11 responses to “EEVblog #6 – Part 2 of 2 – Why cheap Chinese Multimeters suck”

• eggyknap May 1st, 2009 at 02:25

  I enjoy the vids; can the irritating background hum be reduced?

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  • admin May 1st, 2009 at 08:55

    Not easily I’m afraid, that’s the DV tape noise.
    At the moment I’m spending as little time and effort as possible filming and editing this! :->

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• ino May 2nd, 2009 at 19:26

  I really like your vids.
  Those are good advices !

  Keep them coming

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• Alan Parekh May 27th, 2009 at 20:21

  LOL, I was trying to figure out what the noise was. I was thinking that it was a bunch of crickets for a second.

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  • admin May 27th, 2009 at 22:23

    You could very well hear crickets too, plenty of them around my place!
    You can tell if I film it in the morning as you’ll typically hear all the birds chirping away outside!

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• Rick L August 1st, 2009 at 13:48

  I stumbled across your vids while searching for reviews on the Rigol scope. Great vids, brw.

  I have a comment on cheap Chinese DMMs. The cheap ones are truly crap. We have some around the lab and they are useless. However, I purchased a Protek D620 Datalogging DMM ($170 USD) and it comes quite close in performance to DMMs costing twice as much. The build quality is great (SMD parts and sheilding in the case). The only negative on the build quality is some flux residue on one of the boards.

  The issue I have with Fluke, Tektronix and other American manufacturers is that their prices tend to be much too high. This prevents people like me from being able to buy decent test equipment. Now, to Tek’s credit they have started to lower prices on their lower end units which is good. LeCroy, another American manufacturer appears to have entered the lower priced space, too. The Chinese are going to give the high priced manufacturers a run for the money. I think that Chinese test equipment can be decent but one must spend some money to get the higher quality products. The Rigol MSO scopes are a good example of this.

  Keep on doing the awesome videos and equipment reviews!

  Thanks

  RL

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• Neil October 8th, 2009 at 05:49

  I have just found your blog site – it was referred to in a magazine I read.

  I would like to add one point you haven’t covered in this blog that can be a real problem for cheap meters – safety. Quite often these are sold with a CAT rating – and marketing men think the higher the rating, the more people will want it. I will highlight this with a true story.

  A few years ago a distributor in the UK did a promotion with a very cheap meter (£5 if I remember correctly). The meter had all the standard functions and claimed to be 600V CAT III. Intrigued, I bought a couple and opened one up. What I found was appalling – ignoring the soldering quality, there were wires not completely soldered, no clearances around the terminals, glass fuses that were not correctly rated. Some effort had been made to prevent any surges by placing a suppressor in the circuit. However not only was it in completely the wrong place, they had decided to put a metal screw between it’s legs thereby almost creating a short circuit directly across it.

  Devices that connect to the mains should be able to handle the surges found on the mains. For multi-meters the levels are defined in IEC61010. As the company I work for has a test lab to do testing I took the meter I hadn’t taken to bits down there and put the appropriate level in. The result was a loud explosion, the meter jumping off the table and the display cover popping off. Opening it revealed a burnt mess and all the ICs either visible damaged (split) or blown off the PCB. The moral – you pay your money and take your choice. If you do by a cheap meter – only use it for bench work and never put any where near the mains.

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  • EEVblog October 8th, 2009 at 12:13

    What magazine was that?
    Yeah, safety is another huge aspect, and that’s on my list to talk about, perhaps with some experiments if I can organise a suitable surge source :->

    Reply

    • Neil October 9th, 2009 at 05:04

      The magazine is called Made by Monkeys – it produced by Electronics Weekly – it linked to episode 12 on the USB hub.

      Reply

• shafri February 4th, 2010 at 06:02

  ok, sorry for interupting, but to be honest with you, i have to disagree with you on cheap DMM. mostly but not totally. you have a good points of safety, accurancy n durability. BUT, its a big but, you render this cheap multimeter as a total useless, but its not in my case. i bought 1 or 2 DMM that failed after quite sometime, yes those are crap in durability, but during their lifetime, they helped me alot. got the lesson of that, i buy more expensive DMM, more expensive is really the term that u used as cheap, even less than 20 dollar equivalent to your currency. the previous DMM was alot-lot cheaper than that. in your video, you hold DMM that alot-lot better than mine . until now (2 years or so) my DMM still running and have helped me alot in my projects, even testing the main 240V etc. well ok, i’m not professional and only doing hobby project that is not really stringent on the accuracy, so the DMM do its job. even if its fail now, i’ll buy another one and hopefully for the next 2 years, its up and running just as my current DMM. if i buy 10, thats 20 years and only cost me less than 200 dollars.

  so to summarize, i will agree with you if you specifically quote the cheap DMM is total useless for PROFFESSIONAL, for NOT professional it maybe got some use somewhere. but the way you speak, you really hit my beloved “cheapoo” DMM.

  its SUNWA brand, i bet you never heard. yes its probe broke several time, but hey! i’m DIY person, i fixed it myself! just the damned probe “passive wire”. i even modify its tips, soldered a very small sewing pin so i can test very small electronic component. no worry, if it broke unrepairable, i sure can buy another one easily.

  anyway, i love your video blog, really is, most of your videos have helped me alot except this particular cheap DMM issue and you really an example of commited, professional expert and funny engineer. the time you spent just to share with us is priceless. thanx alot.

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• Ni-Hao and How March 11th, 2010 at 06:19

  As some folks mention above, when moneys tight, in this economy, you have to get the best you can find for the dough in your wallet.

  I did some digging around and found there are actually some quality meters coming out of China these days as well, like it or not.

  I’ll prove it: Go ask your Fluke salesman to show you the “Made in…” label of all his meters. You’ll be surprised to find how many are made in China. Probably 80% nowadays and increasing. And Fluke’s little brother brand, Amprobe is all Chinese, coming from the same factories as other brands that are easier to knock.

  They, and a few other brands, use standards like ISO, TUV inspections, and US quality inspections to make sure they don’t fall in the _cheap_ Chinese category.

  Bottom line I guess is, not everything from China is crap, and Fluke (maybe it’s Fruke in China?) themselves prove that. So what’s their excuse for the high prices?

  Reply