cheap multimeter

[sony mavica]

just wanted to know what is the cheapest one you could buy
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OHM-MULTIMETER-DT830-LCD-DIGITAL-VOLTMETER-AMMETER-Best-Selling-Hotest-/151520414904?hash=item2347520cb8:g:P4EAAOSwofxUk77u

is this the cheapest one with lcd screen?

[Lightages]

I have seen that POS as low as $1.97.

[ez24]

ebay is cheaper than Aliexpress

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-Mini-Digital-Multimeter-with-Buzzer-Voltage-Ampere-Meter-Test-Probe-DC-AC-LCD/32579043730.html?spm=2114.30010308.3.177.FwQupi&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_6,searchweb201644_3_505_506_503_504_502_10014_10001_10002_10016_10005_10006_10003_10004,searchweb201560_5,searchweb1451318400_-1,searchweb1451318411_6451&btsid=98ca3a07-3616-4211-b03a-66057105b8dd

which is not the normal case from my experience

I have several of these that I use for current measurements only.  I do not feel bad if I screw up and they are accurate for current measurements within specs

[daybyter]

This version has no buzzer? But you can get them same with a continuity buzzer.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/1pc-Digital-Multimeter-with-Buzzer-Voltage-Ampere-Meter-Test-Probe-DC-AC-LCD-/141748271704?nav=SEARCH

[MrSlack]

Poundland here in the UK sold one for £1 (duh) which works out at the moment about $1.44. I blew the one I bought up in about 5 minutes flat by sticking it on ohms and jamming it in a socket to see what would happen (why I bought it). Loud pop and that was it.

[rrinker]

 Can't be any different from the Centech which Harbor Freight gives away for free.
I have a half dozen or so of those, work great for low voltage non precision stuff like model railroads. I've seen the very same thing being hawked by others for as much as $15 - insane!

[MrSlack]

I'm in the wrong business for certain if that's the markup!

[tooki]

Nah, sell cables at retail. Take an ordinary USB cable for instance. Even a name brand cable like Belkin costs only around $2 wholesale in small quantities*. Retailers then sell those for $30. Huge retailers like best buy no doubt get deep discounts on account of buying thousands (maybe millions?) of them at a time.

*Real world example from when I was working at a little computer shop in 1999, when USB was still fairly new. We'd buy just 10 Belkin cables at a time from Ingram Micro and they were still only @$2. We sold them for $12, while CompUSA charged over double for the same item.

[crispy_tofu]

There's even a UL-listed multimeter of that kind. Why anyone would buy it, I have no idea.   

[ez24]

Why anyone would buy it, I have no idea.   

They are cheap and accurate and work and most surprising last (not as long as a $500 Fluck).  Four reasons to buy one.  I am sure there are more reasons.

[Brumby]

... if it dies, you're out the cost of a cheap lunch - not a mortgage payment.

(Observation not so much on the financial cost - but the stress reaction.)

[xrunner]

I have one in my car and one in the shed. I got them free at Harbor Freight on certain sales events. If it's a non-critical and low voltage basic measurement they are OK. I just throw 'em out if they stop working.

[MrSlack]

To be honest I did from 1994 to 2010 with no brand multimeters. They work pretty well. I had to live on a rather extreme budget for many years. They teach you some tricks to avoid crazy burden voltages and relatively low impedance inputs. Also measured up to 10kv, RF power, approx frequency, capacitance and inductance with some home made adapters.

[crispy_tofu]

Why anyone would buy it, I have no idea.   

They are cheap and accurate and work and most surprising last (not as long as a $500 Fluck).  Four reasons to buy one.  I am sure there are more reasons.

I meant the UL-listed DT830...
I do agree that these multimeters are really handy, but if you wanted safety and reliability, these multimeters wouldn't fit the bill. 

[AlxDroidDev]

AFAIK, all the xx830 DMMs are the same, aren't they?

I also have one and it was my first and only DMM for several years, for 2 reasons: (a) I was on a really tight budget and (b) I didn't know better. Neverthless, this little bastard did help me for quite a while!

[rrinker]

 Should be, they probably build them all to the reference design.

It all depends on what you need it for. If you need the precision of a 6.5 digit meter, you would never use this junk. For my model railroad stuff, all I care about is if it's in a reasonable range - since the signal is a varying duty cycle square wave, getting an absolute accurate reading isn't easy even with an expensive meter, but all I really care about is that the reading is consistent in all areas so I don't have weird speed variations. If the meter reads 5V, or 20V, I know something is wrong. If it reads somewhere around 12V, it's good - 11.9, 12.4, 13.2, I don't care - as long as everywhere I take a reading it is that same value. For that, these el cheapo/freebies work great. If I knock it on the floor and it breaks, or if a blob of solder falls on the display - no big loss, just pull out a spare and carry on. Even these meters beat my very first one - it was the little blue cheapie KIT analog one from Radio Shack. Might have been about $8 US at the time. It MIGHT have had a 1K input impedance. But very fancy, it had the mirror through the scale so you could correct for parallax.

[Rick Law]

I've two of them on my table.  Normally one measures V-out of my PSU and the other DT830 measures mV over my 0.1 ohm current sense resistor.

As needed, I may remove it from my PSU and use that as a DMM.

It has better than 1% accuracy with DMM-Check-Plus as the reference.

Great little DMM.

[crispy_tofu]

AFAIK, all the xx830 DMMs are the same, aren't they?

My school has two types of these DMMs and they're about the same. There are a few differences though, like input jack sizes and battery access from the back (one is internal, the other has the slide-out one). 

[karoru]

I've bought this one of ~2$ in Poland (at the local hardware store), mainly because it included 9V battery - I needed one and random brand one costed more than the "meter" with battery included. For the negative price it's pretty awesome (I've tested 2V and 20V DC range) - well within 1% spec. If it had a buzzer I'd keep it for continuity testing, Funny thing, there's a place on PCB to actually put a fuse in it, but they decided to skip it - it probably depends on local market regulations whether you need a fuse on that mA range or not

[sarepairman2]

... if it dies, you're out the cost of a cheap lunch - not a mortgage payment.

(Observation not so much on the financial cost - but the stress reaction.)

what kind of lunch do you eat? i have like 8-20$ lunches.

gotta have that imported prosciutto and starfruit bro, food is nice!

omg people used to spend like their whole day hunting/farming and now we work all day and try to eat for like 0.0002% of our income. wtf!