Affordable Auto Ranging DMM

[Paul Marossy]

I was at the mall yesterday with my pregnant wife. We were in Sears and she had to go to the restroom. While she was away, I went to the section where all the tools and such are, and I saw this auto ranging DMM for $29.99 - according to the specs on the box, it is accurate to +/- 1.2% and it also will measure capacitance up to 200uF and frequencies up to 60mHz. Not a bad deal for the money...

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In case any one might be interested... It should be good for most any kind of analog guitar effect project. Sorry for the crummy picture  :oops:

[Rick]

Nice looking meter, however your soldering iron tip looks like burnt toast.
If you are actually using that for soldering - you are having a hard time.  Get a new tip and keep it glossy looking with some of the advice you've seen here.

[Paul Marossy]

Burnt toast? It's brand new, I haven't even used it yet... it was kinda dark in the room when I took the picture.

Now, my RadioShack iron looks like burnt toast, the tips only last for a few hours and then the plating starts to burn off and the plating on the iron itself burns off after using it just a few times.

[Fret Wire]

'Two monthes ago Sears had an anolog meter in the special's bin for $4.99. I added that one to go with my auto ranging model. Now, I got another one coming free from Circuit Specialists (when your order is over $50).

 You're lucky you had the wife with you. I can't ever walk through the tool dept. without a problem. I usually blackout and wake up at home, all covered with sockets, wrenches, and other tools! Especially Christmas shopping. There is no cure for this problem, I'm happy to say!

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

How do people feel about autorange vs not autorange? Any downside?

[Peter Snowberg]

How do people feel about autorange vs not autorange? Any downside?

As long as you can manually select one or the other... only upsides.

Take care,
-Peter

[Fret Wire]

I agree with Peter. My auto ranging unit still has selectable ranges. If you ignore those, it just does the auto thing for you. My first DMM had 5 ohm ranges, and drove me nuts until I learned resistance values. The analog is nice for certain things, tracks the taper of a pot more visually than a dmm.