UNI-T UT61C Multimeter, Teardown and Review

[electronupdate]

A video on the UNI-T 61C.  Not what I was expecting.... it's very different than the 61E which was recently discussed in depth on this forum.   If you are looking for a lowest cost auto-ranging multimeter it was bit better than the Vichay VC99. 

[shamanjoe]

Great teardown and review. The one thing that I thought funny though is the serial cable it comes with. At first I was going to say, "Why the heck would it come with that cable?!" but the more that I thought about it, the more I realised that if anybody else is like me, you've got several old computers that you've inherited for basic shop work, testing, etc, and most of those probably have serial ports. So either they were being cheap, or really smart in including it, lol.

[bustedcap]

Great teardown.

That DMM Check board is a great idea, I have to get myself one.

[Matje]

A video on the UNI-T 61C.  Not what I was expecting.... it's very different than the 61E which was recently discussed in depth on this forum.   If you are looking for a lowest cost auto-ranging multimeter it was bit better than the Vichay VC99. 

BEWARE!

There are different versions of the DMMs in the UT61 series. It may depend on geographic (likely means legal...) region, I'm not certain about that.

My UT61C, aquired in Germany, does say "Fused 600Vmax", not "250V". And in fact it has way chunkier fuses inside, one marked "0.5A 600V" and one branded HOLLY that says 10A, 690V AC and something about 80kA on it, so this would seem substantially beefier (physically larger too) than in the review. No idea whether other things are different too, but I think that is unlikely.

It also came with USB instead of serial connection, although I have seen serial ones sold here too.

As far as I'm aware my UT61E also has better fuses than found elsewhere in the world, the big one is a Littelfuse in that case.

All these EU regulations may be good for something after all... ;-)

The good thing about the UT61C is the very low burden voltage in 2 of the current ranges.

[Lightages]

Nice concise review. Too bad Uni-T won't take input protection seriously. It looks like a good general electronics meter and probably a good alternative to the UT61E if people want the extra features instead of the higher count.

[electronupdate]

OK.  That explains the land patterns for the fuse.  If you look at the video you can see that they have two holes one either end of the fuse.. that would be appropriate for a HRC sized fuse holder.


Still not sure that I would want to run 100's of volts at any significant amperage through a multimeter... I have always turned to the clamp on type once I get much beyond 24 volts.

BEWARE!

There are different versions of the DMMs in the UT61 series. It may depend on geographic (likely means legal...) region, I'm not certain about that.

My UT61C, aquired in Germany, does say "Fused 600Vmax", not "250V". And in fact it has way chunkier fuses inside, one marked "0.5A 600V" and one branded HOLLY that says 10A, 690V AC and something about 80kA on it, so this would seem substantially beefier (physically larger too) than in the review. No idea whether other things are different too, but I think that is unlikely.

It also came with USB instead of serial connection, although I have seen serial ones sold here too.

As far as I'm aware my UT61E also has better fuses than found elsewhere in the world, the big one is a Littelfuse in that case.

All these EU regulations may be good for something after all... ;-)

The good thing about the UT61C is the very low burden voltage in 2 of the current ranges.

[Tepe]

OK.  That explains the land patterns for the fuse.  If you look at the video you can see that they have two holes one either end of the fuse.. that would be appropriate for a HRC sized fuse holder.

This is the inside of my UT-61C from Germany (reichelt.de):

[Matje]

OK.  That explains the land patterns for the fuse.  If you look at the video you can see that they have two holes one either end of the fuse.. that would be appropriate for a HRC sized fuse holder.

This is the inside of my UT-61C from Germany (reichelt.de):

Yep, looks like mine.

Note that there seems to be some extra stuff (a metal can wrapped in black heatshrink labelled SG1, input protection?) in the lower left corner compared to the review above. The place and label is there but left empty in the version shown in the video.

Also in the lower left corner it says "61C (GS)", in the review it only says "61C" as far as I can make out.  At a guess the approving body for the GS seal (Geprüfte Sicherheit, a german safety thing) took a dim view on claiming CAT II 600V while using household fuses, so a special version was created.

I don't like this "local versions" game, especially if it involves safety.