Fluke 27/FM

[CJay]

For bench work the backlight isn't important.  When I find myself troubleshooting some equipment in place, the light is typically bad and the backlight can help.  Mostly it annoys me when it times out.

Yeah, I can see how it might be useful if I was working in racks of equipment where the only safe place to sit the meter is in shadow, if the equipment itself is that poorly lit I'd want some extra lighting before I'd touch it.

Fortunately for me I worked in data centres where the lighting was always good and there was always a well lit, safe place to sit the meter.

I have 3 multimeters that have a backlight feature and I have never had the need to use the feature. As Fungus has already mentioned, if you need to use a backlight, then it is certainly dark enough to add in some other lighting in order to adequately see where and what it is that you're prodding.

Not necessarily, it might be possible the only safe place for the meter is in a darker part of the equipment where a backlight would be useful, but that'd be a rare occurrence for me.

[Fungus]

Not necessarily, it might be possible the only safe place for the meter is in a darker part of the equipment where a backlight would be useful, but that'd be a rare occurrence for me.

Sure, but: They all seem to turn the backlight off after an annoyingly short time. You'll spend more time cursing at the meter than you'll spend taking measurements.

I think there's a couple of Fluke models that allow you to hold buttons down at startup to disable the timeout but the vast majority do not.

If you work on that sort of job you'll probably carry a mini flashlight anyway. Hold it in your teeth, use favorite multimeter, job done! 

[drussell]

If you work on that sort of job you'll probably carry a mini flashlight anyway. Hold it in your teeth, use favorite multimeter, job done!

Alternatively, get a Petzl