Do multimeters "wear out" after so many years? Fluke vs. Ideal, Wavetek??

It's hard to tell from the small picture, but it looks like the meter scale is part of the LCD. That seems interesting, especially if there are different scales on the LCD for different ranges. In other words, when you set it to "foo x 10", the "0...10" scale lights up, and when you set it to "foo x 1000", the "0...1000" scale lights up. The other day, I played with a small Omron industrial timer that works this way... the hash marks and setting pointer are dimensionless, but there are little windows by the major hash marks. As you turn a switch to set the range of the timer, the current value for that hash mark appears in the window. There was also a window for the units, which would change from seconds to minutes to hours by moving another switch. All of the indications were done mechanically.

Having a scale like this would seem to fix a common problem of new analog meter users: which scale to read and what to multiply it by. The reading is still indicated by the moving needle, but the scale can be read directly. Of course, the Coherent meter also has the direct digital readout to eliminate this problem, but this might be an interesting way to build a meter with just an analog display.

Matt Roberds

The tick marks are fixed but the LCD tells you what the scale factor is. The needle is real. :)

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Good point. How is the battery life on the Fluke meters?

Mark Z.

I replace mine every six months whether it needs it or not. I've got two '87s and an '88.

JazzMan

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I'd say my 179 is good, as it has auto power down. I've never had any meter where battery life is poor - it's leaving them switched on accidently which causes the problem.

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    Dave Plowman        dave@davenoise.co.uk           London SW
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The meters that were running through batteries were some off brand model about $89 back in the early 90s. Our small company bought a bunch and they had lots of features and worked ok, except they went through batteries fast.

The old Beckman just made like an energizer bunny and kept going.