Doug McLaren wrote:

In article FQ7vc.259$vK4.176@newsfe5-win, Kyle2 wrote:

| A cheap digital one from Maplin or RS will be just as accurate, save loads
| by not paying for a name.

If you're on a tight budget, these things are hard to beat --

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...70&pricetype=S

Yes, three bucks. They won't hold a candle to a Fluke, but for doing
simple voltages or resistances, they're hard to beat. They're
accurate (at least the ones I've tested) within 1 or 2%, at least for
DC and AC voltage (I don't expect them to do accurate RMS readings on
non sinusoidal signals, however) and resistances.

They're cheap enough that you can dedicate them to a given operation
-- you need to know the voltage on your power battery all the time?
No problem -- just slap one of these on it.

Personally, I own like ten of these things, scattered throughout the
house and car, and a few better multi-meters for when I need them.



Right! They even come with the 9v battery included and they have a
transistor
test function, to boot. When you spend 3 dollars on a DMM, you're not
looking
for precision results. And you don't need a precision meter for most
measurements.
As a secondary meter, these 3 dollar things cannot be beat. When I
needed to
do 6 simultaneous measurements ( a DC-DC converter I made with dual
outputs -
I needed to measure voltage and current on the input, and voltage and
current on
both outputs) I bought 4 of them. They were more accurate than I
thought they
would be - and more accurate than I needed.