Hello, I'm new here, and I'm building out my very first electronics bench. I'm a bit late to the party here, since I've spent most of my life writing software. I've barely done anything on the hardware side, so I'm going to be approaching this hobby at a different angle (or poor financial decision from the way you look at it). When looking for equipment, data logging over USB is a bare minimum requirement, since I cannot justify spending $150 on a GPIB to USB cable or on any GPIB accessories, this stuff gets expensive very quick.
After searching for 6 1/2 digit multimeters on Ebay for at least a month, I initially focused on Keithley and Fluke (Phillips) listings. Most of these units are dated, have no AC measurement functionality and have no USB or even RS232 functionality. The ones that did have USB functionality were way beyond my budget. However, there was one lesser known 6 1/2 digit multimeter from Japan that had both an AC measurement option (by default) and USB. The ADCMT 7461A (
https://www.adcmt.com/en/products/dmm/7451) satisfied every requirement for me. At the moment I have no equipment brand loyalty yet, and almost no one has talked about this multimeter, so I bought it in order to write about it.
So I bit the bullet and got myself an ADCMT 7461A on auction for around $280 and even though some of plastic pieces came broken due to poor packaging, I'm still impressed. I also bought one of those cheap AD584 references (and an LM399 reference on the way) to be able to measure drift on this used multimeter so that I can feel confident that the multimeter doesn't drift on its own. To my surprise the AD584 reference from aliexpress was stable enough (I see about 0.1mV fluctuations over the course of the day, bouncing between 2.50120V and 2.50121V). I picked the basement as the ideal place for my electronics workbench. Worth the $8, for whatever that is worth.
As for the ADCMT 7461A, I give it a solid 9/10 for the price I paid for it. So far I have the following electronics bench equipment:
- ADCMT 7461A 6 1/2 digit multimeter
- Siglent SDS814X HD
- Micsig DP750 100MHz High Voltage Differential Probe
- Riden RD6012P
- Longwei extra-high-noise 30V/10A adjustable power supply
- An old, 12V lead acid battery.
- TinySA Ultra
I am looking to acquire the following soon. I'm open to any criticism for any of these I'm about to pull the trigger on, or if you can give any alternatives.
- Siglent SSA3021X-Plus Spectrum Analyzer (supposedly upgradable to the SVA series (?))
- Siglent SDG1022X Plus 25MHz 2-Ch Waveform Generator
- Siglent SPD3303X-E DC Power Supply
- Micsig CP2100B Current Probe
- ADCMT R6146 current/source
- Victor 4091C LCR meter
- Victor 3803M DC load (high voltage load)
- Victor 3824M DC load (dual load)
Anyway, back to browsing for equipment and losing my sanity over it.