Electronics > Beginners
[SOLVED] Request for advice on circuit-design of multimeter: Peaktech 3360
tim343:
Hello all,
I watched Mr Jones 50+ minutes blog on multimeter buying advice. Since I found it pretty interesting I already upped my budget to around 100 dollars.
I'm considering buying a Peaktech 3360 (good availability in Europe), since it seems to have a good 10A fuse. I'm worried though, that it might have a bad circuit design (seems important according to Mr Jones).
Please check out the following picture (click on it to zoom) and be so kind to give some advice if it is total shit or not.
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/200782
I also considered the Amprobe 37XR, but the slow continuity test seemed like a no go.
See the following link, If you are interested in technical details of Peaktech 3360
http://www.peaktech.de/productdetail/kategorie/digital---handmultimeter/produkt/p-3360.html
Thank you
btw: I'm a beginner who wants to temper with automotive electronics, the occasional 230V and maybe checking small electronics devices.
Bored@Work:
The PeakTech is a rebadged CEM multimeter. The PCB indicates a DT-9919. http://www.cem-hh.com/en/product3.php Not surprising, because AFAIK this PeakTech company does not manufacture any own products.
Interestingly, the price on eBay for an original DT-9919 is rather inflated, $229.98.
The image shows mediocre build quality. There is something going on with the parts making up the input protection. There are unpopulated footprints, and it appears the populated components don't fit exactly. But it is difficult to say if they left out originally planned protection components or if they mounted different ones. There is also some bodge job with resistors above the upper fuse in the image. And the lower glass fuse is not to my liking.
Other stuff looks nice, e.g. it looks as if the case is well sealed, screws on the terminals, double isolated wire from the amp com terminal (but it touches the fuse holder, not so nice). The ES51966 is one of the many multimeter ICs from Cryustek. Their stuff can be found in many Asian meters. And in principle their ICs work, although I have the feeling they exaggerate their specs a little bit too much. The firmware seems to be in an Atmel atmega32 MCU. This gives the potential for some hacks, especially if they haven't protected the firmware. If they have the protection fuses activated it might not be worse it. At least there seems to be a programming header on the board.
But there is one general thing. Those Asian manufacturers do change things on the fly and some have rather varying manufacturing quality. So the meter you might get might be different from the one in the picture.
tim343:
Thank you very much for your quick feedback. I'll check through the rest of Mr Jones budget multimeter related blogs, but I'll propably end up buying the Peaktech 3360 since you seem to indicate that I could do worse for the money.
The only avaible alternative, Uni-T multimeters, seem to have nice specs (they advertise a 0-delay continuity test function) but Mr Jones seems to think the build quality is a load of crap. Also they seem to have no good 10A fuse.
Thank you
david77:
I haven't laid hands on the 3360 yet but I can say a few things about its smaller sibling the 3320.
Both are made by CEM as BAW has already said, Peaktech have quite a few of their meters in their program.
In my opinion the CEM made meters are the better ones that Peaktech sell, some of their stuff is quite nasty and cheap.
The cases are nice and quite rugged, the rubber parts are molded on. The tilting stand things are usually quite shit, I guess they are on most cheapish meters. Switches are OK, there are many that are far worse.
I can't say much about accuracy or the design of the electronics, although I have some doubts about the input protection. I had a 3320 returned that had allegedly been connected to 230VAC mains while set to the cap range. I don't know if that was what really happened, though. My default setting is to distrust customers. It was toast but Peaktech did exchange it without a problem. May be the circuitry on the 3360 is better, who knows?
Apart from that and user caused defects we haven't had issues with Peaktech's products.
Would I buy one for myself? No, probably not.
T4P:
--- Quote from: tim343 on April 05, 2012, 10:47:17 am ---Thank you very much for your quick feedback. I'll check through the rest of Mr Jones budget multimeter related blogs, but I'll propably end up buying the Peaktech 3360 since you seem to indicate that I could do worse for the money.
The only avaible alternative, Uni-T multimeters, seem to have nice specs (they advertise a 0-delay continuity test function) but Mr Jones seems to think the build quality is a load of crap. Also they seem to have no good 10A fuse.
Thank you
--- End quote ---
Huh ? Get the UT61E , those ceramic fuses are decent , can handle 8kA interuptting current .
The UT61E is available from 55USD , you can also change the fuses to HRC if you want , because there are HRC footprints on the pcb .
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