so i stumbled upon one of your old blogs about the meterman 37xr (aka amprobe). it was a good review and i have an oppertunity to buy one at a good price.
my quesiton is besides what was said on the video, is there anying you would take back or add to what you said about the meter or do you stand firm by what you said in the video, which was a good thumbs up?
also, does it qualify as a good meter for an electronics hobbiest? thanks
I can't remember exactly what I said in the review, but I use the meter every day at work and it's just fine, I've had no problems with it at all.
0.1% 10,000 count is pretty good for the price.
More than good enough for the hobbyist.
Dave.
The 37XR is still a good meter, at anywhere from $115-$150 new it's the best resolution/accuracy you can get in that price range (at least on a name-brand meter).
The only thing I find lacking is the Capacitance range of 400uF, which is odd since the 34XR goes to 4000uF which would have been perfect. Otherwise i've had no problems with it, i'd certainly buy it again.
Above 400uF is easy to test with the help of a resistor, power supply (9v battery is enough), and stopwatch.
Although it often is the ESR that really matters in large capacitors.
The 37XR is still a good meter, at anywhere from $115-$150 new it's the best resolution/accuracy you can get in that price range (at least on a name-brand meter).
The only thing I find lacking is the Capacitance range of 400uF, which is odd since the 34XR goes to 4000uF which would have been perfect. Otherwise i've had no problems with it, i'd certainly buy it again.
so what should the capacitance range be then if not 400? and not comparing to the 34xr
also the 37xr i found is a old meterman still new in the package but i contacted them and they said the warranty is out on it lol :-(
so would that be a reason not to buy the meter now?
For me it's the lower cap range that is more important. I find those that have a 4nF range (1pF resolution) handier than having a higher end cap range.
But YMMV.
Dave.
I am buying the Amprobe 37XR-A within the next few weeks. It does everything I need and only lacks one function my old meter had (hFE, which I never used anyway and don't really need), and has the advantage of being autoranging. For high current use, I have already bought a clamp transducer that outputs millivolts (1 or 10 per amp) and works on AC and DC - I got it cheap due to it being an older version of one still available and usually sold for a much higher price.
On the $100 shootout, I was a little surprised to see that the fuses on the Uni-T meter were to BS 1362. I was a lot more impressed with the Amprobe 34XR-A in the shootout, and that swayed me in the direction of the 37XR-A rather than the Uni-T UT70A - also, that one has only a 1999 count, is manual ranging and not True RMS.