Products > Test Equipment
Brymen BM 235 Startup issues
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jordanp123:
My BM235 just started doing the same thing. Although I can't even get mine to fully boot. It'll just come up to the start up screen with the display test and never leave. If I up the voltage it'll eventually give me the inEr message and beep but thats all. This was actually a spare meter I bought for just in the occasions I needed multiple meters....which was yesterday. Any one have any ideas?
slburris:
In fact my BM235 is displaying the same symptoms.  Changed to fresh batteries, no dice, hangs in bootup.  So sad that it's
having problems -- it hasn't been abused in any way, but it's broken now.  Does the firmware bit rot over time?  Who knows.  When I press the HOLD key at power up, it displays "C", so it's not fully dead.

Oh well, guess I'll use my Fluke meter for now, as I am not up to trying to troubleshoot this down to the component level right now.
J-R:
Surely the first step is take it apart and clean the wipers and contacts?
cbianco:
My EEVBlog BM235 just started doing the same thing as well: it starts up, but gets stuck on the LCD test screen and is completely unresponsive.  If I hold down the HOLD key at startup, mine shows 9, which I think is just the firmware version.

I tried fresh batteries, checked fuses, took it apart, did a visual inspection of the board, cleaned the wipers & contacts, and scoured google for solutions.  This thread seems is the only place where I found the same issue mentioned, so adding my observations:

I found a highly impractical workaround, at least for my case: I noticed is that if I hooked it up to a DC power supply, and LOWERED the voltage to about 2.1 volts, it started up normally (albeit with a low battery warning and a dim screen)...  Turning the voltage back up to 3V got it behaving properly as far as I can tell, but the problem returned after powering it off.  I could also get it to start up properly if I very briefly disconnected the battery (probably because that briefly dropped the voltage via some partially-discharged capacitor)... so maybe the problem has to do with some transient voltage during startup(?) - maybe a capacitor that' s not charging?  I'm a mech eng, so out of my depth with this stuff, but maybe that can help someone smarter than me to properly diagnose the problem...
wraper:
^Seems more like it fails some sort of self testing but lowering the voltage lets it pass. Try to get it working and check if all functions are within spec to possibly narrow down the issue.
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