accidents can happen
Indeed. It's a bit gimmicky perhaps, but the 117 does have built in non-contact high voltage detection. "Volt Alert" they call it, and it works from a distance, flashing and beeping when 110/240/380VAC is present (I don't think it will detect HVDC). Just beware that all the Flukes in that series (114/115/116/117) have been made in China, and are not quite up to the standard one might be used to from Fluke. For one thing, the viewing angles on the display are pretty bad.
Daylight readable LCD displays that also have a backlight are known as "transflective". They have a special reflective layer behind the LCD which is not completely opaque, thus allowing light from the backlight through. These films are ridiculously expensive, costing as much as £60 ($85) for a single 17"x17" sheet (minimum quantity 10 sheets!). Some high-end smartphones have started using these (Samsung, Apple?) which is quite welcome, though colour displays don't work nearly as well in this mode as monochrome LCDs do. Displays with dedicated segments also offer contrast and sharpness advantages over pixel-based ones, where the "screen-door" becomes a factor.
Wow £60. But I do appreciate that some things are EXTREMELY expensive to manufacture and/or design.
I much prefer to buy the "REAL"/genuine item, if that makes sense.
E.g. If it was a Sony TV. I would avoid the low end/cheap ones, which are widely rumored to NOT be made by Sony, but instead, contracted out to a cheap Chinese manufacturer. Which I would NOT want to touch with a barge pole.
i.e. My experience of stuff like that (cheap, Chinese branded stuff), is that as soon as you take it home the picture quality looks like I've made a big mistake, and the remote control and plastics of it, feel cheap etc.
Then (ironically to my delight, because I can go out and buy a proper (although expensive one), without feeling guilty), about 2 years later, it blows up and explodes, or refuses to switch back on from standby etc.
I'd probably go and buy the "proper" ones.
BUT. That would be my one and only "main" multimeter. For any others (I have lying around, to check resistor values, battery voltages etc, i.e. no mains or high voltage or serious work), it looks like I can get a proper, high voltage fused multimeter, for about the £35 level. By carefully shopping around, for the known to be good (high voltage fuse) rated ones. Or a Bryman (From TME), for not that much more (£50..£59?, for the low end models).
tl;dr
I had a bad near miss with a very high voltage accident (myself), which I am embarrassed about. Very fortunately I was NOT hurt, but it has taught me that these high voltage multimeters, are probably very important. Because you never know when such an unexpected incident is going to happen.
I was repairing a somewhat old oscilloscope (crt type). I managed to connect up (unintentionally), to the very high voltages inside it (despite trying to be very careful), which destroyed the scope AND test equipment, which I had just connected up to it, to help fix it.
I was probably standing well back from it (just in case), before switching the set up on (I connected it all up, while powered off). Which probably helped save me from a terrible shock or worse.
tl;dr
Any cheap multimeters connected to that setup, at best would have also been destroyed, but could have exploded (from what people say and youtube videos I have watched). In practice, I'm NOT sure if the voltages in an old scope are powerful enough (current wise), to do that. But they would be likely to be destroyed.
That scope (Hitachi 20MHz, low end) and (to me), a rather expensive power supply (Dual LCD, 30V/2.5A, approx, fully linear), were somewhat badly taken out. I managed to repair the PSU (pair of 2N3055's in the output stage, one had gone short circuit, probably saving the rest of the PSU from being destroyed).
I'm also especially skillful, at accidentally leaving meter(s) configured for current measurement, then trying to measure a voltage, by connecting it directly to a high current PSU. Fortunately at the moment, it is just cheap, glass fuses, I blow.
PaperInk (or whatever brand name you prefer), for handheld book readers, looked promising.
That's what I meant with "EP displays" - the tech is based on "electrophoresis". They're great for things like books, and only consume power when the displayed image is changed, resulting in extremely low power use. Two big drawbacks prevent their use in multimeters though: they cannot (AFAIK) be backlit (though there are "front-lit" e-readers available), and the redraw speed is much too slow (on the order of a single fps!) - anything that changes rapidly becomes an illegible smudge.
It's sad really, because I hear that they have got very good contrast and are very readable, even in poor lighting conditions. I've NOT got any, and only very rarely seen them, myself.
It's a pity that ten years ago (approx), they could not develop them to have a much faster update rate, practical backlight/sidelight and maybe even colour and more pixels. I guess some things are technically possible and/or affordable and/or paid for by the market, and others aren't. So they sometimes disappear entirely, eventually.
E.g. Nixie tubes anyone ?
You seem to know a lot about modern display technologies. I am also fascinated by them. LEDs have become so amazingly cheap now. Something crazy like less than $0.01 each in quantity, for a somewhat decent white led (for home lighting etc). So presumably sooner or later, whether it ends up being OLED or something else, LED. We hopefully will see mini-breakthroughs in display technology.
I don't know if you have seen it. By MikesElectricStuff is this new type of interesting (at least to me), display technology. I won't spoil the video, and tell you about it here. But sadly, I wanted to buy/play with them, they are extremely expensive (or too small, if you buy a cheap one).
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