You guys who have Fluke Multimeters

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deuce42

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Joined
Dec 31, 2008
Messages
645
Location
Sydney, Australia
I just bought one cheaply off Ebay but is this normal?


1) Continuity beep - if you touch the probes together the beep starts but immediately cuts off for a split second or flickers before sounding properly again

2) If I measure resistance, the meter seems to take about 5 seconds of counting up to the value before it reaches it.


It was one of those Autoranging 15B models that was so cheap ($75) new I couldn't resist.

Is this behaviour normal on your flukes?
 
The beep thing is perfectly normal in my experience. I've no idea why there's a break in the tone, I suspect it is something to do with that function being a diode test and not just continuity...... someone with a bigger brain might be able to give you a better answer

The resistance thing is not totally unreasonable either. Battery might be getting a bit low (if it's the one that came with it I'd hate to guess how old/new it was). Chances are the time it takes to find the value will vary depending on how big a resistor it is you're testing.

It doesn't sound like you've got a dud if that's what you're worried about. 75 ozzybucks sounds like a good price to me!

C
 
i have a fluke and your beep tone issue is not normal imho.  i have an old BK DMM which did exactly what you were describing and it turned out to be faulty probes.  i checked this by adding a little pressure to the probe connector to see if the beep remained constant when i did this.  in my case it did so i changed them out for a known working probe and all was good.  i would also do as colin suggests first and change out the battery.  nothing like buying new probes and finding that it was a 9V battery causing it.
all the best,
grant
 
replace the battery as I am sure it is old. as for your tone my fluke doesn't do that but I have a different model. I have had that happen with faulty probes or probmes that were not inserted all the way in.
 
Emperor Tomato Ketchup said:
Try cleaning both ends of your probes, and the probe sockets too.

+1

Mine do that from time to time too and after I clean the tips they usually work much better.
 
Switch OFF the autoranging, and set it to low resistance range... or whatever range you need.

Your final values will arrive MUCH faster this way.

Same for most ranges, Volts etc.

Keith
 
Ok so I repalced the battery and tried different probes. Same problem so I will try to return.  Thanks for all your advices.

In doing so however I did a little homework and found this out - I philosophical question is now applicable:

Q: "When I a fluke not a fluke?
A:  "When it is this Model 15B!

Yes apparently this is the first model that is not actually made by Fluke at all, but made in China and Fluke licenses their name to this chinese company to brand some meters. Part of the license arrangement is the meters are not to be sold outside of China, and of course given the lure of Ebay and some chinese entrepeneurs, there are literally hundreds of these meters being sold from Chinese and Hong Kong sellers to the rest of us all over the world.

It is true that at $75US one can hardly complain. Buying another fluke is probably more like double this price for an entry model. But clearly this licensing issue means that quality control is bad. Tarnishes the Fluke name in my opinon.
 
Was going to mention that not all Fluke DMM are made by Fluke and not all are appropriate for audio work. I'm not familiar with the model you mentioned and was going to look it up - but someone else did... 

Flukes handhelds I have known and used successfully for audio are 8060A for years and years, 187/189 for less years, and I'm currently using 287's - I recently bought FIVE of them...  NEW.  After buying 8060's, 187's and 189's used and being pretty satisfied I had one outright fail on me...  and of course this was in the worst time and place.  Whatever I saved buying meters used was completely used up with that one badly timed failure, so when it came time to renew the meters I found 187/189 discontinued and 287/289 current.  This is a little de lux for D.I.Y. work but the 287 has more resolution, bandwidth and sensitivity than any previous Fluke handheld I've ever owned and it does logging, min/max and so on which is incredibly handy if you are doing something like trying to catch intermittent supply voltage dropouts (AC power wiggles in summer and so on)

You want RMS ac voltage measurements, decent resolution and sensitivity (-60dBu is less than a milliVolt) and hopefully a dB scale.  The 287 allows one to set the impedance reference for dBm measurements - in 600 ohms dBm is equivalent to dBu and also 287 does measures in dBV which is handy once in a blue moon for conversions if nothing else.  You can set ref to 8ohms and hang it across an 8ohm dummy load and it will read out in Watts...  groovy when you are lazy and don't want to do math...

I gave one to Jens at Eisen - he likes it.  He doesn't like very many things but he likes that meter.

The double beep and time to measure...  always make sure your probes are in good order...  it surprising how many times I've had probes fail. 

 
> at $75US one can hardly complain.

What does it do that a $29 Radio Shed meter or a $3.99 eBay meter won't do?

I've owned everything from the first Heath DMM (2.5 digits on Nixie!) and the first handheld LED 3.5 digit, to RS $69 DMMs. Nixies were fun, LEDs read easy, but all the LCD meters are "the same with small differences".

I recently got a very-used Fluke 83. This is the first DMM I would pay "more" for. It has extra features and they stay out of the way when not needed. This is a "general maintenance" model: no audio dB or Watts frills (though it does count Hz!). It resolves <1mVAC.

You DO want to know the frequency response. Many GP DMMs have limited ACV response, often rolling off above 400Hz. (That's why I keep a proper VTVM.... around 1V it works to MHz.) Read the specs, but also test it yerself. Remember that cheap active rectifiers have different response at different levels.
 
I've had 3 of those "nicer" radio shed meters.  All 3 stopped working.  Just won't power up anymore.  Problems traced to their little potted CPUs.

I've had this cheap chinese meter that was given to me by one of our vendors years ago and it keeps on kicking.  I've dropped, submersed and shocked it and it just keeps kicking.  It's probably 1% accurate too for such a cheap thing.
 
klett said:
You want RMS ac voltage measurements, decent resolution and sensitivity (-60dBu is less than a milliVolt) and hopefully a dB scale.  The 287 allows one to set the impedance reference for dBm measurements - in 600 ohms dBm is equivalent to dBu and also 287 does measures in dBV which is handy once in a blue moon for conversions if nothing else.  You can set ref to 8ohms and hang it across an 8ohm dummy load and it will read out in Watts...  groovy when you are lazy and don't want to do math...

I have a Fluke 179 that I very much trust, but this is the one feature I miss. I have printed a conversion chart from RMS volts to dBu, but that's one more crummy paper on an already crowded desk.
 
Kingston said:
klett said:
You want RMS ac voltage measurements, decent resolution and sensitivity (-60dBu is less than a milliVolt) and hopefully a dB scale.  The 287 allows one to set the impedance reference for dBm measurements - in 600 ohms dBm is equivalent to dBu and also 287 does measures in dBV which is handy once in a blue moon for conversions if nothing else.  You can set ref to 8ohms and hang it across an 8ohm dummy load and it will read out in Watts...  groovy when you are lazy and don't want to do math...

I have a Fluke 179 that I very much trust, but this is the one feature I miss. I have printed a conversion chart from RMS volts to dBu, but that's one more crummy paper on an already crowded desk.

I have a fluke 187 it does DBM not DBU which are too different measurements.
 
Actually the dBm measurement on the 187 is referenced to 600 ohms, it's a voltage measurement that calculates power.  The voltage required to develop 1mW dissipation in a 600 ohm load is the same voltage reference used for 0dBu...  so, in fact, the NUMBER you get measuring dBm is the SAME as dBu...  the is no DMM that I know of that directly measures power (dBm)...  they all measure a voltage and assume some impedance and calculate the power in milliWatts assuming you are measuring across, generally, 600 ohms.  When using a 187 or any other volt meter that has a dBm scale that assumes a 600 ohm "line" impedance, the meter is actually giving you the same number as dBu... same voltage.
 

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