1 Aug
2009
1 Aug
'09
9:57 a.m.
I find it
unfathomable that people would actually use "tools" like
this.
And that includes the battery.
It depends--I've got a couple of these that I'll toss into a toolbox
if I'm looking for a quick reading or continuity test. If it gets
dropped or eaten by a dog, no biggie. The Fluke stays home.
If someone needed only to take a few readings and didn't have a meter
of any kind, I'd have no problem with him using one of these,
particularly if he first did a "sanity" check (e.g. check the voltage
on a new carbon-zinc cell to see if it was somewhere around 1.5v and
perhaps checked a known good resistor or two).
A freind of mine was nearly killed by a cheap DMM. Unknown to him the
range swithc had developped a bad contact and would intermittantly read
far too low. He checked the voltage on some mains wiring he was working
on, it appeared to be dead. He touched it. That's when he found out the
meter was malfunctioning.
Yes, I know you should check on a known live point, then on the circuit
you're working on, then on the known live point again. IIRC, in this case
the meter was intermittant and had given good readings a few minutes
earlier so he assumed it was OK.
The first outcome was he was thrown backwards by the shock. The second
outcome was that he bought a Fluke.
-tony