This is great, Dave, not only was the show entertaining, you found something they missed in testing, and will likely benefit them from dealing with returns on damaged goods, or worse safety litigation, so I hope you get more than a new meter to play with!
Alm, my bad, I didn't meaning plugging an LCR meter into the mains, but another Extech clone, the Tenma as mike mentions. I agree fully with Mike's analysis. If I were to buy such a thing, it would be a cheap alternative to the more ergonomic Canadian tweezer, so making it also DMM capable and having to deal with mains protection, and when there are far better DMMs to do such a thing well, just made a potentially good device, bad.
![](http://www.smarttweezers.com/images_web/hand_st2_1_web.jpg)
![](http://cpc.farnell.com/productimages/farnell/standard/IN05681-40.jpg)
There is a pure LCR Extech device what is smaller and more in the Smart Tweezer range, and no allusion that it can be plugged into mains or work as a DMM:
Just a note, I believe this was a tweezer type DMM, not LCR meter. I don't typically connect LCR meters to mains, so input protection for LCR meters is less of an issue in my opinion (although it should meet its specified CAT ratings).
Correct. This meter is designed and manufactured as a proper DMM to measure mains voltages. It was supposed to be completely safe, but a design goof-up.
Just got an email that Extech have easily reproduced the fault, more to follow...
Dave.