My first reply comment posting on EEVblog.
First up, variable 300 to 400 degree warm greetings to all fellow solder iron wielding Ladies and Gentleman on EEVblog
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FWiW the leaking battery plague has actually gone my way recently in a weird positive direction.
I could afford to buy 6 unloved quality used meters (assorted Flukes and a Kyoritsu) for less than the price of 1 new meter because you guessed it, all had severe battery leakage problems, and once pointed out, the store manager/staff keen to let them go dirt cheap (heavy markdown loss) with no warranty of course.
The retail take is they are worth next to nothing in that state to the shop, just return hassles, refunds and complaints, and or would have been binned in the future as damaged or NRV stock.
The deal was I take them as is for parts, oh yeah
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And what an MESS
those self nuked Enerjizzzer batteries made, the (expletive) cr*p was everywhere on the boards, in powder and fluid form, over, under and around components, blah blah...
Took an entire day to disassemble the lot and sort them out, featuring rubber gloves and old clothing all the way.
LOL, the Fluke 289 had a double whammy on it, the dreaded supercRapacitor on the board was a bit crusty too but scrubbed up ok with some alco. I'll have to get that sucker out one day once I source what to put in that won't leak, or kill the board in the process, so I'll let sleeping dogs lie for now.
All the meters amazingly work great now
and up to perfect spec, even with severely corroded battery contacts that are now clean bare metal but do the job fine with no contact resistance issues.
I would suggest that people check/inspect their battery gadgets every 3 months and have their unused meters parked face up so that if the batteries do leak, it may not get to the board easily.
Thanks Eveready, saved me a bundle on meters I could never afford, keep up the ummm.. good work!