Decent Multimeter (sub £30)

JonB

Any recommendations for a decent quality multimeter for general home use and pedal building? I've misplaced my current meter (probably in the campervan) but have a Jed's Peds OCD pedal kit I want to get cracking on.

Quite like the look of the AstroAI 6000 as also has a transistor testing add on which could be useful. However bit of a unknown brand to me.

Sporky

I'd definitely suggest getting one with a capacitance tester in it. I have the previous version of this, and use it in preference to a Fluke I "inherited" from a previous work toolkit (we got upgraded to a newer meter and weren't asked to return the old ones...).

https://www.rapidonline.com/rapid-rhmm17-digital-multimeter-90-0005

With VAT and delivery it'll be a little over budget but not much. Maybe £35.

JonB

Thanks Sporky will take a look, budget was a bit arbitrary as would rather spend more on quality that will last years than something cheap which will fall apart. I like how the capacitance is on the unit itself instead of via a plug in adapter.

Sporky

Come to think of it, I might have bought mine from CPC, though that's not enormously relevant.

I reckon £30ish should get you something perfectly good for guitar and pedal work. There are good reasons why Flukes are more expensive, but they're not necessarily good enough in this context.

Jono111

Auto ranging is a nice feature to have.
I have not tested transistors for a while but when I did I tended to just use the diode setting and the leads rather than the inbuilt tester.
Cheap ones are fine for home use. I have a couple of Flukes and also have a cheap no name brand one from Maplin that was in a £5 buy 2 for 1 deal and so was £2.50. It is fine and has lasted for over 10 years so far. The leads feel cheap though.

Danny1969

Auto ranging is a must for me and a decent mV range. However this cost more money. 

Tenma - sold on CPC are pretty decent for the money. I have one and although I find it's slower to react than my Fluke it's only 1/10th of the price so I give it a pass. 
Here's the Tenma range here on CPC

https://cpc.farnell.com/c/test-equipment/multimeters-clamp-meters?brand=tenma

Dave_Mc

Danny1969 said:

Auto ranging is a must for me and a decent mV range. However this cost more money. 

Tenma - sold on CPC are pretty decent for the money. I have one and although I find it's slower to react than my Fluke it's only 1/10th of the price so I give it a pass. 
Here's the Tenma range here on CPC

https://cpc.farnell.com/c/test-equipment/multimeters-clamp-meters?brand=tenma

I've got a Tenma, and it's really nice- I've never tried anything fancy like a Fluke, but it was a noticeable improvement over my old cheapo one (which, to be honest, was absolutely fine too for light home use). Main reason I got it was the capacitance tester (as @Sporky suggested) since my older cheaper one didn't have that, but it's a lot nicer and "fancier" feeling to use, for want of a better term. It's "a pleasure to use", whereas the old one "did the job", kind of thing.

One thing, though- mine (the 72-8150 I think) came with crocodile clips for the stock cables. I've never built any pedals but I think you might need the probe type for pedal builds, the clips are a bit big for that I would guess.

Sporky

Probes are nice, but a bit of solid core wire in a croc clip is pretty handy. 

Dave_Mc

Sporky said:

Probes are nice, but a bit of solid core wire in a croc clip is pretty handy. 

Apparently I've never done any lateral thinking either! 

That's a much handier way to do it The croc clips are very handy for when you need to take a reading of a wire or similar.

Sporky

I quite often wrap a bit of solid core around the ends of the probes - more precise than the probes themselves. 

JonB

Ooh this is all good stuff, my 'current' meter (wherever it is) has croc clips but I like the solid core probe idea. Currently looking at auto range and capacitance but aware the more features the more expensive (or crap within a price point). There's a Draper meter at machine mart for £33 which appears ok.

Options, options was easier getting simple meter for the campervan 12v and solar all seems much simpler than moving on to pedals. Had to smile at the Maplin tester as wanted to get one of those just as they closed down, still kick myself for not getting one.

JonB

Lol, found my old meter. At some point I'd actually tidied up the garage and put all my electronics stuff in to a small toolbox so they wouldn't get lost

HerrMetal

You obviously still need a spare! I followed Danny's recommendation a while back and got a Tenma 72-13430 from CPC. Excellent device and fantastic for the money.

Devil#20

Sporky said:

Come to think of it, I might have bought mine from CPC, though that's not enormously relevant.

I reckon £30ish should get you something perfectly good for guitar and pedal work. There are good reasons why Flukes are more expensive, but they're not necessarily good enough in this context.

Can you explain further your comments regarding Fluke meters @Sporky I was thinking of getting one. 

robinbowes

@JonB I recently wanted a couple of meters to use with bias probes so I did a little research and ended up with a couple of these: https://uk.astroai.com/digital-multimeter-6000-counts/ap/1000185

As per the review, the magnetic strap hanger thing is rubbish, but I just remove it anyway. Otherwise, I can't fault them.

R.

Dave_Mc

Sporky said:

I quite often wrap a bit of solid core around the ends of the probes - more precise than the probes themselves. 

Ah that's very interesting, thanks for that. I don't really need any supreme accuracy as all I use mine for really is guitar wiring- testing pickups' DC resistances to make sure they're functioning before I wire them in, checking the resistances when I've wired up a guitar, and also checking components are within spec and functioning before I solder them in. But that's very useful to know if I ever graduate to anything fancier, thanks!  

JonB said:

Ooh this is all good stuff, my 'current' meter (wherever it is) has croc clips but I like the solid core probe idea. Currently looking at auto range and capacitance but aware the more features the more expensive (or crap within a price point). There's a Draper meter at machine mart for £33 which appears ok.

Options, options was easier getting simple meter for the campervan 12v and solar all seems much simpler than moving on to pedals. Had to smile at the Maplin tester as wanted to get one of those just as they closed down, still kick myself for not getting one.

Mine doesn't have the auto-ranging but it has everything else. Unfortunately the prices have gone up quite a bit over the last while... I'm pretty sure mine was well under £30 when I got it a couple of years ago. £21 or £22 rings a bell, but that probably was excluding VAT so probably more like £26 or so.

JonB said:

Lol, found my old meter. At some point I'd actually tidied up the garage and put all my electronics stuff in to a small toolbox so they wouldn't get lost

Every single time I put something away somewhere "safer", I immediately forget where the "safer" place is while still remembering where the original "unsafe" place was...

SteveF

I have one of those Astro AI ones and it has been great. 

JonB

robinbowes said:

@JonB I recently wanted a couple of meters to use with bias probes so I did a little research and ended up with a couple of these: https://uk.astroai.com/digital-multimeter-6000-counts/ap/1000185

As per the review, the magnetic strap hanger thing is rubbish, but I just remove it anyway. Otherwise, I can't fault them.

R.

Ah that's the one I was originally looking at, got a good review in the internet but saw some mixed reviews on Amazon. Leaning towards a Draper DMM202, it's auto ranging and has the capacitance onboard (not like the AstroAI... something else to loose).

Good news is that having found my current meter I was able to double check my resistor values to build my jedspeds OCD pedal (which sounds brilliant). Just on to case painting and stickers for it.