EEVblog #832 - Keysight U1282A Multimeter Teardown

[Ricardo]

Dave finds 2 MAX4611 circuits on this board and wonders why 2 Voltage Detectors are needed.  Voltage Detectors = MAX 6411 
MAX4611 = CMOS Analog Switches

[Dubbie]

Does anyone know how you wake it up after it has gone to sleep? I wish wish wish that you could just push any button on meters to get them to turn back on instead of cranking the stupid dial round to off then back again to where you were. Super infuriating for bench use. My Bryman makes you do that whereas my fluke 289 has a nice on off button but a huge long boot up delay. If this meter would wake up instantly on a button press I will buy one.


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[K6TR]

I'm looking forward to the formal Product Review of this meter Dave. I would also like to see a review of the 1461 Insulation Tester/Multimeter. I have my heart set on Keysight coming out with a an OLED Version of the 1280 Series as I really like the OLED they use on the 1253B, don't have use for the Insulation Tester and can't justify laying out the money Keysight is asking for the 1461. They have done some things to address the short battery life in the 1253 and while a long ways from ideal 50 Hours use in the 1461 with Alkaline Batteries is a substantial improvement over the 1253B.

Enjoy your time off Dave.

[ali_asadzadeh]

Dave are they worth their price? what are the alternatives?

[VK5RC]

@Dubbie, after the u1282 goes to sleep, you can wake it up by hitting the centre blue button (it worked for me twice this afternoon), it goes back to the same function as set on the switch.
For me the biggest negative issues are 1. its size, 2. the leads are a bit non-pliable.
Positives; seriously accurate and switches on quickly, I tend to switch off between readings.

[Dubbie]

Well I feel like a dumbass. Just read the Brymen manual again and discovered it does turn on with a button press. Maybe I didn't press them long enough for the debounce. The new Agilent looks nice as well. I need one more meter. Shame it is so huge.


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[zaoka]

Did they fix Capacity issues they had with U1272A? Smoothing mode works now?

Also display contrast looks better than U1272A...

I like it a lot except font for digits, somehow space between digits is dense...

[EEVblog]

Dave finds 2 MAX4611 circuits on this board and wonders why 2 Voltage Detectors are needed.  Voltage Detectors = MAX 6411 
MAX4611 = CMOS Analog Switches

  

[EEVblog]

Dave are they worth their price? what are the alternatives?

Yes if it meets your requirements.
Fluke 28 II is a direct competitor in the rugged field category.
For a general bench meter I'd rather have the U1272A

[jpb]

I don't know if I've missed it, but from the data sheet and user guide it doesn't seem to have a real-time-clock unlike other logging meters (eg the Fluke 287/289 and the Gossen meters)? This probably helps battery usage but means you have to have it tethered to a pc in some way if you want to log with time stamps? You can set time intervals for logging but this is not quite the same thing. It also has a relatively small logging memory.

I'm currently looking for a high-end meter and the U1282A has good specs and seems robustly built with very good battery life but for some reason I feel that it seems to have been designed to tick a lot of spec boxes rather than as a single product. It is also more expensive than the Fluke 287 in the UK and say the Gossen Ultra (both of which though have major drawbacks like very low battery life and no analogue display on the Gossen).

Dave - have you done real world tests on the various claimed battery lives? I know it is a feature that you are hot on. I just wonder when you have the Fluke 289 only getting 100 hours out of 6 AA batteries (I think) and the U1282A claiming 800 hours (dc V) from 4. The Gossen meters rate themselves at 200 hours but from just 2 AAs.

[Muttley Snickers]

I found a couple of teasers which will have to do until Dave gets back from exhaustive testing in relation to lateral resistive integrity of sand castles.....

[saturation]

I have opted to get one 1282a upgrade and will keep my other 1272a so this thread piqued my interest.  While I like the toughness of the casing the GDT design in Keysight DMM input protection has always concerned me, not that it won't protect, but it will protect but lead to meter destruction.  Also the size is starting to get unwieldy for a field device; small, light and toughness are bigger concerns given airline costs and luggage limits.

As expected, when Joe did the test on a cheaper Keysight DMM with GDT protection, it died.  This is similar protection used on many of the Keysight DMMs.  Only a full test per model would say for sure.

The standard MOV design allows the meter to survive and take a large spike, as Joe Smith easily demonstrates.  That said, the test 87V failed under Joe's hands, but the other well designed MOV based protection have survived, e.g. other model Flukes, Brymen etc., also an 87V is shown on Fluke's marketing videos taking hits to 12kV, but that's on AC volt mode.

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