Author Topic: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues  (Read 669969 times)

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Offline jolshefsky

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #325 on: July 17, 2018, 09:22:56 pm »
I got my meter the other day and I have to say it is quite amazingly feature-packed! I'm quite impressed overall and am pleased to have been able to help fund its creation.

Alas, I hate to jump right into issues, but, well that's what this post is about. I'm going to focus on user interface for a bit as I shouldn't be spending this much time explaining ...

The first thing I'd like to see is a proper bug database. I have done zero research on this (in other words, sorry if you already looked into it and it's not feasible), but I hope you'd all agree that a 14-page (and growing) list of bugs is not ideal. I was hoping to be able to search for what's already reported, being worked on, and if it's fixed (or won't ever be fixed).

I'd like to echo darik's comment about the red on the silkscreen labels around the dial being hard-to-read. I'll go further and talk about the whole appearance... The labels on the probe connections seem fine to me. The 8 top buttons need some rethinking in my opinion. RANGE/15V-▶|- and HOLD/AutoHOLD buttons access the alternate functions—written above—by extra presses but the RELΔ/▲/<1KHz 1ms PEAK/▼/BT buttons access their alternate-functions—written below—by press-and-hold.

If I were to vote, I'd say to keep "RANGE", "HOLD", "MODE", "MIN/MAX", and "SETUP" labels. I'd change "RELΔ" to "REL•⬆" as Δ is redundant—or "Δ/⬆" if you want to be all symbolic. I'd change "1ms PEAK" to "PEAK•⬇". In both cases, I'd move the alternate functions above the buttons. Change the "MEM" button to "log→SD" so I'm not thinking about a memory store on a calculator.

The setup functions are kind of a mess. Most need you to hold SETUP to confirm a setting which is okay, but then there's the unique ID selection where you push SETUP once to advance to the next digit, but the very similar date/time settings need a press-and-hold. (On a side note, my meter arrived set to the date 2073 ... I guess it's very advanced. I had to check the manual to realize that's the year.)

OK, I'll stop now ... this is getting way to involved and I've invested a solid 40 minutes already getting those arrow characters in there ...
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Offline exe

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #326 on: July 18, 2018, 07:17:11 am »
I can maintain issues database, if needed. Just not sure how. In my opinion there are not that many issues, so a simple spreadsheet (google drive?) or even a post here would be suitable to do the job.
 

Offline IanJ

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #327 on: July 18, 2018, 12:33:03 pm »
I see some people commented on this earlier, but mine showed up and I'm a little concerned about the viewing angles on the screen. I had to adjust the contrast up to the max value but it didn't help with the angle. Looking straight on, or sitting on the desk propped up on the tilting bale the display looks pretty hazy. This is accentuated if you're looking down at it. You really have to be looking at it from a very shallow angle, more or less looking up at the screen, to make it look crisp. In person it's much more pronounced than the pictures, but they were the best I could get and should get the point across. These pictures are with the backlight on, but there is no difference when it's off.

Hi,

Standing at my 94cm high workbench with the meter 40cm in from front edge the LCD is a little blurry. In effect I am looking at it very slightly tilted forward from the face on position......but to be fair my Fluke's are the same. For me, I might modify the tilting bale so the meter sits a little flatter.

I also think the transparent window should be slightly bigger or at the very least pull the segments (temp display etc) down a few mm in order the tops are not chopped off......but better the window is enlarged to allow more natural light onto the LCD and to minimize the shadows.

Other than slower than I would have likes auto-ranging in AUTO mode it's a great DMM for the price......and at the mo I'm trying to use it as my go-to meter.

Ian.
Ian Johnston - Manufacturer of the PDVS2mini & author of the free WinGPIB app.
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YT Channel (electronics repairs & projects): www.youtube.com/user/IanScottJohnston, Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/IanSJohnston
 

Offline mmagin

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #328 on: July 18, 2018, 07:51:12 pm »
WRT the ohms autoranging situation, the thing that kind of annoys me, and you can see it in Dave's video; is that it seems to always display a spurious value in the 5-50 Mohm range first, even though the resistance is much smaller, before blanking the display as it autoranges.  My Fluke 179 doesn't display a false reading like that while autoranging (haven't yet had a change to try out my various bench meters).
 
Nice meter otherwise though!
 

Online lowimpedance

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #329 on: July 19, 2018, 01:26:21 am »
WRT the ohms autoranging situation, the thing that kind of annoys me, and you can see it in Dave's video; is that it seems to always display a spurious value in the 5-50 Mohm range first, even though the resistance is much smaller, before blanking the display as it autoranges.  My Fluke 179 doesn't display a false reading like that while autoranging (haven't yet had a change to try out my various bench meters).
 
Nice meter otherwise though!
Others have noted this above and yeah its something that should be fixed for a more 'polished' feel to the meter.
And as been remarked by others the red ink is not a good choice on the range switch etc. very hard for my aging eyes to see what is printed next to the white. Of course I will live with it but for future units it would be good idea to try alternate colors with better contrast say yellow or orange etc, as used by Keysight and Fluke. No issues visually for me quickly knowing whats printed on the meters I have from these manufacturers.
The odd multimeter or 2 or 3 or 4...or........can't remember !.
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #330 on: July 20, 2018, 10:59:39 pm »
Auto-range broken on V1.22

At work I'm measuring resistance and the auto-range cycles for ever. If I remember correctly there was an issue with this in the past and it was fixed with firmware change

In my case there is a capacitor that gets charged when measuring resistance. I did the same test with a Fluke in auto-range with no problem

Any comments ?

David DLC
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #331 on: July 20, 2018, 11:14:45 pm »
More issues with auto-range

I have a 27.8K resistor connected to the meter.

- When measuring the resistance in auto-range, the values displayed are all over the places, the range is changing and the decimal point is changin
- Then I record the values using the MEM function, when I read back the values they are correct 27.8K but...
- When MEM is showing the values, the decimal point moves, this decimal point is moved by the autorange getting crazy and running on the background probablly

David DLC
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #332 on: July 20, 2018, 11:32:06 pm »
Another issue with V1.22

When I measure the mains frequency, on the Frequency range, the temperature measurement goes crazy and after a while it stabilizes.

David DLC
 

Offline HKJ

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #333 on: July 21, 2018, 09:45:55 am »
Firmware V1.22: 10VDC on DC+AC confuses the autorange and it will not show a value, instead it ranges up/down all the time.
 

Offline HKJ

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #334 on: July 21, 2018, 11:53:01 am »
Firmware V1.22: mA range with burden voltage display on: Changing current from 5mA to 50mA (or 1mA to 10mA) will not change to 50mA range
Similar problem in uA and A.

Manual is not clear, the selection is: Hold SETUP, press arrow, hold SETUP, press SETUP
Changing range will clear the burden voltage setting.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2018, 12:04:39 pm by HKJ »
 

Offline HKJ

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #335 on: July 21, 2018, 03:13:54 pm »
Firmware v1.22: Leaving 1ms peak capture will always change to auto range (min/max returns to previous setting)
 

Offline HKJ

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #336 on: July 21, 2018, 03:33:36 pm »
Firmware v1.22: High DC voltage can block for AC reading: 320VDC+120VAC -> Display shows below 1VAC sometimes.
 

Offline AdamHi

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #337 on: July 22, 2018, 10:56:07 pm »
Inaccurate on DC mA measures in the Auto and 5 mA ranges when reading 1.00 mA DC.

Got my meter this week, updated to U 1.22. Batteries at 6.0 V. Burden voltage off.

I wanted to confirm the meter was at least close to spec using my DMMCheck Plus.

Everything ok, except having significant issues with the 1.00 mA DC standard. On Auto DC mA, i get readings ranging from 0.46mA, to nearly there at 0.953 (every time I change back to Auto, i get a completely different reading ). If i change range to 5mA range, I get the similar varying and inaccurate readings. When I change down to the 50 mA range (the one showing 3 places after decimal), it's fine at 0.998, and consistent every time.

It is consistently fine on the 1mA AC standard.  Voltage and resistance readings all fine. It's just the mA readings on Auto or 5 mA DC range.  I'm baffled.

Do I have a lemon  :scared:?

--adam

« Last Edit: July 22, 2018, 11:21:11 pm by AdamHi »
 

Offline Seppy

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #338 on: July 23, 2018, 12:43:01 am »
Inaccurate on DC mA measures in the Auto and 5 mA ranges when reading 1.00 mA DC.

Got my meter this week, updated to U 1.22. Batteries at 6.0 V. Burden voltage off.

I wanted to confirm the meter was at least close to spec using my DMMCheck Plus.

Everything ok, except having significant issues with the 1.00 mA DC standard. On Auto DC mA, i get readings ranging from 0.46mA, to nearly there at 0.953 (every time I change back to Auto, i get a completely different reading ). If i change range to 5mA range, I get the similar varying and inaccurate readings. When I change down to the 50 mA range (the one showing 3 places after decimal), it's fine at 0.998, and consistent every time.

It is consistently fine on the 1mA AC standard.  Voltage and resistance readings all fine. It's just the mA readings on Auto or 5 mA DC range.  I'm baffled.

Do I have a lemon  :scared:?

--adam

Perhaps a lemon lets see.
1. Can you take a photo/s of your setup, with enough angles to fully describe the test setup?
2. Can you place a second meter in series with the measurement to confirm the current is what it claims at the moment it is tested?
 

Offline AdamHi

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #339 on: July 23, 2018, 05:44:25 am »
. . . .
Everything ok, except having significant issues with the 1.00 mA DC standard. On Auto DC mA, i get readings ranging from 0.46mA, to nearly there at 0.953 (every time I change back to Auto, i get a completely different reading ). If i change range to 5mA range, I get the similar varying and inaccurate readings. When I change down to the 50 mA range (the one showing 3 places after decimal), it's fine at 0.998, and consistent every time.

It is consistently fine on the 1mA AC standard.  Voltage and resistance readings all fine. It's just the mA readings on Auto or 5 mA DC range.  I'm baffled.

Do I have a lemon  :scared:?

--adam

Perhaps a lemon lets see.
1. Can you take a photo/s of your setup, with enough angles to fully describe the test setup?
2. Can you place a second meter in series with the measurement to confirm the current is what it claims at the moment it is tested?
Here are several pictures:
1) Overview - Connections visible . From DMMCheck --> 121GW --> Amprobe AM-270
2) 0.84  , 
3) 0.94,   
4) 0.98  : mA readings all on either Auto or 5 mA DC range.
5) 50mA Range : on 50mA range - good read.
6) AC Range : (with 1mA AC standard) - good read.
7) DMMCheck : How the DMMCheck is set

Let me know if you need more detailed photos. I did notice during the photo shoot that on the problem range (5 mA DC), the meter was sensitive to lead movement - but the other meter stayed rock solid, and so did the 121GW on the 50 mA range. And it wasn't a faulty lead.
 

Offline Frank_22

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #340 on: July 23, 2018, 02:19:53 pm »
Hello! Maybe somebody knows how this multimeter measures weak signals. We must measure a signal in a range 10-30 millivolts. Is it possible to do with this multimeter?
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #341 on: July 23, 2018, 06:06:56 pm »
Fw. 1.22

Based on what I have seen on my problem when measuring resistance with a capacitor on the circuit:

- Using manual range, it will take longer time to measure the resistance due the capacitor being charged
- Because it will take longer time to measure the resistance, now the auto-range will not work, because the auto-range was modified to make it to work faster.

But my Fluke will work fine on auto-range


This auto-range feature is giving some headaches

David
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #342 on: July 23, 2018, 08:58:56 pm »
Dave on his videos complains and makes fun of products not working and gives them the tumbs down.

Well, now he needs to fix his 121GW that does not work properly.

My concerns with fw. 1.22

- When measure resistance with some capacitance the auto-range loops forever, Fluke does not do that
- When measuring frequency on mains, the temperature readings go crazy
- When shorting the leads, the buzzer is missed most of the times
- When reading the memory values, and the meter is on auto-range loop (wrong) the decimal point on the memory values shown moves

More to come ? Hopefully not

David



 

Offline dcac

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #343 on: July 23, 2018, 09:16:26 pm »
Auto-Hold issues (FW 1.22), I notice there already are some reports on this, but anyway.

I can't get Auto-Hold to work properly in Resistance mode. Measuring resistance in it self works fine but using Auto-Hold I get totally wrong values. It seems to be related to Auto-range because selecting a manual range Auto-Hold seems to work (within that range), but in Auto-Range my 121GW will beep as if it captured the reading but the value it displays is totally wrong.

 

Offline tsman

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #344 on: July 23, 2018, 09:23:59 pm »
The default contrast setting on mine (4) was way too low though, I have mine set at max (7) and do wish it would go a little higher.
Same with mine. The default 4 was far too low if viewed straight on. The max 7 is about 90% of the way there but 1 more notch would have made it perfect. There seems to be significant variation in the LCDs if some are okay with 4.
 

Offline techy101

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #345 on: July 23, 2018, 09:25:40 pm »
The default contrast setting on mine (4) was way too low though, I have mine set at max (7) and do wish it would go a little higher.
Same with mine. The default 4 was far too low if viewed straight on. The max 7 is about 90% of the way there but 1 more notch would have made it perfect. There seems to be significant variation in the LCDs if some are okay with 4.

Mine also has to be at full and I still have to have it nearly laying flat on the desk to see it. Straight on it's very dim and fuzzy.
 

Offline darik

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #346 on: July 23, 2018, 09:28:17 pm »
The default contrast setting on mine (4) was way too low though, I have mine set at max (7) and do wish it would go a little higher.
Same with mine. The default 4 was far too low if viewed straight on. The max 7 is about 90% of the way there but 1 more notch would have made it perfect. There seems to be significant variation in the LCDs if some are okay with 4.

I think there must be, I have mine set to 6 and it's pretty much black straight on. It's also at its darkest looking from maybe 15° below straight on, not way low like it seems to be for some people here.
 

Offline DavidDLC

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #347 on: July 23, 2018, 10:17:19 pm »
Voltage measurement DC + AC  Auto-range loops forever

David DLC
 

Offline IanB

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #348 on: July 23, 2018, 10:22:22 pm »
Auto-Hold issues (FW 1.22), I notice there already are some reports on this, but anyway.

I can't get Auto-Hold to work properly in Resistance mode. Measuring resistance in it self works fine but using Auto-Hold I get totally wrong values. It seems to be related to Auto-range because selecting a manual range Auto-Hold seems to work (within that range), but in Auto-Range my 121GW will beep as if it captured the reading but the value it displays is totally wrong.

This I also observe. My impression is that it was working better until people complained it was too slow. In the attempts to speed it up it seems to have got broken. I would prefer if it went back to being slow and reliable.
 

Offline dcac

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Re: EEVblog 121GW Multimeter Issues
« Reply #349 on: July 23, 2018, 10:39:51 pm »
Auto-Hold issues (FW 1.22), I notice there already are some reports on this, but anyway.

I can't get Auto-Hold to work properly in Resistance mode. Measuring resistance in it self works fine but using Auto-Hold I get totally wrong values. It seems to be related to Auto-range because selecting a manual range Auto-Hold seems to work (within that range), but in Auto-Range my 121GW will beep as if it captured the reading but the value it displays is totally wrong.

This I also observe. My impression is that it was working better until people complained it was too slow. In the attempts to speed it up it seems to have got broken. I would prefer if it went back to being slow and reliable.

It would be interesting to know if it ever were working properly i.e. in the earliest firmware. It seems very bad if Auto-Hold was broken trying to speed the meter up, the meter isn't exactly 'fast' even with FW 1.22.

 


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