With all of the test equipment liquidations and closeouts, ITT Tech and Agilent DMM to name a few, it seems to be a really good time to pickup some good gear. I personally have covered my DMM requirement with two Agilent U1252Bs and two GW-Instek GDM-8251A bench DMMs. All of this for less than one used 6.5 digit bench DMM from the big three. I see there is other gear available from the ITT debacle that may help others build a reasonable home lab for learning purposes which is what I am doing. Good times indeed.
Just wondering what the appeal of the Agilent U1252B's were. I am newb, so I apologize. Even though they are half off, they are still sort of expensive for me for a handheld.
Well, they have great accuracy, 50,000 counts, 4-1/2 digits, a programmable square wave generator and a 20 MHz frequency counter.
http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5989-5509EN.pdf?id=835490They are a great hand held meter from all appearances. However, I don't think I would rush out to buy a high $ meter that was used in a student environment. I just wouldn't... Fuses only protect just so much!
Any decent handheld meter will be adequate. The EEVblog meter works well but it's around $125 at Amazon. It's a pretty nice meter. Of course, it's only 3-5/6 digits, 6000 counts. Sometimes I think we carry the digits to extremes. Is there really anything we can do out at the 6th decimal place? Or the 5th or the 4th?
Then there is the idea of buying a used bench style multimeter. Here I would want one that is currently calibrated simply because you can't calibrate what doesn't work! I picked up that GW Instek GDM-8251A from eBay but it doesn't include calibration. We'll see... I also picked up an HP3478A because Dave was showing off how accurate his was. This one does come with current calibration. Again, we'll see...
I bought one of the $20 DMMs just to see if there is any hope of accuracy. I have the DMMCheck Plus so I have a benchmark. It too is a 6000 count meter, similar to the EEVblog meter. I don't know when it will get here but if it is any good at all, I'll use it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/311773197220I just started buying stuff in the great hope that my grandson will do something related to EE in college. I have never had a bench DMM, never had a DSO or AWG either. The Brymen works fine for what I need. Coupled with two bench meters (assuming they both work) I should be just about full-up on meters.