Was your first meter a "trashy" meter?

[Ian.M]

How about this one I inherited?

Actually I had two of them, and IIRC still have one. It was a truly crappy meter that heavily loaded any circuit you connected it to (25Ω/V !!!) 
The only difference between its 8V range and its 40mA current range was the terminals you were *supposed* to use, with both sets of terminals actually wired in parallel, so 8V burden voltage at FSD!  See https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/pifco_all_in_one_pocket_meter.html for details and specs.

When I started studying electronics formally, I treated myself to a 20KΩ/V analog multimeter from Radio Shack - this was in the days before shrouded test leads and CAT ratings.  It did have a fuse for its 300mA range, but the 10A range was totally unfused and there was no overload protection for its Ohms ranges so I rebuilt its divider resistor chain a few times due to mishaps with large charged capacitors.  :'(

My first digital meter was the infamous Radio Shack/Tandy Micronta 22-164 'Autorange Voice Meter' which took over a second for the reading to stabilise before the speech function would give the correct result.  If you pressed the button too soon, it often gave the correct digits, but the wrong order of magnitude.  It also had cheesy leads with a proprietary +ve probe, which I eventually had to rebuild with new connectors at the meter end.  At the time I used a hacked 2.5mm jack plug for the speech trigger and built it as a Y cable with a 4mm banana plug for the probe connection.  As I've still got the meter, if I ever do it again, I'll probably 3D print a shell to replicate the original connector, and coat it in red plastidip. Otherwise, it was a reasonably decent meter for its vintage and price-point.

Here's someone else's video of it:

[Fungus]

But I was chuffed as hell to have it!

Do they say "chuffed" in Canada? I thought that word was from Sheffield, UK.

(where I spent a few years)

[alm]

The first meter I used as a kid was an analog meter of what was probably a decent brand I can no longer remember. That meter died when I tried to measure resistance of the wall socket, which sent sparks across the display and presumably burnt out the coil. The meter would swing freely after, so I got rid of it. Then I got a rebranded Metex meter. Manual ranging 3.5 digit, but okay for that era. Costs about US$75 in today's money. The important property back then was having a 10 MOhm input impedance. Not exactly a Fluke, but back then decent hobbyist quality. Cheaper DMMs would have only a 1 MOhm input impedance. Analog meters were still being sold, but mostly in the cheapest price bracket.

I killed the buzzer in that DMM when i applied reverse-power: my lesson that the polarity on battery clips is reversed from that of 9V batteries, so the big contact is the positive instead of the negative, but later replaced the CMOS logic IC that died to the reverse-voltage.

[shakalnokturn]

Metex 3650B (I voted high-end, it felt good for my ego. Who else cheated on the poll?)
I still have it today even if it no longer gets to see the light, in fact due to this topic it's been powered on for the first time since at least 17 years. (No I'm not checking calibration...)
It was heavily used and highly respected between about 1992 to 2006, too much choice now...

[vk6zgo]

That is the type of fuses in my house which was built in 1976.

You still have that type?

A fuse is a fuse, I guess.

Do you have an RCD?

No RCDs in the house.  In the garage I fitted a RCD equipped dual socket outlet.  One outlet has the pond pump plugged into it.  The pump is fully submerged.

When cutting the hedges with an electric clipper I use a long extension cable with a RCD plug on it.  I did trip that once when I accidentally cut the clipper's cable.

My old work (TV Studio) hired their indoor plants.
The supplier regularly sent a staff member equipped with secateurs to trim any unruly growth or dead bits off.

It so happened that one of the offices had a large, rugged shelf intended to hold a TV, & which was currently inhabited by a 27" Philips TV. There was just enough spare room to accommodate the indoor plant as well.
For reasons best known to themselves, Philips used beige insulation on the power cord, which made for a nice inconspicuous installation because it was indistinguishable from the plant stem & branches.

Enter the guy with the secateurs, "snip", "snip", BANG!!.
The circuit breaker dropped out, the TV set was rescued & taken off for repair, & the indoor plant hire guy went home to change his undies!
Luckily, there was still a useable length of power cord on the TV, so a new plug was fitted, & it was placed back in service, this time with several flags of red insulating tape distributed along its length.

I'm pretty sure they were unnecessary, as the story would almost certainly have become part of the folk lore of the indoor plant hire company!

[WattsThat]

Bought new over fifty years ago with lawn mowing money. Still works.

[BillyO]

Do they say "chuffed" in Canada? I thought that word was from Sheffield, UK.

(where I spent a few years)

Not as a rule.  However ... I was born in Ireland, lived in Ghana, West Africa for a while, then a short tour of duty in Bath, then on to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, then to Philadelphia, then up to Canada.  Somewhere along the way I picked that up.   

[BillyO]

Bought new over fifty years ago with lawn mowing money. Still works.

I might have "retired" Castro for that back then.

[Swainster]

Another vote for an analogue micronta from Tandy (UK). As I recall, it was a birthday or Christmas gift from my parents. Might have been this model:

[coromonadalix]

Wavetek HD160   after the defunct Beckman brand

An an old Fieldpiece meter, cant recall the model,  this one had a variable tone following the measured value,  boy it was so practical

[pdenisowski]

Still have it, still works

[Grandchuck]

Mine was not trashy but it was trashed!  The former owner had it connected across a large inductor when the power failed causing a huge inductive kick.  The meter movement was wiped out ... you could see detritus inside the meter case.  Triplett repaired it at a very low cost ... I used it for years.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/triplett_625_na625n_vom.html

[Tom45]

I don't remember what my first meter might have been. But my first serious meter that I do remember was an Eico 232 VTVM I built from a kit in the early 60s.

My first serious DMM was the Fluke 8020 that I bought when it first appeared.

I'm pretty sure I still have both the Eico 232 and Fluke 8020, but it might take some time to actually find them.

[n4u]

My first meter was kemot kt33 , earlier i used dads one looks like um110

[m k]

My first was trash, almost a volt meter, hardly used, came in a set with things like strobo and pressure gauge.

First multimeter and for purpose was Kaise SK-300.

First DMM was Simpson 463, its buzzer was remarkable.

[skander36]

Mine was a diy with C520 (attached), but short time after, an yellow one (the left from foto on the Fungus first post) followed. The lack of a proper frontend was the cause. That was in 1990 ...

[Jester]

My first meter Beckman tech 330 true rms was quite expensive $300 IIRC way back in 1980 That was a lot of money back then. It became flaky within a few years a real POS. I will never purchase anything Beckman again ever. My Flukemeters have lasted forever.

Come to think about it I actually has a Sanwa analog meter (1975ish) before the Beckman. It actually worked for quite a while.

[Deso]

I've started with my father's multimeter - "Ц20"

At age of 15 I was able to buy my very first multimeter, which looked exactly as the Mastech one from the first post.
Now I'm enjoying Agilent U1232A.

[jmh]

Not sure how trashy this guy is - Altai HC-2020S. I acquired this by - ahem - sneaking it onto a works purchase order for other bits, decades ago now. It served me well enough. It has since been lurking in the workshop, replaced by an Amprobe AM-500-EUR (which has now had a safety recall!)

Not all of my stuff is as dirty...

[BeBuLamar]

My first was a kit from Radio Shack I built myself. The next one I had was a B&K digital and then a Heathkit DMM kit (it's kind of Fluke 8020a wanna be).

[aeberbach]

I had one of Dick Smith’s finest analog meters. Weirdly it came with a spill of some kind of lacquer on one of the battery contacts so that it appeared dead out of the box… once scraped off it was great for many years and then I burned the movement coil doing something dumb. After that a Hioki card tester (must be in a drawer somewhere?)  and then a Fluke. Still a Fluke, doubt it will ever be any other.

[CatalinaWOW]

My first was somewhere in no mans land, a low cost meter from Allied Electronics.  Somewhat resembles XRunners.  Somewhere in my early moves the actual meter part was crushed.  I saved the carcass, planning to salvage the fairly high quality switch and what I at the time thought were pretty good resistors.  None of the salvage ever happened but the carcass is still probably hanging around in one of the junk bins.

[NoisyBoy]

My first was a Sanwa YX-360TR, I bought it new while I was in high school.  I recalled going to the electronics supply store to buy the meter, my reason for choosing it was its ability to measur hfe, quite a novelty back in the days.  I don't recall how much I paid for it, but its construction is far nicer than the YX-360 variants they sell today.

The meter has been with me ever since, I don't really use it any more.  But when I measure a battery this evening, it is still within the 3% FS error in the spec. 

My first digital DMM was a Fluke 8000A, it is still in use. 

[NoisyBoy]

Picture of the internal.

[H713]

Mine was an original Fluke 77, I think when I was like eight or nine. It was a pretty ancient meter then, but was given to me by a family member who had bought it new.

Honestly I still use some of my Fluke 77s, and still have quite an army of 77s and 73s at work. For 95% of what a handheld meter gets used for, they're just fine.


They're old-fashioned and a little limited, but I wouldn't exactly call them trashy.