Decided to Buy Brymen 869s - Help Me Avoid Buyers Remorse

[joeqsmith]

I have the calibration procedures for many if not most of the Brymen meters. If anyone want them please PM me.

Brymen had provided me with the alignment procedure for the BM869s under the strict pretense that I not release it, which I agreed.  Morally, I stand by my commitments.  I suspect the concern the companies have with letting this information loose is there are certain people that feel they can align a meter without having access to the tools needed.  They proceed to fuck up their meter, which is no big deal, but then they start posting about how inaccurate it is.  I imagine this could damage the companies reputation.   

(calibration and alignment are not the same thing....)

From Brymen:

Out of our practice, we can release our calibration data to user or calibration house only after we get his gentle promise that he will not release our calibration data to other. Can you and that calibration house promise this? 

My response:

Yes, we can make this promise that the alignment procedure would not be released to the general public.   

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/brand-new-bm869s-calibration/msg3472220/#msg3472220

[Lightages]

Brymen had provided me with the alignment procedure for the BM869s under the strict pretense that I not release it, which I agreed.  Morally, I stand by my commitments.  I suspect the concern the companies have with letting this information loose is there are certain people that feel they can align a meter without having access to the tools needed.  They proceed to fuck up their meter, which is no big deal, but then they start posting about how inaccurate it is.  I imagine this could damage the companies reputation.   

(calibration and alignment are not the same thing....)

Thanks for pointing that out. I reviewed my correspondence with Brymen and I too had agreed to not provide this information. I had forgotten that I had agreed to this stipulation.

Please accept my apologies for offering something I should not have.

[Fungus]

To clarify: A Fluke meter only has a secondary function on a few of the switch position, a Brymen has secondary and tertiary (even quaternary) functions on a lot of the selections. It

Brymen has the BM857s if you want a simple, "almost-function-per-position" meter to complete with a Fluke 87V.

"Dual display", etc., sounds like a cool feature but if you don't use it very often then it's just display clutter and OP has a Fluke 289 for that.

DC accuracy is on par with a BM869S.

I've had mine for about 8 years and as far as I can tell it's still accurate down the last digit in 50,000 count mode, and 500,000 count mode is pretty close. I don't believe any other Brymen will be superior in that respect.

Thinks I like:
Simplicity of the function selector, simplicity of the display
Really high-contrast/readable display (Flukes fall down a bit here IMHO)
Speed
Lights up any LED in diode mode


Things I don't:
Short backlight time, can't disable the timeout
The stand is maybe a bit small (although I don't use it much thanks to the good display angles)

Looks are a matter of taste but IMHO the Brymen "industrial" meters look better in person than the front-on pics they put on their web site, and their "curvy" meters look worse.

Also, as a business purchase, I would say the BM869s is not an expensive tool. Rather than paying for a warranty, buy three 869's and compare them from time to time to make sure their readings align. If one happens to go wrong, recycle it and buy a replacement.

No need if OP owns Fluke 289's (plural)

[shapirus]

BTW another function where the BM869s does not shine is sub-nF capacitance meaurement. It just doesn't have enough resolution there: the lowest range, which is 50 nF, is way too high. So much so that I'd say that it's completely useless below ~100 pF and can only give a rough estimate below 1 nF -- you need a separate device to measure in these ranges.

[temperance]

BTW another function where the BM869s does not shine is sub-nF capacitance meaurement. It just doesn't have enough resolution there: the lowest range, which is 50 nF, is way too high. So much so that I'd say that it's completely useless below ~100 pF and can only give a rough estimate below 1 nF -- you need a separate device to measure in these ranges.

That applies to any handheld DMM. Holding the probes is enough to screw up any measurement below a few nF's.

How does the continuity beeper work? The only meter I've got with a descent response is a Fluke. All the others I've used are too slow and can not be used to track down bad contacts.

Do Brymen DMM's go up in smoke if it's on resistance and you plug into a wall socket? That will happen anyhow sooner or later.

[Fungus]

How does the continuity beeper work? The only meter I've got with a descent response is a Fluke.

Do Brymen DMM's go up in smoke if it's on resistance and you plug into a wall socket?

Brymens are as good as Flukes for both of those.

...or better. eg. The 869s mentioned in this thread has a CAT IV 1000V safety rating - higher than any Fluke.

[shapirus]

How does the continuity beeper work?

Perfectly.

Do Brymen DMM's go up in smoke if it's on resistance and you plug into a wall socket? That will happen anyhow sooner or later.

I believe I saw a vid where someone tested it, and the meter survived (as many decent DMMs do). Don't quote me on this though, better search yourself -- there has to be a lot of vids showing transient protection, user error protection etc.

[Fungus]

I believe I saw a vid where someone tested it, and the meter survived (as many decent DMMs do). Don't quote me on this though, better search yourself -- there has to be a lot of vids showing transient protection, user error protection etc.

There's also vids of people hooking them up to machines and turning the selector switch 100,000 times then looking for wear under a microscope.

Result: A Brymen is as good as a Fluke.

(And Keysights fall apart after a couple of thousand turns)

[joeqsmith]

BTW another function where the BM869s does not shine is sub-nF capacitance meaurement. It just doesn't have enough resolution there: the lowest range, which is 50 nF, is way too high. So much so that I'd say that it's completely useless below ~100 pF and can only give a rough estimate below 1 nF -- you need a separate device to measure in these ranges.

That applies to any handheld DMM. Holding the probes is enough to screw up any measurement below a few nF's.

The BM869s only has a 10pF resolution.  I've seen a few that offer 1pF.   Yes, you need to not only zero out the meter and keep your hands away, you may also have to add some capacitance to get the meter into it's measurement range.   

https://youtu.be/tmB_xdUjQoc?t=361

Do Brymen DMM's go up in smoke if it's on resistance and you plug into a wall socket? That will happen anyhow sooner or later.

I have not looked at every Brymen DMM and can't answer that.  However, the ones I have looked at will certainly survive as I have demonstrated many times.

[shapirus]

That applies to any handheld DMM.

Not exactly any. A counterexample is a super cheap Uni-T UT33A+, which has a usable 2 nF range.

Watch around 3:35:



I don't know for sure, but it can't be the only DMM with a low-nF capacitance range.

Holding the probes is enough to screw up any measurement below a few nF's.

Yes, but that's irrelevant to not having a sufficiently low range.

[Fungus]

There's also vids of people hooking them up to machines and turning the selector switch 100,000 times then looking for wear under a microscope.

Oooh, Joe's here...

Just to be clear, that's 50,000 times to the far end of the dial then 50,000 times back again.

[temperance]

Superb, next meter will be a Brymen. That's if the Fluke fails because I don't need that many meters.

[joeqsmith]

Superb, next meter will be a Brymen. That's if the Fluke fails because I don't need that many meters.

The newer Fluke meters I have looked at have held up well to my tests.   I can't say that about their older products.

If yours is newer, I expect it will last you your life time, literally.   

[Fungus]

Superb, next meter will be a Brymen. That's if the Fluke fails because I don't need that many meters.

You should turn in your EEVBLOG membership card immediately.

[Lightages]

For what is worth, my opinion is that Brymen makes some of the best multimeters, and on top of that a better value than Fluke. Brymen is also the OEM for some Amprobe, Extech, Greenlee and other brands. I own 5 Brymen meters at the moment.

[temperance]

The newer Fluke meters I have looked at have held up well to my tests.   I can't say that about their older products.

It is a Fluke 11, about 30 years old and still correct when compared with a DMM6500.

[shapirus]

The newer Fluke meters I have looked at have held up well to my tests.   I can't say that about their older products.

It is a Fluke 11, about 30 years old and still correct when compared with a DMM6500.

I dare to assume that your usage pattern hasn't been quite like the tests that mr. Smith performs :)
Check https://www.youtube.com/@joesmith-je3tq/videos -- assuming of course that it's the same Joe Smith.

[temperance]

I dare to assume that your usage pattern hasn't been quite like the tests that mr. Smith performs

Of course not. The Fluke is a very simple yet practical with the push buttons, well build, easy to operate, doesn't eat batteries and does what a DMM has to do for many simple troubleshooting tasks.

I don't know how you use your meters. For a a simple bench meter for troubleshooting daily low power low voltage electronics, excluding ESD protection the test performed by Mr. Smith are not so relevant. If your job is taking measuring on a mains grid on a daily basis in large factories with extreme transients from switching heavy loads with mechanical means I agree that some descent over voltage protection isn't a luxury item. Those mechanical switches are the best transient generators on the planet with pico second rise time specifications. The same goes for ESD in large factories with machines winding up plastic foil at 150 m/s with sparks shooting trough concrete floors as if someone firing a gun next to you. Those sparks are deadly. Other parts of those machines can become charged as well and discharge into whatever comes near including wiring going into PLC's to operate those machines.

In comparison to that most people work with potato power and extreme protection isn't required. With respect to ESD one can hope that people in here know that you shouldn't operate a lab sitting on a glass chair dressed in sheep's wool. At least that's not what I prefer.

I do like the tests performed by Mr. Smith. Nonetheless my requirements some interesting stuff can be learned from those tests.

Do I still have to turn in my EEVblog membership card?

[shapirus]

That's all true -- the average user will very likely never expose the meter to anything near the conditions of those tests.
I was just commenting that the fact that a 30 year old Fluke still works and measures correctly today is not necessarily relevant to what you quoted in that message, that is, that the newer Flukes withstand harsh transient testing better than the old ones.

[joeqsmith]

The newer Fluke meters I have looked at have held up well to my tests.   I can't say that about their older products.

It is a Fluke 11, about 30 years old and still correct when compared with a DMM6500.

My first DMM was a Fluke 8000A.  It's much older, was very expensive and also very sensitive to any transients.

Recently I found a Fluke 77 in the trash bin that was electrically functional.  While it proved to be more robust than my original Fluke, it was no match for their more modern meters.   

A friend gave me their Fluke 189 which I really like.  They got it from a friend of theirs who had passed away.  Since I have owned it, my friend also passed away.  I'm next in line....  I wanted to see how well that meter would hold up and bought a non-working one for little cash for the sole purpose of testing it.  Turned out to just be missing some parts and worked fine.  I ran a full set of tests on it and it held up fine.   Fluke now makes some of the most robust (electrically and mechanically) meters I have looked at.  This includes the meters they are having made in China.   

My testing has nothing to do with 61010 AC mains safety tests.  Those tests are performed with what is known as a combo generator.  These generators are spec'ed for and open circuit voltage waveform and a short circuit current waveform.   My generators do not produce any where near the energy required.  It's never been a goal to test them for safety.   Rather, I run very low energy transients more inline with what I may expose the meters to.   

[Majorassburn]

UPDATE:

Well, I hate threads where you never know what happened to the OP's question, etc.
I had originally decided to buy a Brymen 869s to hold me over until my DMM6500 arrived.

Well, after all the GREAT advice and experience that everyone shared with me here, I decided to put the 869s on hold.

Instead, after much research (EEV threads, u-tube vids and speaking with Sig Sales), I bought a Siglent SDM3055 instead. It will be shipped today from Siglent factory. They just got a new boatload of them in last week - hopefully, they'll have the latest firmware, bug fixes, etc.

Why did I?  Because this value-priced DMM will probably always live on the prototyping bench where the Brymen was going to reside. I gave up portability and a few features for about the same $$$ outlay and I don't have to change batteries. Both great options but practicality prevailed because we have several new Fluke 87V's for portability.

That's it. I'm like a woman in a shoe store. I have trouble choosing my final pair because all the others look so good, too. Besides, I suffer from pre and post purchase anxiety even when at the grocery store trying to decide whether to get the small size or the large size box of Cheerios! I tremble with Decisional Insecurity Syndrome! 

Thanks for all the input.  I'll report on my experience with the new Siglent after I get some time on it.
Major. 

[shapirus]

Instead, after much research (EEV threads, u-tube vids and speaking with Sig Sales), I bought a Siglent SDM3055 instead.

Its specs look quite good. Unless it has some stupid bugs and poor UI choices that could spoil user experience, it should work, especially since you seem to have needed a bench multimeter after all, not a hand-held one.

I gave up portability and a few features for about the same $$$ outlay

This is curious. I bought my BM869s locally for about $180 IIRC, and it can be had today, still locally, for below $250. The SDM3055 sells for no less than twice that price (actually more like x2.5). Sounds like Brymen's pricing is very flexible in terms of taking geography into account :).

[Fungus]

... for about the same $$$ outlay

Huh?

I can get three Brymens for the price of one of those.

[Majorassburn]

I stand corrected.  My hasty conversion from Euros to USD was way off. Well, I still think (hope) the Siglent will serve better on the prototype bench even though it's more expensive.

Of course, my next handheld will probably be the Brymen 869s unless Brymen comes out with an updated version of the 869.

Thanks for all the help. 

[rsjsouza]

Congratulations on your purchase and thank you for reporting back the resolution!

Lurking on such threads as always, and I can also vouch for the quality ans customer support from Brymen. I have a BM857 for ~12 years and not only it is still quite accurate but it carries a very simple but useful UI, a great contrast LCD and is very silent! That is in contrast with the beep-a-pa-looza of the majority of the modern chinese DMMs.

I also have a BM251 from Greenlee (DM200A) bought new from eBay, but Greenlee honors the lifetime warranty. Quite the robust meter and compact for those field jobs.