Electronics > Beginners
Good multimeter for continuity testing for car wiring
Winchmore:
Hi,
Can you recommend a very good multimeter for continuity testing for car wiring harness.
I was looking for a tool to test the continuity on two points where one point the wire is insulated. without having to pierce the wire. i.e brown wire in attached picture
I guess there wont be one without piercing the wire so next best thing will be using back probes...
Any good ones for continuity testing with good sound and back probes
up to $100. will use for other general tasks etc Any old trusted models on ebay fine.
Rgs
AG6QR:
There are two separate issues: What meter should you use, and what probes should you use.
If you're only doing continuity detection, it's hard to imagine a meter that won't do the job. A lot of people, myself included, like the Fluke-style latching continuity detection, because it delivers a good solid audible beep even with a very brief contact. Dave has demonstrated this well in some of his fairly early multimeter shootout videos. Some cheap meters have slow response in continuity mode.
I don't have enough experience with bargain meters in continuity mode to make specific recommendations.
As far as probes go, as long as your meter uses standard shrouded banana jacks, you can use any standard banana probes. There are several makers of good test probes with the standard telcom style "bed of nails" clips on the end. Fluke makes their MT-8203-20, which is one option, but similar products are available from other manufacturers.
For this particular application, I can imagine spending as much on the test leads as on the meter. Great leads combined with a really cheap meter should do the job well, while a superb meter outfitted with standard style leads wouldn't be so great.
zapta:
Another option is to use a wire tracker. For example
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Automotive-Cable-Wire-Tracker-Tester-Car-Tracer-Finder-/190505326904
Some are better than others.
You connect to the wire on one end and trace along the wire.
Stonent:
If its attached to a car look at Power Probe. It can read 5 or 12 volts and inject voltage. Hard to explain.
Winchmore:
Many thanks for the response and ideas Zapta & AG6QR!
I did start off looking at auto specific tools with the sound alerts. Was not sure if a multimeter reading would be significantly better then a sound alert tool. So if the contacts over time have been corroding, the signal strength would be reduced and hence looking for measuring tool to display this data if that's possible...
Fluke entry model sounds good that can do the job. Fluke 101?
Will have a look at the Automotive Wire Tracker Tester Car Tracer Finder..
Stonent, Power Probe also sounds good....is this Power probe 3?
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