It is first and foremost a milliohm meter for PCB track resistance measurement. It has an LCD display and a tone generator with variable volume so can can turn that off. The tone that it produces can be of help when working on a PCB with shorted Tantalum decoupling caps or whatever. As you get closer to the source of the problem you can hear the pitch change. If you take a wrong turn you can quickly hear it and revert to the last position and retry.
You may be surprised at how quickly a Toneohm will track down power rail shorts to a specific component. It is sometimes easier and quicker to listen than to place probes and look up at the display. I personally find that the tone is not annoying as you are concentrating on it as it literally leads you by the nose to the source of the problem
It does take some practice, but once you master a Toneohm you will not want to be without one...... especially if working on Racal equipment that is filled with old tantalum power rail decoupling caps !
I have also found faulty chips that have gone low ohms to the 0V rail. Far quicker than cutting tracks and lifting components to identify the exact location of the issue. You can use the Toneohm to trace non power supply rail faults but you really need a schematic so the you can see where you are going with it.
My higher end units also have a current/signal tracing capability using a low impedance tone injector and inductive directional probe.
These units have been around for a lot of years. The earliest units were just a variable tone audio continuity meter. Then an analogue meter was added, followed by a digital meter for more accuracy.
The latest units can track down a power plane fault on a multi layer PCB using a sort of triangulation system guiding the operators probe to the source of the problem !
Aurora
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