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What was your first multimeter or voltmeter?
cat87:
When I was knee high, I managed to scrounge up enough money to get me a cheap Chinese Sanwa clone. This was somewhere in the late 90's. I blew up the meter in so many ways, that even now I'm amazed of how it performed. Also, in many cases, I had no idea what the hell I was doing, so you can imagine that poor multimeter had it's share of :bullshit:
Growing up, I felt the urge to go digital. I had my sights on what seemed like the best multimeter on the market ( flea market, that is) It was a DT 9208A. Complete with transistor tester and capacitance meter.
One late evening, its life was cut short due to it being exposed to 220V AC....while being in continuity mode. I thought I had it in Volts mode. Oooops. However, when I took it apart, despite having no real input protection, the case somehow held the angry pixies inside. No fire, no nothing.
Since then, I've had a pair of the cheapest smallest Uni-t DMMs for regular use
...and use an HP 3478A for precision work.
gamalot:
--- Quote from: AlphZeta on October 04, 2011, 01:33:02 am ---MF10A
--- End quote ---
me too
schmitt trigger:
For me, it was a Micronta 22-206 FET VOM like the one on the photo. (photo came from an Ebay auction)
I was still in college, and I had to work many odd jobs to save enough to purchase it.
Worked fine for many years, but the plastic case started to disintegrate. To this day I ignore what happened, but the plastic material simply started to fragment.
Patched it up with tape until one of the banana connectors failed.
joeqsmith:
--- Quote from: IanB on October 05, 2011, 03:22:32 am ---I have not seen mine yet, so here it is:
I think I bought it in 1977, back in those glorious days before anyone had heard of "safety". I never blew any fuses and I never electrocuted myself. In those long distant school days "Tandy" was an Aladdin's cave of things I could only dream about, but after admiring it for months that meter eventually fell within my budget and I took it home. I've kept it ever since.
--- End quote ---
This was my first brand new meter I received for my birthday. Before this I had an old VTVM that was given to me.
NiHaoMike:
Started out with a basic Radio Shack mini autoranging DMM, back in 3rd grade or so, when I moved on from building kits to designing my own circuits. It didn't measure current, so it wasn't long before I got a cheap Harbor Freight for that. Ended up using those meters for many years, then in high school, I got a Mastech since the "kid's toys" I have been using were easily confused by noise, plus having temperature measurement, capacitance measurement, and data logging was nice. That ended up being my primary DMM throughout college. After that, I got a Radio Shack AC/DC clamp meter since I had to do some automotive work. Most recently, I got a Mooshimeter mainly for its power measurement capability.
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