Author Topic: Handheld meter robustness testing (Read 1158943 times)

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3900 on:** December 10, 2020, 01:09:16 am »

New shipment is on it's way. Hope to have a part 4 in a couple of weeks.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3901 on:** December 12, 2020, 12:31:32 am »

We are back in business.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3902 on:** December 12, 2020, 10:44:14 pm »

Testing is moving along. Blowing the dust off the old test setup.

tautech · « **Reply #3903 on:** December 12, 2020, 10:53:26 pm »

rsjsouza · « **Reply #3904 on:** December 13, 2020, 01:31:43 am »

Eager to see the results, joe.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3905 on:** December 13, 2020, 02:53:47 am »

My plan is to jam the remaining tests into one final video.

The last time I ran this test, I literally destroyed the meter I was looking at. Outside of that one broken contact on the BM869s, it held up very well to the abuse. We know Brymen runs a similar test in-house so I am not expecting any surprises, but that's why we test them.

Cliff Matthews · « **Reply #3906 on:** December 13, 2020, 01:24:33 pm »

Joe, any chance you could ask Brymen if they'd ever produce a meter with Polarity swapping diode check?

I think this could require big changes to a meter's front-end, but I'd love to see if the FLIR DM92/3 would "come-a-gutza" under your hands! At this level it competes with Fluke, so if we could get Flir to send you one, it would be nice to know if the switch can take a good beating too. I bet you'd knock it out with the grill starter and send them back to the drawing board

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3907 on:** December 13, 2020, 03:05:06 pm »

The channels far too small and I doubt I would have much influence with Brymen or any other company.

It's also never going to be a feel good channel where I just talk about how great the products are and give them all five stars. No company is going to want to see me looking at their products unless they have their shit together.

Maybe if you could get enough people to agree on features, you could go to them with the data. I wonder what Flir's feedback had been. I use diode check for a quick diode and transistor test. I want to know that when I reverse it, the junction is open. I will commonly use it to determine the pinout and if its NPN or PNP. This switching doesn't seem like a well thought out idea. More a marketing gimmick that did more harm than good. Maybe you can shut it off. That or use the resistor manual range. Nice thing about the resistor mode, you may find a leaking part that you may not find with a standard diode test.

You could use a small step down transformer, resistor and scope. Get what ever voltage and current you want. Now you can see how it behaves. That odd ball Huntron I have works something like this. I have the software for it now but have yet to do anything with it outside of scratch my head when I look at it.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3908 on:** December 13, 2020, 03:52:05 pm »

One fifth of the way into the test. That's 10,000 full rotations, not that half rotation stuff. I use my old HP 34401A to monitor the contact resistance directly. If you are a fan of using post it notes to explain how to interpret the data, I have left the scales off the graph to make you feel more comfortable.

I never did figure out what those numbers meant.

rsjsouza · « **Reply #3909 on:** December 13, 2020, 05:23:32 pm »

Nice! Any grinding sounds yet?

I know, I know, I need to watch when it comes out, but the curiosity is killing me...

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3910 on:** December 13, 2020, 06:20:52 pm »

After listening to the brand new Fluke 87V grind and chatter, Keysight's choice of a glass filled plastic spring cracking all four prongs, or Dave's 121 GW turning to dust, I fully understand why you would ask.

This is the third Brymen product I have life cycled and based on the first two, I doubt we will see anything like this.

Cliff Matthews · « **Reply #3911 on:** December 13, 2020, 07:03:10 pm »

That's one classic but scary picture Joe. Just the thing needed for a handheld ball of plasma.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3912 on:** December 13, 2020, 08:39:36 pm »

I doubt anyone expected much from the little ANENG meter's switch. The UNI-T UT210Es I know people have bought are slowly failing due to their switches going intermittent. I've seen three of them now. Look at all the switch problems with the 121GW. With so many combinations of shims and contact styles, that meter went through a lot of revisions and it still turned to dust. Of the nine meters I have life cycled, the Fluke 17B+ out performed them all.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3913 on:** December 14, 2020, 07:57:53 pm »

A bit over 30,000 full cycles now. Poor meter.

***

It's been running almost two and a half days now. It's very close to being finished.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3914 on:** December 16, 2020, 01:21:45 pm »

Life cycle testing is complete. I still have two more tests that need to be ran and then the long boring task of compressing a solid week into an hour...

Getting close.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3915 on:** December 17, 2020, 01:58:16 pm »

A bit of a spoiler but should hold a few of you over until we get things finished up.

What's some of the new Brymen meter's contacts look like after 50,000 full cycles or it you like, Dave's 100,000 cycles? I think it's pretty clear, it's no Aneng.

I had ran across another small problem during my testing and they have sent out and update that should arrive very soon. I have ran enough tests on the meter now that I am confident this will be the last of it. The Brymen engineers have really been doing a great job keeping up the pace.

Of course, the firmware updates have been a bit of a pain. So if you're wondering if the old white haired EE can still solder...

rsjsouza · « **Reply #3916 on:** December 17, 2020, 03:57:32 pm »

It's no Aneng indeed. Quite the impressive contrast.
Regarding the firmware, you are the perfect beta tester- I could only dream of having this level of scrutiny in my previous job.

Cliff Matthews · « **Reply #3917 on:** December 17, 2020, 08:50:30 pm »

That white haired EE sure solders-up some sexy looking fillet's

Do we get to see this hard work before Christmas?

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3918 on:** December 18, 2020, 01:44:17 am »

Assuming the parts show up soon and this last round of testing goes smoothly, I think we are about a week out.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3919 on:** December 22, 2020, 01:34:55 pm »

I noticed yesterday that someone had started up a non-related discussion inside this thread, I'm guessing to get noticed. Today it was moved into it's own area. As far as I know, that was a first for this thread. I assume the sudden interest in keeping this thread clean is because the focus has been on what should be a new EEVBLOG product. Anyway, I appreciate the help.

I checked the tracking for the latest updates and it shows the package was delivered. We haven't had any problems with shipping before but with Christmas around the corner, shipping can be a bit of a problem. Hopefully it was just transfered to another local carrier and the package is still in transit.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3920 on:** December 22, 2020, 08:18:47 pm »

Our neighbor received some strange package. They don't have the best of eyesight, and after opening it and seeing the little anti static bags, gave us a call.

Time to warm up the iron one last time.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3921 on:** December 23, 2020, 02:13:04 am »

Not enough coffee and I wasn't paying attention to where the iron was. One meter has had 4 ICs installed on it and it's starting to take a toll on the copper.

All three meters are back together and I ran back through all the tests off camera. It looks like Brymen has a good handle on it. Time to finish up this testing.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3922 on:** December 27, 2020, 06:17:43 pm »

The spreadsheet has also been updated to include the Brymen BM786.

Quote

Does any brymen meter beep in diode mode like fluke

Apparently this person believes Fluke only makes one product or that all Fluke products behave the same.

At least one person noticed that I demonstrated the diode beep mode and there's always the manual.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3923 on:** June 23, 2021, 11:22:11 am »

This person has a few videos covering the basics on generators. Keep in mind, by design I ignore the current waveform requirements and limit the energy to about 20J and I wanted something programmable.

Check out his channel if you want to learn more about it.

joeqsmith · « **Reply #3924 on:** July 20, 2021, 11:57:32 am »

Brymen are sending the parts to update my BM789 to the latest revision. Once these arrive, I plan to go ahead with the review.

***
The parts have arrived. One step closer.

***
Getting ready to replace the controller with the latest firmware.


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Author Topic: Handheld meter robustness testing (Read 1158943 times)

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