Fluke 87 V Factory Error

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--I just got this beat up old Fluke 87 V on eBay and it works perfectly in all respects. But I just noticed it does seem to have one problem. Oddly enough I had just bought a couple of Fluke 87 carcasses on eBay and managed to make one good 87 out of the two bad. I bought them in order to get an unbroken jack receptacle. I ended up having to buy 1 new jack receptacle and getting one out of a carcass. I was then able to replace the broken ones in a couple of other 87s. So I was looking at my "new" 87 V and is struck me that the jack receptacle had been soldered in backwards. I thought, gee I must have screwed up, but no. I remembered I did not do any work on the 87 V, sure enough I looked on the backside of the board and the soldering on the jack receptacle pins is as virgin as the driven snow. See the below pictures.

--Now, I was about to desolder the receptacle, turn it around and resolder it, when it occurred to me that perhaps I should contact Fluke and see what they recommend, since the issue is somewhat safety related. Has anybody else ever seen one of these occurrences?

“Before turning to those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest difficulties, let the inquirer begin by mastering more elementary problems.."
Sherlock Holmes 1887 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[PeterG]

I would keep t as it is. Probably worth twice as much to a collector seeing as it appears to be a factory error.
I am always amazed what people pay for these things on places like ebay.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Regards

[saturation]

Very unusual.  First I've ever seen.  I would do the same, since the only difference is the color, you can paint the red one, black and black, red to reduce confusion.  The jack is a single unit and fits only one way, IIRC, it has a notch somewhere.  Its a defect in the assembly of the jack unit than the assembly of the DMM.

I would keep t as it is. Probably worth twice as much to a collector seeing as it appears to be a factory error.
I am always amazed what people pay for these things on places like ebay.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Regards

[Excavatoree]

I've bought a few "parts units" and a few working or repairable units, and I've never seen this.   I wonder if the small inserts can be removed without damaging the jack assy?  If I have a damaged one, I'll find out.

[ModemHead]

The jack assembly can't be soldered in backwards, because the rightmost jack sticks up further than the others and fits in a larger hole on the case front. There is also a triangle-shaped piece that sticks out and forms a stop for the fuse, and from the picture it seems to be in the right place.

I don't recall that the inner pieces are removeable, but they can break.  I think maybe these have broken and somebody has put them back in the wrong holes.

[SgtRock]

Dear EEVBees:

--Thanks to everyone for the helpful responses. Upon inspection, it would appear that Saturation and Modemhead are correct that the receptacle has not been turned around backwards. Either the receptacle was misassembled at the factory, or some one has glued the wrong piece in the hole. It would also be interesting to know as Excavatoree points out if this sort of thing can be done on purpose, as I have some spare broken ones and could have saved money if I could have just swapped the small inserts. Excavatoree says he does not know if he has any broken ones, but given the number of meters he has, he probably does. Maybe he would be kind enough to repost the picture of his meters as I cannot find it.

"Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
George Bernard Shaw 1856 - 1950

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[saturation]

Nicer photos, Sgt, it clearly shows the issue and that triangular piece.  If those colored banana inputs are just inserts maybe you can pull it out and reinsert them?  Never tried on mine, as never had a need to.

[T4P]

He doesn't need to 

*reuploaded, stupid me plainly copied my google drive direct image

[M. András]

put it up for 10k lets see if any fan would buy a factory misassembled unit as a collector item

[retiredcaps]

put it up for 10k lets see if any fan would buy a factory misassembled unit as a collector item

See if the Extech PM here wants to buy it! 

SgtRock, you should have waited until April 1, 2013 to post this.

[Psi]

If you tell fluke about it they will probably send you a new one.

[retiredcaps]

Well at least the VC88 listing is only photoshopped by some non technical person. I don't know if they actually produced a multimeter that functions as pictured.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-chat/vc88e-multimeter-pictures-on-ebay-spot-how-many-things-are-wrong-in-this-photo/

For the price, you would expect Fluke, while no company is perfect, to have a bit better QA.

[T4P]

Well it's a priceless one  It's not hard to make mistakes when you churn out the industry standard multimeters by the 100 every hour 

[Excavatoree]

Well, as I looked at the back of an 87 jack assy I happen to have, if you can believe it, I see that the insert is sort of molded in to the base, and not removable without breaking it.   So, this is indeed a vendor mistake that wasn't caught.

Next question, would you sell it?  I can't afford 10K, however.   

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Thanks for all the helpful comments. Crossing my fingers I am flogging it on eBay starting at $499.99. Don't laugh, It could happen (Judy Tenuta).

"Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one."
William Henry Gates III 1955 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[M. András]

i think that prices is too cheap even for starting bid for a 1 of the 100k unit with this rare feature

[mzacharias]

i think that prices is too cheap even for starting bid for a 1 of the 100k unit with this rare feature

Not to my way of thinking. In my view it's worth a bit less. Fluke might want to buy it back, though. They're pretty protective of their reputation, etc.

[Jimmy the Squid]

I hope you'll keep us posted on the results of the eBay auction. I'm quite curious whether it will command a premium or not.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--M. András has said "i think that prices is too cheap even for starting bid for a 1 of the 100k unit with this rare feature"

--And here, fool that I am, I thought I had at least a minor curiosity on my hands. Perhaps M. András will be kind enough to point out a picture, or even a mention of another Fluke 87 V with the same mistake. It should not be to hard after all, since apparently they made more of them then they did the ones without the mistake. How about pointing out any Fluke with any assembly mistake whatsoever.

--My ironic comment that "It could happen", and mention of Judy Tenuta was hopefully to indicate that I understand prospects of selling this unit at a premium are less than sanguine, and perhaps even funny. Nonetheless I thought I should try, before contacting Fluke to see if they are interested. But if they produced 100,000 of these, we would be tripping over them on the way out the door, and Fluke would have no interest, obviously, having made 100,000 of an unsafe product on purpose.

--T4P has said "Well it's a priceless one , It's not hard to make mistakes when you churn out the industry standard multimeters by the 100 every hour"

--I agree. The Fluke 87 V, being the industry standard and the most popular hand held DMM in the world, bar none, that some mistakes are bound to occur, and some are bound to get past Quality Control. But this is an obvious mistake on the front of the meter. And so I do believe that this one is a genuine "rara avis" as Sidney Greenstreet was wont to say, for the following reasons. I rate the chances of the jack receptacle being manufactured incorrectly, and subsequently escaping the manufacturers quality control inspections as say roughly 1 in a thousand. Similarly I rate the chances, roughly, of Fluke failing to note and delete the defective receptacle, and failing to note the misassembled meter at 1 in a thousand. Multiplying the probabilities  you get 1 in a million, roughly. It may not be valuable, but it should be very very rare.

--It is all good. At worst I am stuck using this Fluke 87 V, which is working perfectly in all respects, and which I bought on eBay for $132 US, shipping included. Unless I change out the erroneous jack receptacle, I could only sell this unit as a curiosity, informing the buyer fully, in any case, because of the safety issue.

Big surprise, so far 25 views and no bids.

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
The Queen from "Alice in Wonderland" by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carrol) 1832 -1898

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[Excavatoree]

500 is too rich for my blood.    That explains why my collection is, sadly, merely a large number of ordinary meters.  (Except for the Square D branded one, I've never seen another, but then again, it's probably not as rare as that meter with the bad jack)

I wonder, how many jacks were scrapped by the vendor with the same or similar problem.  I can see it now:  Someone in some factory, somewhere, hauling out scrapped jacks saying "someone is asking 500 dollars for a meter with one of these on E-bay......"

[M. András]

i wrote a number and with it a possibility to find another with this "feature" i dont know exactly how much 87 V they made overall so i guessed a number, however the chances to find another is fairly low almost equal to zero

[Extech]

See if the Extech PM here wants to buy it! 

 
 

[EEVblog]

See if the Extech PM here wants to buy it! 

 
 

It would look good framed on the Extech stand at the next trade show! 

Dave.

[retiredcaps]

No bidders!

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Well, no luck selling the one of a kind Fluke Fluke on eBay for $499.99 the first time out. I had 120 views and 2 watchers, at least one of which, I suspect might have been Retiredcaps. So at the beginning of Oct. I shall relist at $549.99, the old counter intuitive, see. After another try or two I may to flog the Fluke Fluke to Fluke. At worst I got a really great meter for less than $140.00.

"You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 1012 to 1."
Ernest Rutherford 1871 1937

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[T4P]

flukeception