Installers Best Friend

Ok, my resources are Radio Shack, Sears, Menards and Home Depot. Out of these stores, what brand name, and model number DMM would you reccomend getting, and as inexpensive as possible... not cheap or unreliable. I am just starting out with this businessm and I am a little short. Also, I haven't seen (or looked for) a computer safe test light. Price range?

Thanks guys

I use an IDEAL Test-Pro 61-360. It's not a very expensive unit, and works great. Big bold display. VERY rugged. It's been seriously abused for three years  and still works perfect. It's got this rubber shell that protects it. I think it may have cost me about 60$ or so. worth every penny. Use it every day. I think Home Depot might carry IDEAL. Not sure.  However, if you live in a city with all those stores, there is probably more than one electrical supply houses. Almost all of these guys carry Klien and IDEAL tools. I'd check in the yellow pages and make some calls.  Tool shopping kicks ass.

hey, wlg83.....

About the only people I know of that carry air-bag safe test lights are teh big names...Mac, Matco and Snap-On.......reason is well they're also at the mechanics shops....

However, you could possibly try NAPA.....they might either have on or be able to order one....I'm not sure, but hey it's worth a shot....

As far as multimeters...I got my first on at Lowe's...I think it was called Sperry,, but don't hold it to me...It was about $50...I know the shop has a cheap DMM by GB...it works fairly well and it was about $30.....it's effective, but sometimes, it takes awhile to get the readings you want...summed up, the readigns bounce for about a minute before the set in sometimes...It's good for finding 12V sources and resistance, etc....but it can be a pain in the a$$.....

Just get a DMM that lets you do the basic functions, and with your first check...get a Fluke or equivalent!!

Hope that helped

my post a dmm is the best but as a 8 year installer of 12 volt car audio systems i use two things a cheep five dollar resited test light only works one way possitive negative its actually a alternator tester from radio shack and works fine over five years of testign with it and does not set off air bags while testing door locks and stuff. it tells me from 11 volts dc to 15 volts dc and will a tach the fifteen volt light flashes so it works perfect and requires no batteries and is the cheepest thing 5-10 bucks at radio shack.