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Measuring hfe of "P2N2222A" varies wildly

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JoeyG:
Hfe  varies with tempreature. Put your finger on the transistor to see the warming effect

Benta:
Those cheap multimeter hFE measurements are a joke.
An almost correct way of doing it is testing the transistor in an op-amp current sink, where the emitter current is precisely controlled. This is not 100% correct (it should be the collector current), but  close enough. The emitter current is set to an appropriate value, and the base current is measured to compute hFE.
More difficult: it should be a pulse measurement to avoid heating of the transistor.

A fun project for spending time :)

TimFox:
Usually, hFE is a stronger function of IC than of VCE, and typically it shows a maximum value for some reasonable value of IC.

CatalinaWOW:
The hfe measurement on a DMM is a joke only if you try to make it more than it is.  It is a quick way to find if a transistor is dead, and gives an indication if the gain is enough to be useful on an unknown part and if it is generally what it should be for a part where you can get the datasheet.  Quite useful if you are away from the lab and have only basic tools at hand.

While you can get more information with enough effort and understanding (just as you can measure your latitude with time, a couple of sticks, and a tape measure) you are better off getting a better instrument if you need more than an "it is alive" indication. 

magic:
On simple ICL7106 DMMs it tends to be reasonably accurate, maybe up to 10% off.
The measurement is performed at Ib=10µA (220k pullup to 2.9V IIRC) and the number displayed is simply 100x the collector/emitter current in mA. For a typical reading of 200 it's 2mA.

A 50% difference is somewhat surprising, it has to be significantly different circuits in these meters.

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