I think we can trust the 17B for electrical safety as its built to Fluke standards, but for electronics, its accuracy is at the limits for low voltage electronics work. Of course, how often do you measure this low and need it to be accurate? There are other DMM as accurate for the same money but questionable safety, as we saw in the $100 DMM Shootout.
For example, I use NiMH cells and require a cutoff to be certain at 900mVdc, so I need accuracy down to 10mVdc at least but 100mVdc at worst.
The 17B can works but there is little room for error, its the accuracy; 1% for most ranges, not including plus digits. This makes this DMM mostly a 3 digit meter.
In Vac, a 1Vac will read 1.013 at worse, that makes the last 2 digits of the reading uncertain.
In Vdc, a 1Vdc will read 1.008 at worse, making the last digit uncertain.
In the 400mVac scale, the manual states accuracy is 3% + 3. This means if I send 400mVac it will read at worse 412.3mV making the last 3 digits uncertain in this scale. So the best accuracy is really 100mVac, the 1st digit of the 400mV scale, and not the stated 0.1mVac.
In the 400mVdc scale, the manual states accuracy is 1% + 10. This means if I send 400mVdc it reads at worse 405.0mV making the last 2 digits uncertain. So the best accuracy is really 10mVdc, the 1st 2 digits of the 400mV scale, and not the stated 0.1mVdc.
In the discussion we had about Uni-T meters, that many of their DMM near 0.16% as shown, but the low point of the Uni-T is the questionable CAT III level safety.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=533.msg7695#msg7695For comparison, I have the Fluke 87 specs. 400mVac reads best to 10mVac. In Vdc its 1mVdc. Of course the Fluke 87 is $300 vs the $100 for the 17B, but is 10x more accurate.
You can find more details in the
manual This series seems like a capable electrical meter compared to many lesser name brands.
But the specs are low for electronics work.
0.1mV, 0.1µA, 0.1Ω, 0.01nF? thats electronics i think 