which dmm do you use?

What DM do you guys use.. My favorite meter is my FLUKE 117 True RMS meter. Fast Does everything I want it to do and small which is nice when Im doing installs on boats. Let me know what you guys use.

Digitech QM-1526, and Noble NB 4000P-2 & UNI-T UT20B in the car.

For this work a cheapie about $30 or less, peak hold continuity and at least 10 amps current capacity is all you need.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

I use a cheap Craftsman meter ($25) that does frequency (for remote start tach). I have found it will do everything I need it to do except read short door lock pulses in some vehicles. For these rare cases where I need a faster meter I have a Fluke 189 (total overkill) and a Fluke 85 (total overkill).

As Howie mentioned, cheap meters are sufficient for an automobile environment as absolute accuracy is not important (really a 10% accuracy would be good enough when installing things in vehicles!)

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Kevin Pierson

One day Kevin and I might disagree on something but that's the point, you don't need super accuracy, even mux wiring, there's a 10% error allowance, e.g. using a 220 ohm instead of 200 ohm resistance.
Another point for testing 90% of the time I use a good old Snap-On incandescent bulb tester. Lock trigger, door trigger and generalised testing, more convenient, and much faster. And no I've never pulled a DTC!
I have a friend who works as a diagnostic auto electrician who uses a Power Probe with no problems. I wouldn't dare!

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

I have the blu-point power probe that I use frequently but I NEVER just send a signal down a wire. I always use it as an input test first then depending on how it reads, I verify it by sending the pulse. I've seen too many people just pick a wire and send a ground pulse down it to see if it does what they want... bad idea.

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Kenny
Owner / Technician
KKD Garage LLC
Albany, NY 12205

Kenny, that's why I'm scared!

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

As with most tools, you just have to be smart when using them... and use them correctly.

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Kenny
Owner / Technician
KKD Garage LLC
Albany, NY 12205

Kenny's last word, going through various threads on this site I doubt very much whether most of the "junior members" have any idea of how to use them correctly.
Also, Lucas, don't be over-awed by Oldspark and KP's equipment, they are both electronic engineers by training/profession.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

Don't be overawed? How dare you!
I got my Digitech QM-1526 for $10.50. Their normal RRP was ~$26. I thought that was pretty awesome - backlit LCD, sample & hold, audible continuity, 1000C temp probe, and transistor tester (which in all my years I have never used despite my electronic builds!).
Yeah - it was so awesome a bought a handful and have given a few to others.

The NB 4000P-2 was my most recent and most expensive DMM acquisition at $35. But it was a compact self-cased unit that included capacitance. It lacks an Amp range, but the mini UT20B has that, else I use a shunt and measure its voltage. (I carry the 2 DMMs in my car for redundancy. I rarely measure currents in cars.)

I do also have a $100 smallish single channel CRO and intend one day to replace that with a ~$70 PC kit (USB sampler into tablet or laptop etc). My only real use to date for that was to sample the output from reluctor circuits.
LOL - recently to check the frequency of tradition "flasher can" voltage regulators as used for car fuel & temp gauges (~2Hz), I used my first analog DMM ($13 in 1976).   

Thou I have long wanted true-RMS AC & DC current ammeters and voltmeters, that has changed to a (true RMS) power meter, but probably more to show how wrong people are when they measure RMS voltage and current expecting that to be an (rms) Wattage reading, rather than my own need for measuring equipment, UPS, inverter or battery loads.   

BTW - my dream was always a Fluke - I think the 77 series (with analog bargraph?). Despite my years of high income, I never bought one.

I rarely use a DMM for car fault finding, but it is common -cum- essential for confirming that the correct wire has been selected when interfacing etc. Even then in most cases, I could use a spare 3W bulb as a test light.

Point taken, hence my point about using a test light.
I mean take a Toyota, any Toyota, how many of those wires at the plugs going into the doors are likely to be data?
Caught myself there some Japanese e.g. Mitsubishi use data on the window circuit from the driver's door to signal up/down to the satellite switches.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

Data - now that's a different issue. Definitely in scopesville or probesville there, except for fast analog types.

When I use a DMM, it's this vintage ( 1980's ) Fluke 77.  More accurate than needed, no Frequency setting and a bit large but I'm still using a WEN soldering gun from the 50's...  

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Soldering is fun!

It the OP thinks his 117 is fast, he has never used a 10, 11, 12, 16 or 18. These are the bottom of the line Fluke meters. but are by far the best engineered meters in their lineup. I have several 87s, and the only time I use one is for the high resolution resistance setting. I use my 16 EVERY DAY.

Kreg, please tell me that's not your new kitchen work top......
Peter a mechanic once told me that one CAN (do you like that one) do data via a DMM but I think along with the one about the locksmiths who re-write the vehicle software to negate the immobiliser system (instant by-pass) it's an urban myth.
OP: also remember Mr. I along with Oldie and KP is an electronics man so when five of us now come out with the line about not needing super gear on a car, do you not think there's something in what I said about only needing cheapo meters.
HEADS UP!! the latest BMWs use a "sniffer circuit" at the battery. Do not ground any equipment to an existing brown ground wire, use a chassis bolt.
The damned thing is over-sensitive 12.4V or less and the ignition won't work.
Bloody fussy over engineered German cars. Why?

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

LOL - BMW 12.4V? What about when they are cranking - surely that <12.4V must be disabled!? But to think my 12V car cranks AND ignites with a 5V battery (5.2V to be exact) - that exceeds even my usual "down to 8V" designs.

So Kreg's got "my" Fluke eh? Envy+

I have often noticed how my electrical/electronic gurus have the most basic of equipment. Rarely do they have purpose built or expensive stuff, though spectrum analysers are an occasional exception (for the "noise" gurus). But DMMs etc are usually el cheapos like me. Or the odd Fluke. And the audio guys have Wattmeters, else use ONLY true-RMS voltage if they merely test into resistive loads.    

That's the whole point Peter, it "sniffs" the voltage BEFORE it cranks.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

Then I'm with you... the logic being...????!!

Are they trying to preserve the battery? IE - they'd rather leave you stranded somewhere and possibly die rather than cause more than usual strain/damage to the battery.

Or are BMW electricals so bad that they are damaged by undervoltage?

IMO both are reasons NOT to buy a BMW - unless you only drive in places with full facilities.

Plus on star in the US, or who doesn't have a cellphone in the UK?
Gets you straight back to the stealership. = $$$
And they use just about the biggest car batteries ever.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

Alas here it's very possible to be out of cellphone range - especially of on Vodafone LOL!.


I'm not surprise BMWs have big batteries. With 400A cat converter pre-heaters, and 12.4V thresholds.
But yeah, a typical money grabbing technique - and you know how much I love that.

But back to DMMs...

whoa whoa whoa leave Vodafone out of this!!!! :)

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Kevin Pierson

Whoa to yourself, wrong site Kevin, Voda always owned a large slice of Verizon, I read a story that they are talking over the rest.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

I missed that line in Oldspark's post I did mention the possible takeover on FB a while ago.
Actually great service in the UK, tunnels underground railways etc.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

Why?
I think their UK and ther networks may be good, but when with Telstra (the former Australian monopoly Telecom) I heard stories of their mobile base stations with sagging waveguides, and how their whole model was English-based and would never work in Aus.

I reckon those words proved right. Vodafone was renowned for poor reception and many black spots.
About a year ago they started a heavy advertising campaign about how their "bad" network was being upgraded etc etc.

Vodafone is the third mobile carrier in Aus, the others being Telstra and Optus.

As to the wisdom of introducing privatisation and competition of telcos to Aus in the first place... Aus is the same land area as the USA, or Europe, but then had a population of 17 million - about the same as California. (That was a LOL because one of the political excuses was that they didn't want a "big monopolistic carrier" yet the part owner of Optus (Pacific Bell) had more subscribers than the Telstra monopoly.)   
Since then the Aus federal government started a plan to "broadband" Australia with a projected cost of AUD$46b. Despite a Melbourne University professor saying such stuff "isn't rocket science", the trial broadband tests have been fraught with problems and failures. (I'd much rather design a rocket than a scalable telecommunications network!) I muse how the USA would probably have been fully broadbanded (probably with hybrid-fibre to each dwelling) this year instead of the 2010 or earlier prediction of 2020 as a result of the ma-Bell or AT&T splitting. Keeping in mind Telstra (telecom) absorbed 90% or Germany's fibre-optic production in the late 1970s for some mindless idea to circle and cross Australia - something that has since proven very beneficial.

Sorry, what was the OP?

Phew - I was going to mention the privatisation of our other utilities. Shock horror - prices have exploded just as some forewarned. As to supply quality and future capacity...


PS - other replies snuck in. I was responding to:

KPierson wrote:

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whoa whoa whoa leave Vodafone out of this!!!! :)

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Same here, although Orange swallowed TMobile and Virgin, we still have O2, Voda and 3 networks all competing except the costs keep rising, I now get lovely data but a poor voice reception and quality.
As for the (French and Russian) owned "private utilities" and the Spanish owned airports, thank God I don't have to survive on my pension.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

But Howard, with privatisation the prices should have come down as the politicians said they would. Or at least remained lower than when public. And the competition negates the 10% profit they have to make.

LOL!

The only way we /I made any money was to make my late Mum switch from British telecom to Voda shares in 1986.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

BINGO - that's what it is all about - wealth redistribution - from the customers to the shareholders.
(Also from the common shareholders to the "big" holders, but that is generally at select stages.)