Products > Test Equipment
Multimeter CAT II Rating Discontinuation
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J-R:
Hard to find anything about this as it's all behind paywalls, but I found some previews that seem to clarify a few things:

"This part of IEC 61010 specifies safety requirements for hand-held multimeters for domestic
and professional use, capable of measuring MAINS.

Hand-held multimeters are multi-range multifunction measuring instruments intended to
measure voltage and other electrical quantities such as resistance or current. Their primary
purpose is to measure voltage on a live MAINS. They are suitable to be supported by one hand
during NORMAL USE. "

"HAND-HELD EQUIPMENT such as oscilloscopes, wattmeters, process control multimeters not
RATED for measuring voltage on a live MAINS, clamp multimeters and communications test sets
are not within the scope of this document."


All this is under the heading "5 Marking and documentation" so it doesn't seem to apply to testing or anything else other than labels.


It seems this plan has been in the works for quite some time.  I now see most of the DMMs I've purchased in the last maybe 5-10 years don't have CAT II ratings printed on them.  Also, I recently purchased the Flir DM64 which we know is basically the BM235 but it is limited to 600V instead of 1000V.  (It only has CATIII/IV ratings printed on it.)

So this is probably a two-fold plan to reduce confusion/clutter on the face of the equipment to only two ratings, but also boost safety by requiring CATIII/IV for DMMs that you will be measuring mains voltages while holding it in your hand.


I'm for sure curious about the clamp multimeter exception, as that seems odd.  Maybe it is clarified elsewhere...
CosteC:

--- Quote from: J-R on July 24, 2023, 10:48:45 am ---

All this is under the heading "5 Marking and documentation" so it doesn't seem to apply to testing or anything else other than labels.


So this is probably a two-fold plan to reduce confusion/clutter on the face of the equipment to only two ratings, but also boost safety by requiring CATIII/IV for DMMs that you will be measuring mains voltages while holding it in your hand.

I'm for sure curious about the clamp multimeter exception, as that seems odd.  Maybe it is clarified elsewhere...

--- End quote ---
This all is about labels and descriptions on meter and in documentation.
Clamp meters do not measure main VOLTAGE hence are not exposed to overvoltages to the same extend.
If clamp meter measures mains voltage as additional feature, then falls into handheld DMM I guess.

Then CAT I and CAT II are still in use as descriptors for stationary and other non-handheld DMM. Sounds sensible.
mendip_discovery:
Gradual phasing out of not-as-safe meter designs. Its not a bad thing. Won't matter to the cheap meters we get from places like China as they will just print whatever ratings they want on there.
Fungus:

--- Quote from: Someone on July 24, 2023, 09:31:23 am ---Says the person who didn't understand the delineation and was adding further confusion to people trying to understand it

--- End quote ---

Please tell us all if this outlet is CAT II or cat III:


What class multimeter should I use on it?
bdunham7:

--- Quote from: Fungus on July 24, 2023, 01:26:11 pm ---Please tell us all if this outlet is CAT II or cat III:

What class multimeter should I use on it?

--- End quote ---

Can you cite a single example of a non-bullshit DMM that has a CAT II/300V rating?  (by "non-bullshit" I mean one where the rating is not just printed on the front as a sad joke)

And a related question (one that supports eliminating CAT II...) can you think of a single example of a circuit that would be CAT II/1000V (Category 2 and in excess of 600V) ?

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