Author Topic: If Brymen BM869s is cheaper and as good, why people would still buy Fluke?  (Read 194949 times)

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Offline Lightages

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Latched is supposed to make you hear a quick short, something you would miss on a non latched tester. Fast latched continuity is the way to go. Problem is most meters are slow at latching which gives latching a bad name. But fast continuity like on the 87 is superior to non-latching continuity testing.

A fast latched continuity tester is pleasant to listen to but how do you tell if you have a dirty contact?
The same way it detects quick shorts it detects quick opens. So it should still work the same. It's latching so it won't change the state as fast but at least you won't miss really short opens or shorts.

It is personal preference rather than a real benefit, IMHO.

Generally latched continuity tests I have experienced are either too slow, hold too long, smooth over intermittent connections, or all three. fluke has some of the best implementations and I would have no problems living with theirs, but I still prefer non-latched naked truth.

Fully agreed. I like Fluke's fast latched continuity test, but I had this one instance where it let me down:

I was diagnosing a problem an older function generator - it had an noisy amplitude on the output. I was checking continuity on the selector knob that handles the different amplitude intervals. Basically it has one ground-pin and 4 pins used for 0.01V, 0.1V, 1V and 10 V outputs. Testing with my Fluke 177 revealed no issued with the switch.

Eventually, testing with the Brymen immediately revealed a scratchy sound on the switch contacts when you fiddle with the knob - that meant they were dirty and required cleaning with some contact cleaner.

 

Offline Marco

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The same way it detects quick shorts it detects quick opens. So it should still work the same. It's latching so it won't change the state as fast but at least you won't miss really short opens or shorts.

If it's a simple latch&reset circuit the chance of detecting an intermittent open is small (it has to happen immediately after the reset period AND last long enough to be noticeable).
 

Offline Muxr

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The same way it detects quick shorts it detects quick opens. So it should still work the same. It's latching so it won't change the state as fast but at least you won't miss really short opens or shorts.

If it's a simple latch&reset circuit the chance of detecting an intermittent open is small (it has to happen immediately after the reset period AND last long enough to be noticeable).
I disagree, once latched it reacts to open just as fast, provided the reset period has passed (the point of a latch, so your human ears can detect fast changes). For instance I can take two perfectly clean probes and just swipe/rub them together, and I will get beeps, even though I was maintaining contact the entire time on perfectly clean probes. So this tells me it is a.) quick b.) very sensitive.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 06:07:31 pm by Muxr »
 

Offline Muxr

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Latched is supposed to make you hear a quick short, something you would miss on a non latched tester. Fast latched continuity is the way to go. Problem is most meters are slow at latching which gives latching a bad name. But fast continuity like on the 87 is superior to non-latching continuity testing.

A fast latched continuity tester is pleasant to listen to but how do you tell if you have a dirty contact?
The same way it detects quick shorts it detects quick opens. So it should still work the same. It's latching so it won't change the state as fast but at least you won't miss really short opens or shorts.

It is personal preference rather than a real benefit, IMHO.

Generally latched continuity tests I have experienced are either too slow, hold too long, smooth over intermittent connections, or all three. fluke has some of the best implementations and I would have no problems living with theirs, but I still prefer non-latched naked truth.

Fully agreed. I like Fluke's fast latched continuity test, but I had this one instance where it let me down:

I was diagnosing a problem an older function generator - it had an noisy amplitude on the output. I was checking continuity on the selector knob that handles the different amplitude intervals. Basically it has one ground-pin and 4 pins used for 0.01V, 0.1V, 1V and 10 V outputs. Testing with my Fluke 177 revealed no issued with the switch.

Eventually, testing with the Brymen immediately revealed a scratchy sound on the switch contacts when you fiddle with the knob - that meant they were dirty and required cleaning with some contact cleaner.
The advantages of a latched continuity test are self evident, beyond anecdotal evidence. So it's not just a preference.
 

Offline Marco

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I disagree, once latched it reacts to open just as fast, provided the reset period has passed (the point of a latch, so your human ears can detect fast changes).

That's how it would ideally work ... only latching shorts, but not opens, is a far more straightforward circuit to create though.
 

Offline Muxr

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I disagree, once latched it reacts to open just as fast, provided the reset period has passed (the point of a latch, so your human ears can detect fast changes).

That's how it would ideally work ... only latching shorts, but not opens, is a far more straightforward circuit to create though.
Yup, that's how it works on my 87V here. It fast latches on both shorts and opens.
 

Offline XFDDesign

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How many of you on this thread actually own a Brymen and a Fluke of the same class? I don't have a Brymen but plenty of Fluke. This thread makes me want a Brymen.

I would be curious to see what Brymen has to compete on the benchmeter space, but no one has suggested a thing. I actually have a few Fluke bench meters so I could do an A-to-B comparison.
 

Offline Lightages

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The advantages of a latched continuity test are self evident, beyond anecdotal evidence. So it's not just a preference.

Really? You discount the actual use of two types of continuity and the failure of one to solve the problem, while the other did? That is more than "self evident" as it is a real world example. It is not anecdotal, it is an empirical result. Belief does not overcome real world results....  :wtf:
 

Offline Wytnucls

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Tell Keysight, Fluke or Gossen that you like their meters, but they've got it wrong with their continuity detection and you may raise a few eyebrows.
 

Offline Muxr

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The advantages of a latched continuity test are self evident, beyond anecdotal evidence. So it's not just a preference.

Really? You discount the actual use of two types of continuity and the failure of one to solve the problem, while the other did? That is more than "self evident" as it is a real world example. It is not anecdotal, it is an empirical result. Belief does not overcome real world results....  :wtf:
I didn't want to be rude, but I don't believe the evidence presented is actually a valid test. I challenge anyone to reproduce it. If I can rub two perfectly clean probes together without ever breaking contact and get consistent beeps, then I am confident a faulty contact would have beeped as well. I've never heard anyone complain about Fluke's continuity, it's generally considered one of the best in the industry.

Now it is possible the potentiometer he was testing may have been triggering different threshold regions and the two meters might have different thresholds (they probably do), but that's more of Brymen getting lucky than a valid comparison. On a different resistance, Fluke will detect what Brymen won't etc..

Brymen didn't implement some more advanced contact detection method. It's just a non latching continuity test, something Beckman and Fluke improved upon 30-40 years ago.

Fluke 87V's continuity test detects opens or shorts down to a single millisecond. A pulse 3 milliseconds long must have a level about 15dB higher to sound as loud as a 0.5-second (500 millisecond) pulse. Tones and random noise follow roughly the same relationship in loudness vs. pulse length. Something you would never hear out of a buzzer if the continuity test wasn't latching.

There is no question, fast latching continuity test is superior.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2015, 11:17:36 pm by Muxr »
 

Offline XFDDesign

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Tell Keysight, Fluke or Gossen that you like their meters, but they've got it wrong with their continuity detection and you may raise a few eyebrows.

I cannot speak for Fluke or Gossen, but the guys are Keysight seem to really welcome feedback that may be dubious. They may ask questions to dig deeper and find out what it is you're really trying to get out of the thing and, if it's possible, show you how to do it with the existing product. If they can't, and they think their solution is better, they're very good at explaining why they came to the decision they did. It makes a very compelling case. Pretty good bunch of guys.
 

Offline Wytnucls

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From Wikipedia:

There are times when a simple continuity test fails to reveal the problem. For example, vibration-induced problems in automobile wiring can be extremely difficult to detect because a short or open is not maintained long enough for a standard tester to respond.

In these applications a latching continuity tester is used. A more complex device, it detects intermittent opens and shorts as well as steady-state conditions.[3] These devices contain a fast acting electronic switch (generally a Schmitt trigger) forming a gated astable oscillator which detects and locks (latches) the indicator on an intermittent condition with a duration of less than a millisecond
 

Offline Lightages

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Tell Keysight, Fluke or Gossen that you like their meters, but they've got it wrong with their continuity detection and you may raise a few eyebrows.

I don't care whose eyebrows I raise. I stated a preference and did not say that one method was demonstrably and objectively better than another. If someone else likes latched better, who cares? I don't. I was merely answering a question why some like non-latched and why some prefer latched.
 

Offline Lightages

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The advantages of a latched continuity test are self evident, beyond anecdotal evidence. So it's not just a preference.

Really? You discount the actual use of two types of continuity and the failure of one to solve the problem, while the other did? That is more than "self evident" as it is a real world example. It is not anecdotal, it is an empirical result. Belief does not overcome real world results....  :wtf:
I didn't want to be rude, but I don't believe the evidence presented is actually a valid test. I challenge anyone to reproduce it. If I can rub two perfectly clean probes together without ever breaking contact and get consistent beeps, then I am confident a faulty contact would have beeped as well. I've never heard anyone complain about Fluke's continuity, it's generally considered one of the best in the industry.

Now it is possible the potentiometer he was testing may have been triggering different threshold regions and the two meters might have different thresholds (they probably do), but that's more of Brymen getting lucky than a valid comparison. On a different resistance, Fluke will detect what Brymen won't etc..

Brymen didn't implement some more advanced contact detection method. It's just a non latching continuity test, something Beckman and Fluke improved upon 30-40 years ago.

Fluke 87V's continuity test detects opens or shorts down to a single millisecond. A pulse 3 milliseconds long must have a level about 15dB higher to sound as loud as a 0.5-second (500 millisecond) pulse. Tones and random noise follow roughly the same relationship in loudness vs. pulse length. Something you would never hear out of a buzzer if the continuity test wasn't latching.

There is no question, fast latching continuity test is superior.

I simply stated why people might prefer one mode over another. A person jumped in to say that he actually had a case where my preference was justified. Now you call him a liar, incompetent or mistaken. You do this with what evidence?

Prefer latched or non-latched, I DON"T CARE. I was merely answering why some people prefer it and some don't. It was not a statement of a fact as to which was objectively better. I even said that latched could detect things that non-latched could not. I hate straw men.
 

Offline Lightages

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Generally latched continuity tests I have experienced are either too slow, hold too long, smooth over intermittent connections, or all three. fluke has some of the best implementations and I would have no problems living with theirs, but I still prefer non-latched naked truth.
I wonder why it isn't user-selectable...

I agree,that would be the best of both worlds!
 

Offline Muxr

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The advantages of a latched continuity test are self evident, beyond anecdotal evidence. So it's not just a preference.

Really? You discount the actual use of two types of continuity and the failure of one to solve the problem, while the other did? That is more than "self evident" as it is a real world example. It is not anecdotal, it is an empirical result. Belief does not overcome real world results....  :wtf:
I didn't want to be rude, but I don't believe the evidence presented is actually a valid test. I challenge anyone to reproduce it. If I can rub two perfectly clean probes together without ever breaking contact and get consistent beeps, then I am confident a faulty contact would have beeped as well. I've never heard anyone complain about Fluke's continuity, it's generally considered one of the best in the industry.

Now it is possible the potentiometer he was testing may have been triggering different threshold regions and the two meters might have different thresholds (they probably do), but that's more of Brymen getting lucky than a valid comparison. On a different resistance, Fluke will detect what Brymen won't etc..

Brymen didn't implement some more advanced contact detection method. It's just a non latching continuity test, something Beckman and Fluke improved upon 30-40 years ago.

Fluke 87V's continuity test detects opens or shorts down to a single millisecond. A pulse 3 milliseconds long must have a level about 15dB higher to sound as loud as a 0.5-second (500 millisecond) pulse. Tones and random noise follow roughly the same relationship in loudness vs. pulse length. Something you would never hear out of a buzzer if the continuity test wasn't latching.

There is no question, fast latching continuity test is superior.

I simply stated why people might prefer one mode over another. A person jumped in to say that he actually had a case where my preference was justified. Now you call him a liar, incompetent or mistaken. You do this with what evidence?

Prefer latched or non-latched, I DON"T CARE. I was merely answering why some people prefer it and some don't. It was not a statement of a fact as to which was objectively better. I even said that latched could detect things that non-latched could not. I hate straw men.
Never called him a liar. If you bothered to read my response you would have noticed I had a perfectly good explanation as to why different continuity thresholds may produce different results in a specific scenario when measuring at a certain resistance bias, this has nothing to do with latched vs unlatched continuity. You somehow used this one corner case to equate the technical merits between latched and non latched continuity tests, which is wrong.

Let me elaborate. Let's say Fluke has a 5 ohm threshold, and Brymen has a 10 ohm threshold when measuring continuity. If you're measuring a potentiometer which has a bad contact at the 10 ohm region, then Brymen is going to exhibit scratchiness. Because the potentiometer is exhibiting the issue right at the threshold Brymen happens to use for continuity. But that doesn't make it better. Because you could be measuring a faulty potentiometer which has issues at 5 ohms. And then Fluke would beep and indicate an issue and Brymen wouldn't. This has nothing to do with the continuity test functionality. As we're only talking thresholds here and neither is better, you can just get lucky with one or the other. So it's not a valid test.

You may prefer non latched continuity tests, but you're simply wrong. Properly implemented latched continuity tests are superior in every way.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 12:01:08 am by Muxr »
 

Offline Wytnucls

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The thing is that there is no valid reason to prefer a non-latched over a latched system. The latched system is always better, when it is implemented properly. It's like saying you prefer dirt roads over paved ones.
Professional systems can latch on nano second transients, easily missed otherwise.
As for anecdotal evidence, there is one Canadian professional quoted in the Fluke app notes stating the complete reverse of what Deckert was saying. So, go figure.
 

Offline Lightages

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Never called him a liar. If you bothered to read my response you would have noticed I had a perfectly good explanation as to why different continuity thresholds may produce different results in a specific scenario when measuring at a certain resistance bias, this has nothing to do with latched vs unlatched continuity. You somehow used this one corner case to equate the technical merits between latched and non latched continuity tests, which is wrong.

Let me elaborate. Let's say Fluke has a 5 ohm threshold, and Brymen has a 10 ohm threshold when measuring continuity. If you're measuring a potentiometer which has a bad contact at the 10 ohm region, then Brymen is going to exhibit scratchiness. Because the potentiometer is exhibiting the issue right at the threshold Brymen happens to use for continuity. But that doesn't make it better. Because you could be measuring a faulty potentiometer which has issues at 5 ohms. And then Fluke would beep and indicate an issue and Brymen wouldn't. This has nothing to do with the continuity test functionality. As we're only talking thresholds here and neither is better, you can just get lucky with one or the other. So it's not a valid test.

You may prefer non latched continuity tests, but you're simply wrong. Properly implemented latched continuity tests are superior in every way.

If you bothered to read his post.... it was not a potentiometer, it was a switch. You don't want to be rude, but are willing to not even read the post correctly and are willing to make a whole argument based on the wrong assumption.

I cannot be wrong on a preference, silly assertion. I said, and let me restate, that a latched continuity test can capture events that you might miss without. Can you read? I said more than twice now.  |O
 

Offline Lightages

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The thing is that there is no valid reason to prefer a non-latched over a latched system. The latched system is always better, when it is implemented properly. It's like saying you prefer dirt roads over paved ones.
Professional systems can latch on nano second transients, easily missed otherwise.
As for anecdotal evidence, there is one Canadian professional quoted in the Fluke app notes stating the complete reverse of what Deckert was saying. So, go figure.

So one person supports the assertion that latched continuity was better in one situation, and that negates anything anyone else has to say about their experience in another situation? Really? You believe that? Because of that selective bias I can understand why you think you can assert that there is no valid reason. If you throw away data that contradicts your position, of course you have no valid reason (data) to support otherwise.
 

Offline Muxr

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The thing is that there is no valid reason to prefer a non-latched over a latched system. The latched system is always better, when it is implemented properly. It's like saying you prefer dirt roads over paved ones.
Professional systems can latch on nano second transients, easily missed otherwise.
As for anecdotal evidence, there is one Canadian professional quoted in the Fluke app notes stating the complete reverse of what Deckert was saying. So, go figure.

So one person supports the assertion that latched continuity was better in one situation, and that negates anything anyone else has to say about their experience in another situation? Really? You believe that? Because of that selective bias I can understand why you think you can assert that there is no valid reason. If you throw away data that contradicts your position, of course you have no valid reason (data) to support otherwise.
But we have data to support our claims. You have 2nd hand anecdotal evidence.
 

Offline Lightages

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Data, you have provided data?  :-//

Where?

I cannot provide evidence for a preference. A preference is a personal thing, not necessarily based on the same reasons as another person's. Again,for the fourth time, I have said that latched continuity can catch things that a non-latched might not. Have you read that enough times yet? Maybe you thought I was talking about potentiometers too.
 

Offline HackedFridgeMagnet

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I can't see any data that has already been presented in the thread either.
Please point it out.

Also when it comes to bad analogies, this one is up there.
Quote
The latched system is always better, when it is implemented properly. It's like saying you prefer dirt roads over paved ones.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 03:26:31 am by HackedFridgeMagnet »
 

Offline Muxr

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Calm down. Few posts back I've covered the effect of millisecond sounds on the human ability to hear them, the reason behind latching in the first place. 87V can detect 250 microsecond opens or shorts, which on an unlatched meter is inaudible. It's the only "data" on the topic, filled with hearsay and anecdotal evidence so I understand how you could miss it.
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 03:29:16 am by Muxr »
 

Offline Lightages

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Calm down. Few posts back I've covered the effect of millisecond sounds on the human ability to hear them, the reason behind latching in the first place. 87V can detect 250 microsecond opens or shorts, which on an unlatched meter is inaudible. It's the only "data" on the topic, filled with hearsay and anecdotal evidence so I understand how you could miss it.

and you also said:

Quote
Fluke 87V's continuity test detects opens or shorts down to a single millisecond. A pulse 3 milliseconds long must have a level about 15dB higher to sound as loud as a 0.5-second (500 millisecond) pulse. Tones and random noise follow roughly the same relationship in loudness vs. pulse length. Something you would never hear out of a buzzer if the continuity test wasn't latching.

Which is correct? 1mS or 250uS? Your assertions on the audibility thresholds might be correct, but is not data. Do you have any references?

I am calm, just can't believe the blind assertions and the errors in logic.
 

Offline Muxr

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Calm down. Few posts back I've covered the effect of millisecond sounds on the human ability to hear them, the reason behind latching in the first place. 87V can detect 250 microsecond opens or shorts, which on an unlatched meter is inaudible. It's the only "data" on the topic, filled with hearsay and anecdotal evidence so I understand how you could miss it.

and you also said:

Quote
Fluke 87V's continuity test detects opens or shorts down to a single millisecond. A pulse 3 milliseconds long must have a level about 15dB higher to sound as loud as a 0.5-second (500 millisecond) pulse. Tones and random noise follow roughly the same relationship in loudness vs. pulse length. Something you would never hear out of a buzzer if the continuity test wasn't latching.

Which is correct? 1mS or 250uS? Your assertions on the audibility thresholds might be correct, but is not data. Do you have any references?

I am calm, just can't believe the blind assertions and the errors in logic.
Both are correct.

edit, also: https://sound.stackexchange.com/questions/28163/whats-the-shortest-sound-perceptible-to-the-human-ear
« Last Edit: June 25, 2015, 03:46:04 am by Muxr »
 


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