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Meterman 38XR
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DJPhil:
Ah, I understand now. Looking this up online had the effect of filling in half the picture with tiny pieces, but this makes it plain.


--- Quote from: rossmoffett on February 12, 2010, 05:48:09 pm ---Thanks a lot for going to the trouble to pull those specs for me.

--- End quote ---

Any time. :)
dfnr2:
Just chiming in to add a datapoint.  When I started building up my lab in 1999-2000, I couldn't afford Flukes, I had good experience with other Wavetek equipment, so I snagged a few Wavetek meters inexpensively on Ebay.  I sent them all to Fluke (who had bought the line) to calibrate, and they lost one of the 85XT's.  They offered to replace it with the Wavetek Meterman 37XR, which was autoranging, so I said OK.  I liked that it was autoranging, had a good case and stand, nifty features, etc.  Because it was my best autoranger, I used it as my main meter, but used the wavetek 85XT or 27XT to double check.

Recently, I'd noticed differences between readings on the 37XR and the others, and I sent it in for early cal along with the rest of my DMMs.  The 37XR was far out of spec on the lower voltage ranges.  The sad thing is that there is no way to adjust this meter!  I asked the tech if this is unusual, and he that this is not too uncommon with the Ampbobes; one engineering department fitted with these meters recently brought a bunch of these scopes in for cal (that were in spec on their last cal), and half the meters were off.

Every other DMM I have had, including a wavetek 85XT, wavetek 27xt, a couple of cheap radio-shack 22-805s', and a cheap AW SPERRY DM-11, not to mention the HP 4368a and HP34401a, have always been received and returned in spec.  As far as I'm concerned, I'll never buy another one of these.  I decided to replace it with a used fluke 87v off ebay; I bought it from one of the dealers that calibrates it before shipping--well worth the money, since even a new meter will need a cal.  I really love the 87V.  Wish I'd bought it years ago.

This experience reinforces some old rules of thumb about meters:

1) If your measurements are important, always double check them with other equipment.  In fact, it's nice to check with a scope, just to make sure you're measuring what you think you are measuring.
2) If you're using the scopes professionally, or otherwise care about the accuracy, don't forget to cal your workhorse meters WHEN YOU GET THEM, and EVERY YEAR.
3) If you want a great reliable handheld, get a fluke.  If you want a great reliable benchtop meter, get an HP (or a fluke).
4) You can never have too many meters, especially workhorses you can use to check the others.  I use the HP34401a as my reference.  It's easy to use up all your good meters in one setup.

Dave F
armandas:
Just got an Amprobe 37XR-A meter I had bought on ebay a couple of days ago.. for £18 plus shipping. It looks like new, didn't come with papers, but I got probes + alligator clips and a magnetic hanger. That's got to be the best deal I have ever had on ebay  :o

P.S. price may have something to with auction title ("LARGE MULTIMETER") :D
peters:
I have added a driver to Sigrok for the Meterman 38XR multimeter. Go to https://sigrok.org/wiki/Meterman_38XR to read about it. To try it out  download the Sigrok nightly build  https://sigrok.org/wiki/Downloads, or compile from source if that's the way you roll.
Zero999:

--- Quote from: armandas on April 08, 2010, 12:03:38 pm ---Just got an Amprobe 37XR-A meter I had bought on ebay a couple of days ago.. for £18 plus shipping. It looks like new, didn't come with papers, but I got probes + alligator clips and a magnetic hanger. That's got to be the best deal I have ever had on ebay  :o

P.S. price may have something to with auction title ("LARGE MULTIMETER") :D

--- End quote ---
I believe Amprobe bought Meterman awhile ago.

I also have the 37XR-A. It's a good meter. The build quality isn't the best. The switch began to go a bit, after five years of regular use, but it didn't stop me from buying a new one.
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