Dave (and a couple others)
This is all your fault - I never would have spent the loot for an Agilent U1251A (and I didn't get the $US price
![Sad :(](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xsad.gif.pagespeed.ic.L3FGyzQrjB.png)
) without your hectoring - and now I have a meter that will drive me nuts. Imagine, my Fluke 77 was so in demand when new that there was a waiting list at the distributor, put your cash down and wait in line was the drill. After years of faithful service, decades in actual fact, it went in for a wee bit of work. I don't know the rules on plugging a particular metrology lab, so rather than get 'corrected,' I'll wait. But they did a great job of bringing a sadly out of tolerance meter back well within original specification. All well and good.
But I've also been following the endless 'what meter should a beginner get' threads and I know that some people are too lazy to look around, see what's there, and make their own choice. And I know that people get tired of answering 'the question' again, and again, and again. But there is one thing that seems 'forgotten' by some.
Life was, once, easy. There were analog meters. There were good ones. They cost a lot of money. There were bad ones. They didn't cost so much. But there were never thousands of variations.
Now Fluke offers some 30 different meters, in different lines, capabilities, species. At least. And Agilient - oh, by my count , some 27 meters or meters/kit. I'm not going to count all the meters I can find, but one vendors first page is instructive: there are 60 different meters, and not one is Fluke, Dranetz, Agilent, or Tek. And I didn't notice more than one or two UNI-T meters...
The advice, well meant, is to 'get what you need.' Great. If I bought today, what I needed 30 years ago, it would be a Simpson. Fantastic meter. Tough. Accurate. Rebuildable. Today it is more or less junk - it doesn't do capacitance, it doesn't resolve to pico-amps, it doesn't count frequency, or any of the dozens of really handy things that meters do. And, with experience, you get a little handle on 'what you need,' but I'm just getting back in to a field that I left when telephone exchanges required day-in, day-out, relay filing. And god help you if your Telstar medallion started flirting with the switch-gear while you were on a ladder. Ouch. Idiot child.
Now I'm back. And I looked for a new meter, literally, for months. Why months? Well. I like to play with inductors of various forms, doing various jobs. I've never touched an SMT part in my life - but they seem the way things are going - perhaps I'll buy a truckload of through-hole components before they're all declared obsolete. Do I get this one - measures, after a fashion, femto-amps. Or that one over there with the really bright yellow case. Or the red/gray one that the local, somewhat dusty, parts house handles. And what if I want to measure 10 A. And can I stand to live with 50,000 counts. What's data-logging? And which one comes with test-leads I'd trust my life to?
The answer to all this is in my hand: I'm the new, and slightly dazzled, owner of an Agilent U1251A. Why that meter? Because, like other variations on 'beginner,' I gave up. I can delete a variety of Fluke meters from my list, but it is really difficult to determine which single meter will actually 'do' the job. So, when I walked in to an alternate supplier that had the U1251A (rather than the U3257 b MK 3a) in stock, on sale, in front of me, I went for it.
And it's all your fault. So, while I love your videos, and appreciate your gripes with people who complain about 'how you should have done' some particular topic, reserve a small sympathy for those who inquire (after endless searching) 'what should I buy.'
And I hope this winds up in the right spot in the queue
Damn, that is insanely CHEAP!
Dave.
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