30
I finally got a cheap harbor freight multimeter to do what my fluke couldn't
So I was working on a Samsung fridge last week where the main board wasn't sending power to the ice maker. My Fluke 117 was giving me weird fluctuating readings on the DC voltage pins. I had a $15 Harbor freight meter in my truck that I use for rough checks, figured why not. I hooked it up and it gave me a solid steady 5.2v reading, which was exactly what the service manual called for. Turns out my Fluke was picking up some kind of ghost voltage or something from the board. I learned that for basic DC checks on appliance boards, the cheap meters can actually work better because they dont have as much sensitivity to noise. Has anyone else run into their expensive meter giving you bad readings on control boards?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
karencampbell2mo ago
Ha! So your hundred dollar Fluke got shown up by the bargain bin special. That's hilarious. I've had the opposite happen where my cheap meter just gave up and showed a flat zero on a live circuit. But honestly, sometimes those cheap ones are so dumb they don't get confused by all the electronic nonsense floating around. They just sit there and read what's actually there. Makes you wonder why we all spend the big bucks sometimes.
7
shane_hayes2mo ago
Kinda changed my mind reading this, not gonna lie.
2
I had a similar thing happen with my 87-V and a dryer control board... @karencampbell is right, sometimes the fancy meters just overthink things and the cheap ones keep it simple.
6
Well I'll be, you're absolutely right about that. I think the real issue is that these expensive meters are designed for industrial environments where you've got clean power and proper grounding. But the second you hook one up to a noisy appliance board full of switching power supplies and relays, all that extra sensitivity becomes a problem. The cheap meters basically act like they have built in filters because their components are so sluggish they don't catch all that high frequency noise. It's like using a fancy camera in low light versus a basic point and shoot, sometimes the simpler tool just handles the situation better. Honestly makes me keep that $15 Harbor Freight meter on hand for all my appliance work now, and save the Fluke for pure electrical stuff.
6