Many of you are aware that TechnologyCatalyst or 5ky, purchased several handheld meters out of his own pocket in order to run another $50 shootout. The thread may be found here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-$50-multimeter-shootout-15-dmms-compared/ His Youtube channel may be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYVMnw_W7-Rq-yJk80vprug/videosOne of the things that was brought up was testing these meters with some sort of electrical transient. 5ky has graciously accepted my offer to run them however with a slight twist.
After running the first set of meters and now knowing roughly how they fail and what sort of energy is needed, I plan to start over from scratch and build a new transient generator. The reason for the new generator is simple. It will be programmable and allow me to automate some of the testing. This will allow me to repeat tests and hopefully not spend near the time. The last time, the UNI-T came in late from China and was just throne into the mix and was damaged beyond repair. I never knew just how poor of a design it was compared with the other meters. The same for the Fluke 87V. It would have been nice to know just where it failed at.
Don't expect to see and covers blowing off the meters. New generator does not mean more energy and 20J does not do the same damage as a KJ. Like before, I plan to keep things at levels just high enough to stress the meters input protection circuits. So if you are looking for a lot of fire and exploding parts, look else where. I will keep the old generator just in case one of 5ky's meters does so well I think it could pass that test.
I purchased a new Brymen BM869s as my basic home meter (huge step up for me). A few members have asked about how robust this meter is. My plan is to put this meter along with the 101 into the batch.
5ky and I have not yet spoke. I have a lot of work to do before I will be ready. I may do some quick videos as I start to make some progress.
In the mean time, here is an old 80's article on surge testing to kick things off ....
http://pml.nist.gov/spd-anthology/files/Dont_kid-kill.pdf