Handheld meter robustness testing

[tautech]

Even with 30 PSIG of intake pressure, the gasoline will ignite fairly easily.  Compare my MC-4 with a magneto.  I wonder how many HP it takes... 

Once the compression ratio nears 200 PSI and flooded with methanol things get interesting. The only way we could confirm a dodgy ignition system was to scope its outputs into the coil packs. We had some strong clues from the logging to work with and we could see strong correlations between boost, RPM, EGT's and the TPS. My mate just wanted to biff the module as the coil packs had already been swapped out but the flat spots at high motor stress still remained. This was a 13B so there were only two channels of leading and trailing but the leading set have the most influence on engine performance so it could be managed with just a 2ch scope and was an easy find with one channel being ~100V down so insufficient puff to light the plugs at full boost.
Had them chasing their tails for a bit until the electronics geek neighbor arrived and sorted them out. 

[joeqsmith]

That is the result of following the design recommendations from the datasheets only or had a extra touch?

That will nuke a DMM out of orbit for sure... That is required for superbikes? That will ignite wihout any flaws and a lot of HP.

No extra black magic.  I just took the time to read the data sheets and then looked at how the meter was designed.  There was a pretty obvious flaw that the designers should have caught when they tested it. 

This ignition is really designed for drag racing.  My bikes are fairly low power and using gasoline.     

We had some strong clues from the logging to work with and we could see strong correlations between boost, RPM, EGT's and the TPS.

 
Collecting data is part of the fun.. 

[tautech]

We had some strong clues from the logging to work with and we could see strong correlations between boost, RPM, EGT's and the TPS.

 
Collecting data is part of the fun.. 

Only when you know how to interpret it and act on the info gained ! 

[joeqsmith]

It's been a while.

[malagas_on_fire]

Lloooolll here a idiot means a person who has ideas and the ideia was correcting the sentence 

I comment about the special touch because the videos on the uni-t 61e and uni-t 181A that became more robust with your magic .

No wonder how the drag racing has that "violent" startup.  They almost could fly off the road.

There must be some complex telemetry regarding the engine and it's different stages waiting to be processed . 

[tautech]

Lloooolll here a idiot means a person who has ideas and the ideia was correcting the sentence 

I comment about the special touch because the videos on the uni-t 61e and uni-t 181A that became more robust with your magic .

No wonder how the drag racing has that "violent" startup.  They almost could fly off the road.

There must be some complex telemetry regarding the engine and it's different stages waiting to be processed . 

Not so much for the little guy as passes are so short so that all the data is logged and downloaded after a run.
The 'big time' guys will do it wirelessly to have it live and that gives them a timeline edge to make adjustments before the next run.
The stresses are phenomenal so many parameters are monitored now to provide the full picture of the many variables in getting consistently good runs.
It's a heap of fun to get involved in......addictive if you like. 

[tautech]

We had some strong clues from the logging to work with and we could see strong correlations between boost, RPM, EGT's and the TPS.

 
Collecting data is part of the fun.. 

Only when you know how to interpret it and act on the info gained ! 

The two main things I learned the most about from logging was tuning the clutch and keeping things lubricated.  AFR maybe next.   

Guys here in NZ log EGT's only so not to turn their 'investment' into a grenade ! 

[joeqsmith]

I have no one to send any live data to and just download after the fact.  I keep a database of all this data.

The stresses are phenomenal ...

...addictive if you like. 

Even with my bikes, I am amazed at how much stress some of the parts take.  I used to have a video showing the flex but YT flagged it for copyright.   Eventually I added more steel to the chassis to combat the flex as the bike was getting too difficult for me to ride.   Speed is addictive alright. 

[joeqsmith]

Lloooolll here a idiot means a person who has ideas and the ideia was correcting the sentence 

I comment about the special touch because the videos on the uni-t 61e and uni-t 181A that became more robust with your magic .

I didn't do much transient testing with this particular meter as I knew it would not hold up very well.  It's really designed for low voltage automotive use but it could not even handle that environment.   No doubt I could improve this meter but my goal was to just understand why it was so sensitive and would reset, then correct it.   

Noise from that ignition is pretty harsh but as you could see that BM869s handled it very well.  Brymen knows how to make a meter.   One day I will put the 121GW near it.   Even after changing the meter, it still did not perform as well as Brymen's little automotive meter.   My only complaint about the Brymen meter is that it does not store all the engine parameters on power down.  So for me, I have to change the setup every time I use the meter.   

[joeqsmith]

Now I had two dead meters. Two dead meters that cost me about $1000.

Article on the Fluke 189 & 187.
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/powersource/4458696/Dead-meters-expose-battery-terminal-design-issues

[rsjsouza]

Really interesting article; it exposes how many design choices can be seen differently by each person. The amusing rambling about opening the battery compartment certainly gave me a chuckle.

A few other things stroke me as quite strange; the dissatisfaction with the corrosion on the terminals, despite there were actual battery leakages; the claims the Klein meter does not measure the 1M\$\Omega\$ resistor, despite the specs mention up to 40M\$\Omega\$...

[IanB]

Clearly we need to see a meter hooked up to the ~10 kV circuit on the high side of a mains distribution transformer. Though it would have to be a disposable meter as I think it would be completely vaporized in a fireball of epic proportions...

What is the point here, of course the meter burns up and so does the person near it.
People have been killed connecting a Fluke 87 to 2.3kV MCC. Look at the Eddie Adams' Arc Flash Fatality Video.

If there is a point, it would be education. Many novices may get the impression that if you generate 30 kV from some kind of ignition transformer you get sparks across a spark gap. This may lead to the (wrong) deduction that a few tens of kilovolts produces sparks. Therefore if you hold something close to a transmission line carrying 10 kV or so then a few sparks will jump across the gap when you get close enough. I don't think I've seen a video that shows what actually happens in this case, when the source of high voltage has no current limit and near zero source impedance.

[joeqsmith]

Clearly we need to see a meter hooked up to the ~10 kV circuit on the high side of a mains distribution transformer. Though it would have to be a disposable meter as I think it would be completely vaporized in a fireball of epic proportions...

What is the point here, of course the meter burns up and so does the person near it.
People have been killed connecting a Fluke 87 to 2.3kV MCC. Look at the Eddie Adams' Arc Flash Fatality Video.

If there is a point, it would be education. Many novices may get the impression that if you generate 30 kV from some kind of ignition transformer you get sparks across a spark gap. This may lead to the (wrong) deduction that a few tens of kilovolts produces sparks. Therefore if you hold something close to a transmission line carrying 10 kV or so then a few sparks will jump across the gap when you get close enough. I don't think I've seen a video that shows what actually happens in this case, when the source of high voltage has no current limit and near zero source impedance.

You couldn't get your fill on YT?  There are so many videos of humans, monkeys, birds, snow ... getting across high voltage lines.  There were some pretty good educational videos put out by on of the power companies.  They had a portable transmission line that they would use for demonstrations.   

For my own personal use, I'm never near any source like this.  If I were, a handheld meter is not something I would have with me.      In this thread I am really only interested in a meter's ability to survive low energy transients.  It has morphed into drop, chemical resistance, life cycling and a few experiments with DC voltages.  I doubt I will ever show any testing using an actual AC main for a source.   

[malagas_on_fire]

You can get sparks easly on static discharges on you're car, on a shopping cart or even with two tiny 3,45VA back to back transformers that can be found on older cordless phones or cell phones ( e.g. nokia 5110 chargers) and i found that 6VA can do a good job in taking out a triac silently by the worst way  without tripping the multimeter and this is low power 230V isolated, so imagine novices using HV power sources and their meters ...


About the meters the Brymen, Fluke , Amprobe for example they make for electricians , so they have the experience and hard time on how to build a multimeter. Try the 121GW and the Brymen BM235 EEVdition

 
 One thing it would be good is to show some transients that can appear on the 230Vac line to demonstrate what multimeters are dealing in the field .

[joeqsmith]

You can get sparks easly on static discharges on you're car, on a shopping cart or even with two tiny 3,45VA back to back transformers that can be found on older cordless phones or cell phones ( e.g. nokia 5110 chargers) and i found that 6VA can do a good job in taking out a triac silently by the worst way  without tripping the multimeter and this is low power 230V isolated, so imagine novices using HV power sources and their meters ...


About the meters the Brymen, Fluke , Amprobe for example they make for electricians , so they have the experience and hard time on how to build a multimeter. Try the 121GW and the Brymen BM235 EEVdition
 
 One thing it would be good is to show some transients that can appear on the 230Vac line to demonstrate what multimeters are dealing in the field .

Imagine having a document of how every novice has damaged a meter.     I will be the first to admit, I damaged my poor analog Radio Shack meter several times doing all sorts of stupid things to it.    

At some point, I do plan to run a mature version of the 121GW.   I doubt that is going to happen this year like I had hoped.  Based on my initial tests on the prototype, I am not holding out much hope but then again, Dave mentioned they are making a change to the one clamp which I know is a weak section of the meter. 

I've seen pretty good results with Brymen, Fluke, HIOKI and the Gossen from a robustness stand point.  The AMPROBE AM530 did not do very well and the AM510 I consider the minimum.  I think both are UNI-T products.   I wonder about the AMPROBE pocket meter that True mentions having four dead ones.  Again, we have no way of knowing how their meters were treated but I am curious how it holds up compared the others I've looked at. 

Again, I doubt I will ever show actual AC line tests.  There is the cost to set up to run a test like this.  The generator, filters, blast shield...   If you go that far, you may as well have it all certified.  I suspect it would be more cost effective to rent a lab for a few days and just run several.   Cheapest and safest thing is just read about it and watch some videos.   Maybe you would want to take this on? 

[malagas_on_fire]

Hi

Forgot the Hioki really nice meter and Gossen it a shame for the sensitivity on EMC and the relay, because it would give a fine meter. The Amprobe's i'm talking about are 510 and 550 ( check this specs : http://www.amprobe.com/amprobe/usen/digital-multimeters/am-500-digital-multimeter-series/amp-am-550.htm?pid=74037).

Noted about the 230V, also read some stuff. I've notice a spike  of almost 1Kv on a 230V outlet years ago on first DMM scope.  (edit )I imagine exemplifying a very small isolation, with the triac to lower the energy and measure the voltage of the AC with a spark gap between two series terminals that would connect to a load , e.g. bulb but that's not a safe example

[joeqsmith]

This guy also experiments with various power line equipment.  Here he shows a cheap meter connected to one. 

[joeqsmith]

Looks like Voltlog put together a good overall review of the Brymen BM27s (AMPROBE PB55A) that True was posting about.  Looks like it's better than the pocketmeters I have looked at.  Lot's of slits in the board.  May be interesting to see how well it would hold up.
 

[malagas_on_fire]

This guy also experiments with various power line equipment.  Here he shows a cheap meter connected to one. 

This is good as my old rebranded mastech that blowed in my hand while reading the mains in AC voltage...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-aneng-q1-9999-counts/?action=dlattach;attach=458422

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-aneng-q1-9999-counts/?action=dlattach;attach=458389

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-aneng-q1-9999-counts/?action=dlattach;attach=458395

I have two pocket meters, being the protek A800 (1994 i believe ) the first multimeter and working and the last one an offered uni-t ut120c, which is quite handy to measure low energy stuff.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/show-your-multimeter!/?action=dlattach;attach=485816

Maybe a new batch of new pocket meters should meet the joeqsmith test JIG including the new ANENG 302

[stj]

Aneng 302??
never heard of it, that company is bringing out meters faster than i can keep up!!
i like the pen-style one btw.

[malagas_on_fire]

Here is the anouncement by Voltlog :

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/aneng-302-pocket-meter-by-voltlog/msg1732637/#msg1732637

It's been a while And it will do a good light show CATIII 300V.... yeah...

[joeqsmith]

This is good as my old rebranded mastech that blowed in my hand while reading the mains in AC voltage...

Hey, you have a way to test these meters.  Now we need to get you to start reviewing them without loosing a hand in the process.   

I've been watching some of the videos of the guy with the pole pig.  He talks about getting across one of the large caps.     Beyond making large arcs, I have not seen him doing anything with them.   

Personally, I liked some of PhotonicInduction's videos. 

[malagas_on_fire]

They just don't like much the mains voltage Well my memory that i had was the voltage 1536 on the display, a bang / flash. I think it will be simple by just leaving plugged into a mains socket inside a hollow explosion / fire container and let the camera take the shot., Maybe some wires to monitor the voltage. but definitly far away of  sight

Speaking of pole pigs .:



This is too dangerous ... ( edit) as well PhotonicInduction . put some DMM's extra and they will vaporize.

[joeqsmith]

A few questions and comments.

[joeqsmith]

Brand new Brymen / AMPROBE arrived.