Recommended Digital Multimeters ?

[NightWolve]

I've been wanting to buy a DMM with capacitance measuring support and decided on the eBay VC99 which can test capacitors up to 2000uF. I asked steve what his recommendation was right before buying it, but the one he likes didn't have capacitance measuring, so not wanting to wait any longer, I went ahead with the purchase. Still, I'd be curious at what other peoples' opinions are on their favorite DMMs. Anybody have a particular brand they like to stick with ? Any opinions on the VC models ?

Linky: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-VC99-3-6-7-Auto-Range-Digital-Multimeter-Thermomete-Capacitance-Resistance-/180876654055?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1d16b5e7

$34 with shipping which I think is an OK deal. You could find the VC97 for $10 bucks, but that only handles capacitors up to 200uF. This was the best deal I could find for a DMM that handles caps up to 2000uF as mentioned although having gotten impatient, I didn't spend that much time searching (could be better deals out there). =\ Anyways, I think it'll do the job well enough for my hobby uses.

[SignOfZeta]

Whatever Craftsman is selling in the $40 range is what I'd recommend.

[NightWolve]

Hey Zeta, actually, yeah, you were one of the other reasons I was looking to buy a new one as well. I read your comments in the Turbo Duo Cap Replacement thread from 5 years ago concerning the 10 Mega Ohm Input Impendence feature that separates a good DMM from a cheap one that's usually at 2 MΩ or whatever and the risks that carries when testing sensitive electronics. I didn't know about that and never gave it a 2nd thought using this $5 one that I currently own for all the stuff that I've done so far... I made sure the new one would support it and they'll usually list it (as is the case here with the VC99) if so. But yeah, good to know.

[Game-Tech.US]

I have more than a couple, I still use my shitty $3 one for continuity tests because it's faster and louder than my Agilent meter, but completely inaccurate for anything else. It's also super light weight and easier to retrieve and sling about.
I use an Agilent U1242A for proper testing, but its continuity test is crap, slow and quiet. I am looking to upgrade soon though, and resell the 1242 (I actually have two 1242's atm).
As far as testing caps, ESR is also very important, a cap can have good capacitance but bad esr, equivalent series resistance, and esr can kill a cap pretty fast. There are some cheap esr meters out there, but I have no experience with them. I use a Tonghui th2821b that's a dual read out capacitance and esr, it wasn't super cheap, but works great and I have no reason to believe its not accurate enough for what I do, but the manual was chinglish and otherwise useless, had to figure out the buttons on my own really.
I also have a spare new one for sale if anyone wants one for less than ebay prices.
If you want to know more than you need to about DMMs watch the eevblog shootouts.
Playlist for meter reviews.
He really only reviewed a couple LCR meters in this play list.
I was sure he talked about esr meters more, but this is the only I found he did, pay attention at 5:30.
Of course there are tons of other vids and website with info about this stuff.

[NightWolve]

I was sure he talked about esr meters more, but this is the only

I found he did, pay attention at 5:30.
Of course there are tons of other vids and website with info about this stuff.

Heh. That's pretty cool, he dumpster-dived out a LCD TV headed for a burial site, replaced 2 bad capacitors and voila, fixed! And this one as well: (Lucky bastard!) - Seems he lives in a "dumpster rich" area.

I was looking for a cheap LCD TV actually, just solely for tweaking the YPbPr Component mod steve's been working on when I get to that point, but the two that I bought during the Black Friday sales (Apex and Coby) did not support a 240p signal via Component so I returned them; so far, only Samsung TVs do, but they typically don't have S-Video support (actually, most new TVs on the market that I looked at seem to be phasing out S-Video support). Suffice to say, it would be nice to "acquire" a TV this way and get away with a simple fix. Hell, I went to a pawn shop and looked at some used TVs, but the f*cker wanted pretty much new TV prices... It was like pfffft, lemme get the hell out of here... He even wanted like $10 bucks for used BluRays which I could pretty much get new at a Walmart.

Good info on the ESR deal - Thanks. I want the capacitance measuring support because I wanna test the old capacitors from my Turbo Duo when I desolder them off and see how much capacitance they had lost from their rated value, but that's just out of curiosity and not really a reason to spend more money on a DMM. The more worthwhile long-term need for that feature is reusing good/expensive tantalum capacitors from some of the video card PCBs I have lying around that are not marked. In fact, after modding my CRT 32" TV to add an extra component jack to the side so I don't have to keep going around to the back of the set, I swapped an aluminum cap on the video/input module board with a tantalum (it was clearly marked in this case) for the Luma input jack - it worked, but I don't think I improved anything. But anyhow, a lot of the tants on the PCBs I have lying around are not marked and I'd like to know their specs so that I might reuse them in place of an aluminum. Slim chance, but possible, so yeah, I'd rather have the feature than not, etc.