, which is excellent for automotive stuff but not for mains. I have an Aneng 681 which is a cheap all rounder with a full screen if that floats your boat. It has an NCV function, which I like. It's ok with mains too. I even have a little Aneng pen type, which is really handy around the car. I really miss my Fluke 179, but someone needed it more than me, and I simply can't justify the cost of another Fluke, unless I can find one SH.


I honestly believe that the Kaiweets one that Bruce reviewed in that vid I linked to would probably be ideal for you. For less than $100 it does more than my Fluke ever did, and in the area of my little hobby Kaiweets have developed a good rep. I am going to buy one to replace the Fluke.

One thing. Whatever you decide, try and get it from the manufacturers web store, or from a local shop you trust, rather than the jungle store or the den of thieves. There are lots of pretty convincing knock-offs out there. They look good on the outside, and are probably ok with automotive voltages, not so good with testing components, but the worry is how well built they are on the inside, if you are going to be testing mains. You just need to watch a handful of Big Clive vids to see just how poor some of that stuff is, and how potentially lethal. Thing with mains is, it's not if the meter can cope, it's whether it can protect you from it.

I bought one from Jaycar after using a dick smith cheapie for years, about $40 and does more than i'll need.