Multimeter recommendations

[londongeeza]

Hi,

Not sure if this is the correct forum but interested to know if anyone has recommendations for multimeters. It's for boiler fault finding primarily.

Have an interest in the TPI EZ100 but cannot find a review on it anywhere.

Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Jackrae]

Cannot measure current which is a useful feature to have.
You'd be better popping down to maplins with your 40 quid and looking at what they have

 

[EFLImpudence]

Or if you have more than 40 the Fluke 116 is for HVAC.

From my experience you need more than that for fault finding on boilers.
Been through four 'engineers' trying to get a boiler fault rectified.
Going to have to buy a new one - boiler that is.

 

[flameport]

If you only want to spend £40, an Extech EX330 will be far better than that TPI thing.

Would suggest avoiding Maplin, their selection appears to cover the absolute bottom end of the market, unless you want to pay way over the odds for a Fluke of some kind.
Amazing that Maplin are even still in business.

 

[Richardthe3rd]

Or if you have more than 40 the Fluke 116 is for HVAC.

From my experience you need more than that for fault finding on boilers.
Been through four 'engineers' trying to get a boiler fault rectified.
Going to have to buy a new one - boiler that is.

I bought a Fluke 116, it'll last a lifetime & I use mine daily...👍👍

The TPI EZ100 is too limited & frankly a waste of money. There's lots of auto range multimeters if your budget is tight.

I also have this budget meter in the back of my van, though it'll only do limited testing its a great wee bargain basement auto range meter;
http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/3-in-1-autoranging-multimeter-with-non-contact-detector-n73bz

 

[JohnW2]

Amazing that Maplin are even still in business.

They have been in business 'for ever', certainly since the early 70s, if not before. On the rare occasions I have to deal with them on the phone (if at all, these days!), there is a recurrent issue/incredulity on their part, since I have a low-4-digit Customer Number, which they usually initially tell me 'is not possible'! They are probably up to 6, if not 7, digits by now, so have to put several zeros in front of my one before their computer will accept it! When I first started dealing with them 'back then' they were, of course, one of the few easily accessible sources of electronic components - but the world has become somewhat different, and more competitive, since then

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Ah - those trips up to Tottenham Court Road, Googe St etc...

 

[JohnW2]

Ah - those trips up to Tottenham Court Road, Googe St etc...

Quite So - and not forgetting Lisle St! Sid Proops, Z&I Aero, HW Smith etc.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Jackrae]

Happy days,
As a student in the latter half of the 60s, Lisle Street and Proops in T/Court Road were favourite haunts.
And the ladies of the night weren't what i was looking for !!!! Oh dear, so much time wasted

 

[JohnW2]

Happy days, As a student in the latter half of the 60s, Lisle Street and Proops in T/Court Road were favourite haunts. And the ladies of the night weren't what i was looking for !!!! Oh dear, so much time wasted

Exactly the same here - on all counts !

Kind Regards, John

 

[AlanE]

This thread is turning into pure nostalgia!

Remember many happy a time in those places, as well as Edgeware Road. All packed with Government surplus places to be replaced by up and comming audio and HiFi shops.

Maplins I used back in the days when their only place was at Southend as a mail order only operation. At the start, early 1970's, from one of its founders bedroom.

As said pure nostalgia.

 

[skotl]

Amazing that Maplin are even still in business.

They have been in business 'for ever', certainly since the early 70s, if not before. On the rare occasions I have to deal with them on the phone (if at all, these days!), there is a recurrent issue/incredulity on their part, since I have a low-4-digit Customer Number, which they usually initially tell me 'is not possible'! They are probably up to 6, if not 7, digits by now, so have to put several zeros in front of my one before their computer will accept it! When I first started dealing with them 'back then' they were, of course, one of the few easily accessible sources of electronic components - but the world has become somewhat different, and more competitive, since then

Kind Regards, John

Maplin have moved with the times and, I hope, will continue for some years yet.
Contrast them with their former U.S. based competitor (in the UK, anyway) RadioShack (known as Tandy when they still had shops in the UK). RadioShack escaped death once again just 24 hours ago, but it's only a matter of time.

Maplin have done a decent job of remaining the goto-retailer-near-the-high-street for electronics by pushing hifi, disco (yes, really!), RC kits and, latterly, robotics. They're not as cheap as the ebay retailers but for that I-need-this-today purchase, they're normally pretty good.

Back to John's point re his 4-digit Maplin customer code, my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) ID is also four digits back from, I think, ~1994. The IDs (MCP nowadays) have eight digits

Oh - and for the computer nostalgics, my MCSE passes were;

Network Essentials (still relevant today)
Windows NT Server 3.5
Exchange 4.0
SMS 1.0
SQL Server 4.21
....and another one... but I forget which

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Maplins I used back in the days when their only place was at Southend as a mail order only operation.

Ah - so that's where their name came from.


Anyone remember Electrovalue?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

... computer nostalgics ...

That will be these guys?

Network Essentials (still relevant today)

Even with SDNs, and IPv6?

Windows NT Server 3.5

Any truth in the rumour that NT version numbers were the number of CPUs (cores to anyone under the age of 25) it would scale to?

 

[skotl]

I remember Byte magazine!

Re network essentials, yes - absolutely. It went into great detail about what CSMA/CD meant, the concepts behind routers, bridges and switches and how IP (and, by extension, everything that runs on top of it) works.

Here's a wee teaser for you; a few years ago, we had a guy who configured a DHCP server on a test AD domain controller. His reasoning was that "only machines in the test domain would get IP addresses from the DHCP server" - a total failure to understand how the 7-layer OSI model works and in which order each of the relevant services will fire.
The network essentials course laid all of that out, from the physical cable up to the different services.

There is still a network essentials course, book and exam (we just put our entire Service Desk through it) and it certainly covers a lot of the more modern topics, including ipv6. But I still think that what we learned back in the early 90s still applies

Re the CPUs, I remember the point where we realised that you had to change the NT kernel when you went from a single CPU to a dual-CPU. We had sold extra CPUs to a bunch of customers but hadn't updated Windows NT, so they were still running on a single CPU...