Author Topic: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.  (Read 719169 times)

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Offline BThunderW

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #200 on: August 11, 2012, 03:20:02 am »
Hello. I found this thread via Google when I was trying to find more info regarding a pair of UT61E's I bought. I'm actually quite impressed with the meters but the bundled software leaves a lot to be desired. Because I'm a software developer by trade, I decided to write a proper, feature-rich version of the multimeter software. Before you stop reading, I don't plan to charge anything for the software, this is just a hobby of mine. I'll make this software available free for download on my site.

I've got far enough now to be able to sample data properly from the meters. Now I'm implementing the features that I thought would be good to have like.

Ability to monitor multiple meters at once.
Set up triggers based on various criteria (value in range, value rising, value falling, etc)
Triggers can be audible or visual or both. Can even have the sound frequency change as value goes up or down.
Because it'll support multiple meters, having triggers like delta between values changing becomes possible.
also with multiple meters, it'll be possible to measure wattage.
Smoothing of values over variable number of samples, etc.

And of course the usual, gauges, charts, exporting, history, etc.

I'm curious if anybody has any interest in such software or does anyone have any other ideas for features that might be worth implementing?

Tom
 

Offline T4P

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #201 on: August 11, 2012, 03:28:54 am »
I'm interested  8)
Add in a better graphing option, the bundled one is pretty hopeless

i was graphing a li-ion charger that was jumping between 4.0 and 4.2V and the graph didn't show anything like that
 

Offline David_AVD

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #202 on: August 11, 2012, 03:30:09 am »
Because I'm a software developer by trade, I decided to write a proper, feature-rich version of the multimeter software

Sounds good Tom.  I agree that most of the software supplied with meters, etc is in the poor to useless category and often unstable.  I have a UT61E so would be keen to give it a whirl.   :)
 

Offline BThunderW

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #203 on: August 11, 2012, 03:36:44 am »
I'll be working on it throughout this week. I'll post up once I have something worth looking at.

I should add that there is one catch though. I typically use projects like these to learn new programming techniques. In this case using the pre-release Visual Studio 2012 and .Net Framework 4.5. Which is not officially out yet. If you're planning to run the software, you'd have to install the "beta" framework from Microsoft site. .Net Framework is currently in RC (Release Candidate) status.

Tom
« Last Edit: August 11, 2012, 03:40:41 am by BThunderW »
 

Offline FenderBender

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #204 on: August 11, 2012, 03:39:20 am »
Sounds great.
 

Offline Bored@Work

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I delete PMs unread. If you have something to say, say it in public.
For all else: Profile->[Modify Profile]Buddies/Ignore List->Edit Ignore List
 

Offline BThunderW

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #206 on: August 11, 2012, 02:34:54 pm »
Ah sweet, thanks for the link. Now at least I can get a compatible model list from it.

Tom
 

Offline BThunderW

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #207 on: August 15, 2012, 03:39:07 am »
Just a quick update on the software.

It's getting there. The logic and UI is around 90% done. Next I'll take on the actual Gauge/Graph displays. I should have a BETA release in few days.





Cheers,

Tom
« Last Edit: August 15, 2012, 03:43:18 am by BThunderW »
 

Offline David_AVD

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #208 on: August 15, 2012, 03:41:22 am »
Looking good Tom.  Maybe start a new thread and get these posts moved there?
 

Offline dimitrioptimus

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #209 on: August 21, 2012, 10:44:41 am »
Any luck if the UT61E to the pc with this by rs232 connection

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/wireless-bluetooth-rs232-ttl-transceiver-module-80711

'Wireless Bluetooth V2.0 RS232 TTL Transceiver Module'

I am just a electronic enthusiast so spare me if the question is silly.
 

Offline T4P

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #210 on: August 21, 2012, 12:09:09 pm »
Any luck if the UT61E to the pc with this by rs232 connection

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/wireless-bluetooth-rs232-ttl-transceiver-module-80711

'Wireless Bluetooth V2.0 RS232 TTL Transceiver Module'

I am just a electronic enthusiast so spare me if the question is silly.

Probably yes, use one for the PC and one for the meter but the other side is RS232 is also so yes things still need to be converted on USB
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #211 on: August 21, 2012, 12:19:26 pm »
Any luck if the UT61E to the pc with this by rs232 connection

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/wireless-bluetooth-rs232-ttl-transceiver-module-80711

'Wireless Bluetooth V2.0 RS232 TTL Transceiver Module'

I am just a electronic enthusiast so spare me if the question is silly.

Probably yes, use one for the PC and one for the meter but the other side is RS232 is also so yes things still need to be converted on USB

Why would you use one for the PC? You connect one to the meter, and connect to it with bluetooth. You can't just connect two of those modules to each other.
 

Offline T4P

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #212 on: August 21, 2012, 12:47:16 pm »
Aw man you're right i forgot. Sorry about that
 

Offline dimitrioptimus

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #213 on: August 23, 2012, 08:33:11 am »
So it looks that using the bluetooth module with Ut61e is feasible  :),so if anyone any one tries it plz inform that how did it worked out.

Only thing I will love to see is measuring temp with an auto off feauture
 

Offline T4P

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #214 on: August 23, 2012, 08:41:46 am »
Well it's about what you want then.
For me i can't stand APO ... most APO meters i use in school shut off silently after 15mins when i'm doing something
And i can't stand the temperature on the cheaper meters either, UT61B can track in PC with the temp thing
1) No 0.1C resolution, even if the probe is not any better than 5% ... (The last cheaper meter that can do 0.1C and PC is non-existent)
2) No Kelvins unit
3) 1 probe only!
4) No Min/Max/Avg ...

So in the end i wound up for this
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/2-2-lcd-digital-thermometer-handheld-temperature-tester-1-x-9v-6f22-120770
But it's not FR4 anymore :(
Same as this one : http://www.dealextreme.com/p/k-type-digital-industrial-thermometer-with-sensor-50-c-1300-c-7286?item=1936
« Last Edit: August 23, 2012, 08:43:40 am by T4P »
 

Offline BThunderW

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #215 on: August 24, 2012, 08:31:02 pm »
Version 1 is coming out soon. Anyone interested in doing some Beta testing?



Tom
 

Offline David_AVD

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #216 on: August 24, 2012, 09:31:15 pm »
Version 1 is coming out soon. Anyone interested in doing some Beta testing?

I can give the software a quick whirl if you like.
 

Offline Ivanko1

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #217 on: August 24, 2012, 09:39:26 pm »
What was that!?
 

Offline mariush

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #218 on: August 24, 2012, 10:15:05 pm »
I think this video was already posted in this forum already, maybe this very same thread.

If I remember correctly, one of the explanations was that the sides of the probes are somewhat dirty with bits of silicon left from the factory when the silicon was poured into the form and all that. Easily fixed by cleaning the sides of the probes from impurities.
 

Offline T4P

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #219 on: August 25, 2012, 01:14:49 am »
Version 1 is coming out soon. Anyone interested in doing some Beta testing?

No problem there

@Ivanko
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-chat/uni-t-ut61e-freaks-out/msg104612/#msg104612
His metrix "freaked" out too
 

Offline BThunderW

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #220 on: August 25, 2012, 02:54:33 pm »
If you want to take a crack at the DMM program. Please PM me, and I'll send you a download link.

Tom
 

Offline AndyC_772

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #221 on: August 25, 2012, 03:34:42 pm »
What was that!?

Looks as though there are two problems there.

One is certainly that the probes aren't conducting as reliably as they should - whether they're dirty, covered in oxide or whatever. I had a very similar experience with a set of probes from Maplin a few weeks ago, and took them straight back as unfit for purpose. Life is too short for test equipment that doesn't do its job properly.

The other I suspect is down to how the autoranging feature works in the presence of an inductive load. I can see a way in which it could start oscillating, which would prevent the meter from ever reaching a steady state.

Suppose the meter applies a small voltage and tries to measure the current. The coil is inductive, so initially very little current flows. The meter detects this as a high resistance, so switches up to a new range. Meanwhile, the current in the coil is ramping up (V=L dI/dt). The coil current is now too high for the high resistance range, so the meter switches back to a lower resistance range, with a smaller applied voltage.

I wouldn't like to speculate on exactly how the oscillation is maintained, but I can well see that a meter's autoranging algorithm might work on the assumption that the thing it's measuring has a fairly constant resistance - but in this case, it doesn't. The current in the coil doesn't just depend on the applied voltage, it also depends on how much energy is stored in the coil's magnetic field.

Result: one confused meter, until it's stuck in manual mode which disables the autoranging mechanism. Given a constant applied voltage (or current) for a while, the inductive ringing dies down and the meter is able to report the dc resistance correctly.

Offline T4P

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #222 on: August 25, 2012, 03:42:20 pm »
Just clean probes with IPA next time, no need to return them
 

Offline Monkeh

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #223 on: August 25, 2012, 03:59:28 pm »
One is certainly that the probes aren't conducting as reliably as they should - whether they're dirty, covered in oxide or whatever. I had a very similar experience with a set of probes from Maplin a few weeks ago, and took them straight back as unfit for purpose. Life is too short for test equipment that doesn't do its job properly.

My best guess is that they have a very thin film of PVC left over from the moulding process. A little cleaning with a solvent will strip it right off.

However, serves you right for using Maplin.
 

Offline AndyC_772

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Re: UNI-T UT61E Multimeter teardown photos.
« Reply #224 on: August 25, 2012, 04:15:50 pm »
Well, yes, agreed - but it also serves Maplin right for selling probes that don't 'just work' out of the box. I think it's good for companies to have products returned from time to time when there's a quality control issue, rather than expecting their customers to do their QC for them.

The Fluke leads I bought to replace them 'just work'.


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