Why multimeter safety matters

[Neilm]

And I will say it wide open .... in anything related  with the American market imports ,
its responsibility of the Americans ... blame your self's .. 

If you are in the Eu the responibility of ensuring a multimeter is safe is down to the company that first placed it on the market in Europe. This is the manufacturer (if manufactured in Europe) or the importer.

If it is unsafe then they can be hit with unlimited fines and / or jail sentances for the managing and technical directors.

Yours

Neil

In theory, you mean?

As I was in a job where I would have been hauled up before the court if there were someone killed I did my best to ensure that we complied with all the regulations.

Neil

[david77]

Simon, I agree with you. There really is so much rubbish out there it beggars belief.
Last saturday I was in the city shopping with a mate, we visited a branch of Conrad Elektronik (German equivalent to Maplin) and we both agreed on one thing: We're in a huge shop full of crap. There was really
next to nothing in there we would want to buy. He was looking for a car stereo - they had plenty, and with
all the features he wanted. But not one of the stereos had a quality feel about it. It beginns with dreadful
styling (all blinking lights for show) and ends with rattling wobbly stupid buttons that are so small you need
a toothpick to press only one and not three. In times gone by there was one big dial to set the
volume and switch the thing on and off. Not so any more. Miniscule little buttons all over the frontpanel,
no way you could operate without looking at it, and therefor taking your eyes and mind off the road.
So he'll stick with his cassette tape radio for now...

I think your run-off-the-mill consumer today has lost the ability to tell crap from quality. People seem to
be satisfied to chuck stuff out and buy the same crap in a different flavour again just to repeat that a few
months later.
How can someone think a power drill for 25 quid could be a good deal? How can someone think a DVD player for 39,90 is good quality? Or a 4,90 EUR soldering iron? I don't get it. But it is the truth, I see it every day. Quality and safety are not something most consumers even think about. It has to be cheap!
And even then they moan about it.
I haven't got a DVD player because I can't find one that satisfies my quality requirements. My CD player
is a Grundig that was made in 1984.

I work as a shop assistant in a small independent electronics store. I tell it as it is. Somebody asks me if
that 5 quid iron is any good, I say no it isn't. I don't understand why they ask, it's obvious.
I find I can often tell poor from good quality by nothing more than touching something. You feel that
cheap nasty plastic and think: "Nah, that's bound to be rubbish.". And then there's the solid quality plastic
you instantly know the manufaturer cares about his product. Hard to describe, but I guess you guys know
what I mean.
I find that is most obvious with power tools. There's my good Makita cordless drill that I've had for over
ten years. The casing is solid, it fits perfectly, doesn't bend or creak, has a very good one hour charger
and there's the junk from your usual Home Depot style shops with crap batteries and a battery killing
"charger" that only consists of a LED and a resistor.

Sorry for the rant  

[Kiriakos-GR]

@david77  I enjoyed your rant allot ..  

In the only devices that I found sparkles of quality are only at the old one ..

I had rescued from the garbage can .. yes .. ( in a wooden box in the factory )
One Roadstar car stereo ,  simple type cassette-radio , mostly because even if it was in bad shape externally ( full of grease and dirt ) , it was " Made in Switzerland " ...  

I did repair it , the damage was so easy and hard to find at the same time , because the smart one who had design it , he did not had room on the PCB , and made an thin trace line at the DC line that connects .. actually returns from the power switch back to the all circuitry ..

Primarily the device are like new, never had the chance to work ,  Some one probably connected the cables with wrong polarity , and the PCB trace acted as fuse.

The long story sort , it produces one true clear sound !!  It has true watts , and even at low volume,
you can feel that this item its an performer ..  the sound filters has on it the known German symbols about tremble and bass , that looks like the music Sol key.

I am so excited about it , that I will safe keep it , so to use it on my car , if I ever get one .  

Model : AD-7240 GX  

Here is an picture .. the internet looks dry about it.

   

[Nermash]

Err, sorry Kiriakos, but that made in Switzerland Roadstar...is more like company registered in Switzerland and factory in China.
I have seen that brand a lot here. I have even repaired one dvd player, standard crapy equipment problem: dried electrolytics in psu, 2 year of light usage and bang... Guess what, made in Switzerland label.
Damn those Swiss, they sure make cheap stuff:)

How can they lie about where it's made? In my country it's no problem, you can write whatever you like.
In other countries they probably just get away with it, nobody is checking...

[Kiriakos-GR]

Do not worry, the specific Roadstar is that old , that China at that time was making only rice        


Forgery copies of anything branded always pops out.  
I have see too those fakes Roadstar .. cheap to the bone  

Another example are the Adidas shoes , the honest fakes called Abidas  

[Bored@Work]

How can someone think a power drill for 25 quid could be a good deal?

There is one business case were it is a good deal. If you don't use it. Having a cheap tool you don't use, as opposite to an expensive tool you don't use, means you saved some money.

Not buying a tool at all would be even more clever, but many people define themselves by what they own.

[Mechatrommer]

There is one business case were it is a good deal. If you don't use it. Having a cheap tool you don't use, as opposite to an expensive tool you don't use, means you saved some money.
Not buying a tool at all would be even more clever, but many people define themselves by what they own.

i second, third and fourth this! some people buy top notch gears and then they think they can beat Mr. Faraday.

[Simon]

your made in Switzerland item of today was probably made in a Chinese factory called Switzerland, yes it's true they even get up to this, see Kiriakos (and others) you can call blame the importers and consumers but this is a chinese trick and a very dishonest one, there are factories called UK, Canada, USA and I bet many many more.

I personally just don't know where to turn to buy stuff, yes I can eye stuff up and mentally take it apart and know it for what it is. Maplin in the UK makes eBay look like Jesus Christs very own table top sale unless you only want wire.

I have found cheap power tools and they seem good so far, obviously they don't get industrial use but for 15-25 pounds I can buy any draper power tool and recommend them, my dad at 60 still has his fully functional Bosch drill that he got in his 20s !

[TheWelly888]

Talking of cheap tools, I avoid the Rolson brand like the plague since my father bought a cheap set of Rolson tweezers from Craplin which turned out to have been made of metal that was barely more stiff than tinfoil!  :-(

[Kiriakos-GR]

your made in Switzerland item of today was probably made in a Chinese factory called Switzerland, yes it's true they even get up to this, see Kiriakos (and others) you can call blame the importers and consumers but this is a Chinese trick and a very dishonest one, there are factories called UK, Canada, USA and I bet many many more.

No no no no , I will always disagree about the part " who worth's the blame " .

China are an nice country, and enormously large in population ,
some they act as manufacturers .

From the other side of the Coin we have  West capital = hot money to be invested .
And the Americans and the Europeans brands run like dogs and beg, so to start having an production line in China , so to be able to have competitive in price, products ..

The common people, could throw rocks to its other or launch blames ,  but what matter to those Brands and manufacturers, are only the profit ...

There is one chain with no feelings = Banks + Brands of products + manufacturers + resellers + media and advertising ,  and all those suckers targeting the pocket of the consumer ...

The most of the consumers has in their head an picture about how our world spins , totally implanted by the " media and advertising " ...  

And the politicians do control  " media and advertising ".

When the people in any nation seek for answers , like " who is responsible for the unemployment ?  "

Those  people, that with their signatures have made all the those Banking agreements and cooperation's of  "Far East + West partners "   due the embassy of its own country ...  they say .. we do not have an idea of what did go wrong ... and hide ..
YES THEY HIDE ..

? do not have any true reason to kick the butt of any citizen or consumer , no matter the nationality,
That his signature its not on the paper of those agreements .. Made by bankers and lawyers and politicians.

And so the myth-busting , reveals that no one has any right to blame China or those nice people down there ( south hemisphere ) , because it works well for some bankers + capitalists and other suckers ..  



  

 

[Simon]

but to call a Factory UK, USA and Canada is a very dishonest trick, as was the second CE mark that they came up with, the Chinese will do what they can to make western importers happy, if they had some back bone and morarily they would just make good products and charge what it costs to make good products

[Kiriakos-GR]

if they had some back bone and morality they would just make good products and charge what it costs to make good products

What are you talking about ?  This days we eat cheese that its not even made by milk !!

Cows gets unemployed too.

[Mambo]

if they had some back bone and morality they would just make good products and charge what it costs to make good products

What are you talking about ?  This days we eat cheese that its not even made by milk !!

Cows gets unemployed too.

Well the Greeks are known for doing strange ( and very nice) things with Cheese & Yogurt. Having said that minus Milk is new too me....lol

[Kiriakos-GR]

  

Well  I was referring to products  distributed by large food chains , with out real brand on them,
and they just have an marking  " Made in EU " .

The most humiliating thing are the ingredients that they make today even the ice cream ... something so simple that it should be " milk water and sugar "  its ends to be an chemical formula more complex than an atomic bomb.

Any way I stop here ...  at list I know where to look and find real cheese .
 
   
 

[Mechatrommer]

something so simple that it should be " milk water and sugar "  its ends to be an chemical formula more complex than an atomic bomb.

luckily cheese is not our main food here. But our chickens are getting fatter and fatter due to injection of this atonic bomb formulation, so to gain money from heavier chicks sale, thats why i'm getting fatter too! who to blame? goverment? well i'm not so sure anymore, the sure thing is everybody is making more money than ever before.

[Simon]

yea some people get richer and many more get poorer

[Kiriakos-GR]

The point is who has the right to complain , or better to raise the voice tone first !!

Fresh news ( Yesterday on the TV )
Americans unemployed  40.000.000
English  unemployed  6.000.000

Greece 50% unemployed  ( 10.000.000  population is the 100% )  

And now I like to see an American to blast China ...  
What you will do  American ?  If your country had  150.000.000 of unemployed people !!  
Any way I just like to force some people to think twice before they speak about such matters.

The condition in Greece , its like hell , even I, I am puzzled , even for the cost, of be on-line .

[Mechatrommer]

there should be no more blasting here. its enough for who negligently buy their cheap DMM and use it for high energy circuit.

[alm]

there should be no more blasting here. its enough for who negligently buy their cheap DMM and use it for high energy circuit.

What's the fun of not blowing something up?

[Kiriakos-GR]

there should be no more blasting here. its enough for who negligently buy their cheap DMM and use it for high energy circuit.

What's the fun of not blowing something up?

I agree ..      

Any way , I do not support the cheapys  too , because mostly its an waste of money.
Many young ones " Overclockers " they get an multimeter so to measure Voltages at the CPU core or memory ,  and those cheapys  are so inaccurate  because they have large tolerances in accuracy,
and they could not do even an proper measurement in DC .


I got my Fluke 28II on the factory that I currently work, so to show-of a bit  
And my partner has an cheapy ,  and he liked to compare it with the Fluke at one measurement of AC Amperes ....  and now the Funny part ..  the damn cheapy had only 10A DC  ... it was unable to measure AC Amperes ....  you should be there to see the face of my partner    
      

[Mechatrommer]

What's the fun of not blowing something up?

as long as you are not blowing yourself!

[haglered]

I find it hard to believe a professional electrician was using that first meter. The second meter looks like the victim of an arc flash event.

Even the protection on the best meter available will not be sufficient to protect you from an arc flash event.

It's kinda like standing down river when a dammed river breaks with an umbrella. It doesn't matter how good the umbrella is you are going to get wet when the water reaches you.   

[Time]

What's the fun of not blowing something up?

as long as you are not blowing yourself!

hahaha this cracks me up

[PetrosA]

What's the fun of not blowing something up?

as long as you are not blowing yourself!

hahaha this cracks me up

ESL is fun