I love this little multimeter! I never realized how much life could improve just by switching to a real instrument over the $10 analog model I bought from Home Depot. I've had it for something like a year now, and it's pretty amazing. I can't say enough good things about it, but I'll try to focus on the highest of the highlights: the NCV button! It's so nice to be able to diagnose so many electrical problems just by holding down a button and gently moving the device along a cable or a wall, listening for the spot where the current stops. And it's a great relief to be able to flip an unlabeled (of course) breaker, press the NCV button, and know if that was the switch for the circuit I'm about to work on. Say I'm on the outside of a trailer, working on the water heater that's only accessible by removing an exterior wall panel. As described above, I've found the breaker that goes to this circuit. But that was yesterday; did my father-in-law flip it back on in the meantime? I'd better get down off of the ladder, walk around the house, and have the lady who lives here walk me back to the bedroom (awkward) where the breaker box is so I can check it, right? No way! I can just hit the NCV button and find out. (And then, just because I've been stung too many times by "disconnected" electric fences back on the farm, I go ahead and test it with the probes to confirm. But it's good.) I've also used the NCV function to find faults in power cords on sump pumps, among other things. One little nick in the insulation, it turns out, can corrode an entire length of wire... But I digress. Another great feature is the... What is it called? The one where you switch it to measure resistance and then toggle the mode a couple of times. Then you touch points with the probes and if they're connected (i.e., sufficiently low resistance), it makes a noise. You don't even have to look at the meter! It's great. I use that all the time to see which points in one place match up to which points in another place. Handy for when wires change colors on the other side of something that would be a pain to move, and the audible signal means I can focus on touching the right points instead of trying to watch the display. I've used most of the functions at one time or another, but those are the most common ones for me. At work yesterday, I fixed a multi-thousand-dollar refrigerated centrifuge with it by using a combination of the DC voltmeter, ohmmeter, and frequency functions. I've fixed a lot of other things with it, too, but that was all for yesterday. I'm not an electrician or anything, just a guy who likes to tinker with stuff and works in a laboratory. I really ought to have my boss invest in one of these for the lab so that I won't have to keep carrying mine back and forth from home. I've gotten to the point where I look at it and think, "If I don't take it with me, I'm sure to need it." And it's true. Despite my enthusiasm for it, there are a few things I would change about it if I could: 1. I would include some leads with alligator clips with it. Come on, those are just too handy not to have. I suppose I can buy them separately, but it would have been nice to include them. 2. I really wish it had some little clips on the side to hold the probes. I have to wrap the wires around it or let them dangle; neither is satisfactory, and both leave you with surprisingly sharp points sticking out. I guess I should invest in a nice rubber band, and maybe something to cap the points. I don't know, like I said, I'm not a professional or anything. 3. The temperature probe is a separate attachment that I almost never have with me, because who wants to carry that, too? I don't know how to fix this, but it would be nice if it could be improved somehow. Also, the cable for the temp probe is really stiff. I don't know how necessary that is for the functionality of it, but if it could be as pliable as the two contact probes (or leads, whatever; I'm an amateur), that would be a step in the right direction. I'm kind of worried about it snapping due to metal fatigue, honestly. It's that stiff.
