Budget multimeter brands that use commonly avalable fuses?

[Peabody]

I want to buy a budget multimeter for a friend, but it seems that fuses can be a major hassle on most brands because replacement fuses are obscure and expensive.  Is there a brand that uses commonly available fuses?

[Aldo22]

The ZT-225 has normal, 5x20mm ceramic fuses, and is perhaps the best DMM in this price range.
I got replacement fuses yesterday

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007244323221.html

It's not the brand though, just this model!

[Solder_Junkie]

Watch this video for a reason why proper multimeters use expensive fuses. If you are impatient the really interesting part is 5 minutes from the start.

A multimeter is for life, the USA made Fluke meters tend to include a lifetime warranty.

https://youtu.be/OEoazQ1zuUM?feature=shared

SJ

[Old Printer]

What always helps is to know the use case for the tool and a price range. Inexpensive means different things to different people. I have a couple of the little Aneng 8008's and they are great for hobby and learning uses on low voltages. If your uses are similar, I would rather have two of them vs one higher priced meter. Many times you want to measure voltage and current at the same time. There are other scenarios that might have different requirements, so more about intended use would be helpful. These guys use small glass fuses, easy to find and cheap. I do not use these meters on the high side any sort of mains powered equipment and certainly don't trust their cat ratings. I have better and safer meters, but am assuming you are starting from a no meter situation.

[cte]

AN8008 / AN8009 uses 3.6×10 mm ceramic fuses. Not unobtainable, but not very common.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/aneng-an8008-multimeter-fuses/

[Aldo22]

The best thing to do is to order sufficient replacement fuses from AE together with the meter.
I have 3 different sizes with Zotek (Zoyi/Aneng...)
But you can get replacement fuses for little money.

[Old Printer]

AN8008 / AN8009 uses 3.6×10 mm ceramic fuses. Not unobtainable, but not very common.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/aneng-an8008-multimeter-fuses/

The OP is in the US, fuses to fit those meters are easy to find. Most of the complaints in that thread were from other countries.

[floobydust]

Peabody, you are basically asking for a scam multimeter with bogus safety or low voltage ratings. Allows the use of small, common, low cost fuses.  Commonplace out of china.

Multimeter fuses are necessarily an expensive, specialty part for product safety.
You need a long fuse for a high voltage rating, so they are huge at 32-38mm long for 1,000V ratings.
You need it to be sand-filled to quench any arc inside.
You need a melamine/ceramic housing that does not crack or explode in the heat like glass does.
You need specialty fuse wire to make the oddball 440mA or 11A rating which is uncommon.

Then factor in profiteering by conglomerate assholes like Eaton who acquired Cooper Industries/Bussmann and now commits highway robbery asking USD $109 for a DMM-B-11A fuse 
F*ck these assholes and the distributors enabling the ripoff by buying/stocking these
Leads to chinese counterfeit fuses which are of course unsafe and many youtube reviews where they forgot the sand, they don't trip near rated current. Including car blade fuses! It's pretty awful, they are not safe at all.

All of this is terrible for people doing low voltage 12V/24V hobby/automotive work, where blowing a multimeter fuse is common and no need for the 600V or 1,000V-rated fuse.
Mains has a lot of energy behind it in service panels at higher voltages- despite nobody with half a brain using a cheap shit multimeter with <250V fuses in 480/600VAC panels.

One solution I found a tech college mechanics program, they made adapters for their Fluke multimeters to fit smaller AGC fuses instead. Just some machined brass rod. I have pics somewhere.
Yes it makes the multimeter "unsafe" for high voltage/energy work as it compromises its ratings and you can't tell unless you peek inside. But when the fuse prices are near equal to the price of a multimeter, you have to wonder.

So find a budget chinese DMM with fake safety approvals and small fuses, or think about a fuse "adapter" etc.

[Peabody]

The ZT-225 of @Aldo22 is beginning to look pretty good.  Thanks for that suggestion.

As for my US sources for fuses, that would mostly be eBay or AliExpress.  But it would be nice to be able to use fuses I get from Digikey, or even Home Depot, which would be more likely to perform to their specs.

[Aldo22]

The ZT-225 of @Aldo22 is beginning to look pretty good.  Thanks for that suggestion.

The ZT-225 is an amazing DMM in the $30 category.
It is an improved AN870 in many ways.

But you have to realize one thing: This is not a pocket meter.
It's fat and heavy (450g with batteries) and has a kind of military look.
it has a thick, semi-soft, removable plastic cover/holster.

Even though it's a handheld, it sometimes feels more like a benchtop meter that runs on batteries.

None of this is a bad thing, but you have to be aware of it.

[BeBuLamar]

If you don't care about safety you can use a Fluke but install a cheap fuse in it if you have a bad fuse.

[Aldo22]

If you don't care about safety you can use a Fluke but install a cheap fuse in it if you have a bad fuse.

Fluke=Budget meter? Have I missed something?

Why would you buy an expensive Fluke if you don't care about safety?

That's like saying: If you don't care about speed, buy a Ferrari and install bicycle tires. 

[tooki]

AN8008 / AN8009 uses 3.6×10 mm ceramic fuses. Not unobtainable, but not very common.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/aneng-an8008-multimeter-fuses/

The OP is in the US, fuses to fit those meters are easy to find. Most of the complaints in that thread were from other countries.

Since when is that a common fuse size in USA or anywhere else?

[Solder_Junkie]

Then factor in profiteering by conglomerate assholes like Eaton who acquired Cooper Industries/Bussmann and now commits highway robbery asking USD $109 for a DMM-B-11A fuse

I don’t know where you found those prices, Mouser sell the 11A and 440 mA Fluke fuses for about $20 for the pair. A UK distributor has them for a similar price. Are you quoting packs of several fuses?

SJ

[BeBuLamar]

If you don't care about safety you can use a Fluke but install a cheap fuse in it if you have a bad fuse.

Fluke=Budget meter? Have I missed something?

Why would you buy an expensive Fluke if you don't care about safety?

That's like saying: If you don't care about speed, buy a Ferrari and install bicycle tires. 

Because the OP was complaining about the price of the fuses and not the price of the meter. Besides my DMM's are all Fluke what do I know?

[Kleinstein]

The problem is that HRC fuses rated for 1000 V are expensive. For work at higher voltage / high power mains like CAT3 or 4 these are needed. YOu can't have a cheap fuse and a valid CAT4 or higher voltage CAT3 rating.
If one knows about the limitations, one could get away with a meter with a lower CAT rating, like 600 V CAT3 or maybe even 300 V that can than use a cheaper fuse. One problem here is that this not so much a thing for beginners.

I have an UT133A (some $25) that uses 6.3 x 32 fuses, that are not dirt cheap, but affordable (e.g. some 3,50 EUR ). The fuse makes the CAT3 600 V rating somewhat credible.
The problem may be that outside the EU they may also sell a version with a small 5x20 fuse.

[cte]

I don’t know where you found those prices, Mouser sell the 11A and 440 mA Fluke fuses for about $20 for the pair. A UK distributor has them for a similar price. Are you quoting packs of several fuses?

SJ

The prices above are from digikey I guess and for a single fuse. I see those prices too.

RS USA offers them for $112.46. At RS Germany the price is 26.56€ for a single fuse (only sold in packages of five, though). Farnell apparently offers the DMM-B-11A fuse for 25.22€ and 193€.

Maybe Eaton/Cooper/Bussmann has some kind of shortage in the production of the fuses? Equivalent fuses from the German SIBA company are still offered at around 12€ per piece.

[Aldo22]

Because the OP was complaining about the price of the fuses and not the price of the meter. Besides my DMM's are all Fluke what do I know?

The topic is: "Budget multimeter brands that use commonly avalable fuses?"

[Aldo22]

I think "Peabody" wants a budget DMM, with cheap fuses.
Nobody is talking about high energy requirements.

I think I know what he means.
With my Zoyi/Aneng, a fuse in the 250mA range blows every now and then because, for example, a PSU doesn't start up as expected.
You don't want to spend a fortune replacing that (or more than the whole DMM cost).
This probably has little to do with life-threatening situations, otherwise "Peabody" should say so.

The whole safety issue is also massively overrated imo.
Someone show me a statistic on how many people die because they use a cheap DMM instead of a Fluke.
This statistic is guaranteed not to exist because it is completely irrelevant.

[tooki]

RS USA offers them for $112.46. At RS Germany the price is 26.56€ for a single fuse (only sold in packages of five, though). Farnell apparently offers the DMM-B-11A fuse for 25.22€ and 193€.

The 193 euro link says this on it:
“This product is part of the Farnell extended range program and inventory is held at our partner's warehouse facilities. Where inventory is shown your goods will arrive between 6 and 9 days. Unfortunately it is not possible to accept returns and all orders are NCNR (Non-Cancellable-Non-Returnable).”

So that crazy price includes whatever overhead there is in procuring said parter stock, which might include shipping, minimum order surcharges, etc.

Regardless, I don’t see the point in looking at the high end of the price range, since nobody is going to order that.

Maybe Eaton/Cooper/Bussmann has some kind of shortage in the production of the fuses? Equivalent fuses from the German SIBA company are still offered at around 12€ per piece.

We can rule that out conclusively, since the price of these fuses has been high (and has had “fantasy price” offers too) for as long as I can remember. This has been discussed on the forums numerous times over the years, going back to at least 2010!

In some markets, Fluke resells those fuses for around $11 each, likely because they buy them in enormous quantities at a huge discount. Bussmann and Littelfuse don’t really focus on selling single fuses to end users, so their supply chains likely end up making single fuses much more expensive. Fluke is better equipped to do that.

[Peabody]

This is strictly hobbyist stuff.  I have an old Radio Shack meter that only has two lead jacks.  And every now and then I would go to measure voltage on the 5V rail, but forgetting that I had left the meter in current mode.  The advantage of Radio Shack is that they couldn't sell you a meter that they didn't also carry the fuses for.  But as far as I can tell, the meter manufacturers today don't sell fuses for their meters, and in fact most appear to go out of their way to use the least available fuses.  Or if they do sell them, they're expensive:

https://www.amazon.com/UNI-T-Multimeter-Accessories/dp/B0BLK6272M

Well maybe you dont burn out fuses on modern meters, so it's not an issue.  But I just wouldn't want to use a meter that I didn't have replacement fuses for.  And I don't want to spend a significant fraction of the cost of the meter on fuses.

[tooki]

This is strictly hobbyist stuff.  I have an old Radio Shack meter that only has two lead jacks.  And every now and then I would go to measure voltage on the 5V rail, but forgetting that I had left the meter in current mode.  The advantage of Radio Shack is that they couldn't sell you a meter that they didn't also carry the fuses for.  But as far as I can tell, the meter manufacturers today don't sell fuses for their meters, and in fact most appear to go out of their way to use the least available fuses.  Or if they do sell them, they're expensive:

https://www.amazon.com/UNI-T-Multimeter-Accessories/dp/B0BLK6272M

$15 for a set of 4 fuses doesn’t seem unreasonably expensive. And besides, that’s the price set by one third-party vendor (not UNI-T itself! That price is not from UNI-T’s own store, which doesn’t have them in stock.), and third-party vendors can price them however they want.

[Sensorcat]

Welectron, the german company that sells Brymen, offers the Cooper-Bussmann fuses for 9.50€ each, having 100+ on stock:

https://www.welectron.com/Cooper-Bussmann-DMM-B-44-100-R-HRC-Sicherung-044A-1000V
https://www.welectron.com/Cooper-Bussmann-DMM-B-11A-HRC-Sicherung-11A-1000V

That's a reasonable source also for Fluke owners in the EU.

[David Hess]

I want to buy a budget multimeter for a friend, but it seems that fuses can be a major hassle on most brands because replacement fuses are obscure and expensive.  Is there a brand that uses commonly available fuses?

If there was a multimeter which used "standard" fuses, then that would be unsafe.

The reason multimeter fuses are "special" is that they are designed to block DC.  AC fuses are simpler because arcs are self extinguishing with AC, as opposed to DC.

[tooki]

The reason multimeter fuses are "special" is that they are designed to block DC.  AC fuses are simpler because arcs are self extinguishing with AC, as opposed to DC.

That’s only a small part of it. The main thing is that they have immense current-interrupting capacity, for both AC and DC (since in practice, the high-energy circuits multimeters usually get used on tend to be mains AC). They need to do this and not explode.

The other characteristic is that they are extremely fast-acting fuses.