Review request. Jaycar Mini DMM.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Jaycar CAT. NO. QM1502   RRP: $4.95 (or if you buy six, $3.90!)

http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=QM1502&utm_source=FPQM1502&utm_medium=WEB&utm_campaign=FPC

Mini Digital Multimeter

A fantastic little multimeter at a bargain price. Great for the hobbyist, student, or person who needs a cheap and quick way to check a few basic electronic measurements. Keep one in your car glove box or front shirt pocket. Test probes included.

• Display: 2000 count
• Security Class: - Cat II 250V
• Basic DCV accuracy: 0.5%
• DC Voltage: 200mV-500V (+- 0.5%)
• AC Voltage: 200V-500V (+- 1.2%)
• DC Current: 200uA - 10A (+-1%)
• Resistance: 200 ohm - 2000 kOhm (+-0.8%)
• Ave/RMS: - Ave
• Special Features: Diode test, hFe
• Dimensions 56.5(H) x 30.3(W) x 24(D)mm
   
     QTY    
     1+    $4.95
     3+    $4.45
     6+    $3.90

 

[GEuser]

Seriously fella , don't you have a spare 5 bucks !...

[Ed.Kloonk]

Seriously fella , don't you have a spare 5 bucks !...

I'd pay more than that to watch Dave rant about it.

 

[GEuser]

Seriously fella , don't you have a spare 5 bucks !...

I'd pay more than that to watch Dave rant about it.

 

LOL , and gotta smell the box it comes in too! 

[EEVblog]

Jaycar CAT. NO. QM1502   RRP: $4.95 (or if you buy six, $3.90!)

$3.17 wholesale!
$2.67 for 25+

But add the killer 10% GST

Dave.

[chickenHeadKnob]

There is an application that I have been mulling over for cheap meters like this: Use them instead of regular panel meter(s) on a re-purposed PC power supply - now bench supply. Just wire in a 9 volt reg in the battery compartment and bolt it to the supply chassis, leaving the probe  jacks intact and having a removable jumper to the supply outputs to the volts range. Don't know where to get meters this cheap in Canada though.

[Uncle Vernon]

How much smoke would be $5 worth?

[Ed.Kloonk]

You guys know I'm just fooling around don't you?

[Ed.Kloonk]

How much smoke would be $5 worth?

Dunno. Only five bucks to find out!!

[mariush]

If anyone cares, I can open up this piece of shit and post pictures :

Picked from the equivalent of 1$ or less shops a few years ago.. should be about the same thing as the Jaycar meter.

[Ed.Kloonk]

If anyone cares, I can open up this piece of shit and post pictures :

Picked from the equivalent of 1$ or less shops a few years ago.. should be about the same thing as the Jaycar meter.

Just going be the creative filename you gave the intro pic, I'd say yeah. Bring it. Use this thread if you wanna post pics. Please.

[SeanB]

Same price here, cheap enough that when you pop the unit you sigh, look at the smoke curling out of it, keep the battery and probes and toss the rest in the wheely bin.

[mariush]

Opened it after posting the picture, figured might as well do it since i have the camera around.

It's early morning and dark in the room so the pictures suck, but I can't be bothered to do better.

Surprisingly, it's not as horrible as I thought, but you can see it's not much stuff that can fail. It is "shitmeter.jpg" compared to my UT61E that I use now.

Yeah there was that tiny bearing ball visible in the third picture, it was actually stuck between the pcb screw and the fuse. Put it in the third picture at the bottom to be visible. Don't think it was part of the selection wheel but can't be 100% certain.

ps. SeanB sorry, no, the probes are barely worth saving...very thin and poor quality. I'd rather go at the local shops and buy 3-5$ probes, they'd still be way better.

[ftransform]

an infinite grid of diode test multimeters.....

[SeanB]

Ball goes under the switch in the grease where you might find the spring still there. A bit of a pain to put back if they come out. Often there are 2, but one is missing.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Opened it after posting the picture, figured might as well do it since i have the camera around.

It's early morning and dark in the room so the pictures suck, but I can't be bothered to do better.

Surprisingly, it's not as horrible as I thought, but you can see it's not much stuff that can fail. It is "shitmeter.jpg" compared to my UT61E that I use now.

Yeah there was that tiny bearing ball visible in the third picture, it was actually stuck between the pcb screw and the fuse. Put it in the third picture at the bottom to be visible. Don't think it was part of the selection wheel but can't be 100% certain.

ps. SeanB sorry, no, the probes are barely worth saving...very thin and poor quality. I'd rather go at the local shops and buy 3-5$ probes, they'd still be way better.

Truly horrifying. Thank you.

[EEVblog]

Opened it after posting the picture, figured might as well do it since i have the camera around.

So much FAIL in one little meter 

Dave.

[nukie]

How does dangerous things such as this and cheapo wallwart get to be sold in local shop? Is there no govern body who regulates such devices in this nanny country?

[T4P]

Nope. Nobody's going to bother
I had one of these ( not exactly the same but it's equally crap ) and got one after my Sanwa analog broke way before i got into electronics and they all seem to like having the balls gingerly designed on the rotary switch
And as usual, 7106-based.

[ftransform]

other then the bad switch what other problems do they face?
How accurate are the measurements?

I kinda wanna buy one lol

[LEECH666]

[...]



 

Probably the same crap as the MASTECH M830B.

I have one of it's clones / rebadged models lying around (cuz someone gave it to me).
I thought I'd make a mini teardown, but there are already pics on the net, so why bother.



http://www.petervis.com/electronics%20guides/Mastech%20M-830B/Mastech%20M-830B%20Inside.html

http://radio-hobby.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=224&keywords=article

[steve30]

I have an old Mastech M830B. TBH its not too bad for what it is, though I do prefer to use my better meters.

I'd also say that my M830B is also better than my almost identical Skytronic 600.006. The range switch is clickier and the LCD is clearer.

The M830B must be around 10 years old so is doing quite well. The probes on both meters were crap though and didn't last long at all.

[LEECH666]

Okay I could be bothered to take some pictures. It is indeed a 830B clone, and yes it probably is okay for low voltage, low energy usage.
As a panel meter replacement. However that 830B costs around 10 € here, I'd rather take a look at the MASTECH MS8233E, it's only 15€ and auto ranging.
In fact the cheapest auto ranging DMM I could find, next to the pocket sized Uni-T UT-10A (~12€).






The case looks kinda fancy for a 15€ Meter.
Would love to take a look inside one of these to see if they are equally crappy on the inside.

Cheers,
Florian

[FenderBender]

I have a Klein MM200. It's very similar in external appearance to your MS8233E you posted.


I have a teardown here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/product-reviews-photos-and-discussion/klein-tools-mm200-multimeter/

I also have a Commercial Electric (Home Depot brand) MAS830B here:

Just because it's a Mastech doesn't mean its automatically a piece of crap. Not saying these are the best meters out there, but you can see that these aren't actually all that bad. In the Commercial Electric we've moved from through hole resistors to SMD..MELF sadly. We even have ceramic fuses...though one of them is an axial package..hmm...

I appologize for the lack of clarity in the pictures. My camera is so-so and I didn't use a tripod or anything for stability.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/product-reviews-photos-and-discussion/commerical-electric-%28home-depot%29-mas830b-multimeter/msg87114/#msg87114

[tom66]

For what they are, they are definitely decent meters for the price. Not to be used on high energy circuits, of course, but that is a matter of common sense. They are typically 1% accurate. On a breadboard, that's fine.