New eevblog multimeter?

[BU508A]

Wow, that's a nice find!  It sure does appear to be a whole new design.

This looks like Dave did it intentionaly, otherwise model name wold not be masked. Anyway after all this horrible errors with 121GW I will not touch it until it will get stamp 'Approved by Joe' . I cannot get why some users are happy if multimeter have problem with current and voltage measerment, and why to trust that one will do any better?

Do you have any examples for those horrible errors? I couldn't spot them in this 50-pages thread.

[EEVblog]

This looks like Dave did it intentionaly, otherwise model name wold not be masked.

Nope. I actually had no knowledge of or input to this design at all. It "just appeared" and will be sold under their brand. They made this branded special for me to evaluate to see if I was interested. The 121GW is not being discontinued, unless I decide to do so of course.
It is a physically bigger design, higher CAT rating, better specs, true energy measurement chip, and doesn't appear to be backward compatible with my BT app.

[coromonadalix]

Is it an 121gw evolution ?  based on the same dmm chipset but added features  ... and all or most of the 121gw quircks resolved ?

Feels like a Brymen ??

[MiroS]

curren measurment issue - https://youtu.be/csANYnvL32k
voltage  issue - please check Joe YT chanel
I am not tracing this since Joe review, maybe problems are fixed now? I wonder if this new is also having the same problems?

[gnavigator1007]

Feels like a Brymen ??

Range switch says no

[Fungus]

Do you have any examples for those horrible errors? I couldn't spot them in this 50-pages thread.

How about the special shim they came up with so that the range switch actually made contact with the PCB?

[joeqsmith]

This looks like Dave did it intentionaly, otherwise model name wold not be masked.

Nope. I actually had no knowledge of or input to this design at all. It "just appeared" and will be sold under their brand. They made this branded special for me to evaluate to see if I was interested. The 121GW is not being discontinued, unless I decide to do so of course.
It is a physically bigger design, higher CAT rating, better specs, true energy measurement chip, and doesn't appear to be backward compatible with my BT app.

So to be clear, when it becomes available it isn't sold under the EEVBLOG brand like the one shown in the video?   Or did you sell the the rights to use the brand for any new products they come up with? 

Will your store be offering this meter or haven't you decided?

[pascal_sweden]

Branded special, but there is no indication that it is an evolution of the 121GW or just a parallel side product of the manufacturer that has been developed completely independent!

This looks like Dave did it intentionaly, otherwise model name wold not be masked.

Nope. I actually had no knowledge of or input to this design at all. It "just appeared" and will be sold under their brand. They made this branded special for me to evaluate to see if I was interested. The 121GW is not being discontinued, unless I decide to do so of course.
It is a physically bigger design, higher CAT rating, better specs, true energy measurement chip, and doesn't appear to be backward compatible with my BT app.

[joeqsmith]

Wow, that's a nice find!  It sure does appear to be a whole new design.

This looks like Dave did it intentionaly, otherwise model name wold not be masked. Anyway after all this horrible errors with 121GW I will not touch it until it will get stamp 'Approved by Joe' . I cannot get why some users are happy if multimeter have problem with current and voltage measerment, and why to trust that one will do any better?

Do you have any examples for those horrible errors? I couldn't spot them in this 50-pages thread.

curren measurment issue - https://youtu.be/csANYnvL32k
voltage  issue - please check Joe YT chanel
I am not tracing this since Joe review, maybe problems are fixed now? I wonder if this new is also having the same problems?

After Dave's comment about use of the thread,  I had removed several of my comments as I understood them to be causing a lot of confusion and also clutter. 

To be fair, I haven't touched the meters since making the last set of videos and maybe by now they have it all sorted out.  Also, at the time I had purchased the two meters from Dave's store, I was not aware he was selling old stock.   Maybe the new meters improve some of the problems.   

Let's ignore that it appears less electrically robust now, that the mechanics can't handle the 50K cycle test and were ground to dust and that methanol strips the lettering. Let's also ignore the whole leakage, linearity problems. 

VA mode is still a problem but could have been addressed in the manual easy enough.


The switch continues to be a problem.  One  of the two meters I bought had problems right out of the box with the switch.  Watching the design evolve we had both double and single dimple contacts, shims, shimless,  flipped shims, different plating.  I don't think it was a surprise to anyone but Dave:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/new-eevblog-branded-multimeter-coming/msg1405038/#msg1405038

It seems after several attempts to get the meter to reliably log to the card, it's still a problem. 

Autorange can cause meter not to display correctly with potential lethal levels applied.

50/60hz rejection is poor.   It appeared they were continuing to adjust the filters to improve the response times but the settling times suffer. 

Spring contacts for battery do not fit correctly.

Plastic connectors seem to be failing at a high rate.  Someone had just asked me again about that a couple of months back.  Hopefully they are still offering replacements.

The way they align the meter for capacitance is wrong.   This is really odd as it was correct at one point.  Once aligned it does a decent job with lower values.

I don't have time to test the countless firmware updates in hopes they will stumble onto a better design.   After a few years in production and still seeing many of the same problems shown with the preproduction  unit,  I can't see a reason to invest more time.  I've looked at a fair number of meters ranging in cost and quality, they normally have all the basics sorted out. 

[HKJ]

VA mode is still a problem but could have been addressed in the manual easy enough.

If you are used to multimeter you know that everything is referenced to the common terminal. People expecting that the meter suddenly uses the current input as voltage reference are rather naive.

[EEVblog]

So to be clear, when it becomes available it isn't sold under the EEVBLOG brand like the one shown in the video?

It will be available under other brands as the manufacturer sees fit. It's a complement to an existing line of products.

Or did you sell the the rights to use the brand for any new products they come up with? 

No.

Will your store be offering this meter or haven't you decided?

I haven't decided.

[Fungus]

Branded special, but there is no indication that it is an evolution of the 121GW or just a parallel side product of the manufacturer that has been developed completely independent!

Who says it's even the same manufacturer?

[BU508A]

Does it have the 15V testing mode for diodes?

[joeqsmith]

VA mode is still a problem but could have been addressed in the manual easy enough.

If you are used to multimeter you know that everything is referenced to the common terminal. People expecting that the meter suddenly uses the current input as voltage reference are rather naive.

I didn't write the manual for this meter and am only pointing out the problem with it.  When I first noticed it with the draft manual and preproduction meter, I was showing the problem to Dave and I think it went right over his head.   Rather than trying to understand what was being shown I just got an ear full about how I had the meter hooked up wrong.  Of course the fan boys wanted to jump in on that one.   So yeah, I agree many people are indeed rather naive but worse, the manual last I knew still to this day does not help this group by showing the proper way to make the measurement.   Even the person who had made that video I linked stumbled into the same problem because they followed the manual.    Just something to be aware of.

[HKJ]

I didn't write the manual for this meter and am only pointing out the problem with it.  When I first noticed it with the draft manual and preproduction meter, I was showing the problem to Dave and I think it went right over his head.   Rather than trying to understand what was being shown I just got an ear full about how I had the meter hooked up wrong.  Of course the fan boys wanted to jump in on that one.   So yeah, I agree many people are indeed rather naive but worse, the manual last I knew still to this day does not help this group by showing the proper way to make the measurement.   Even the person who had made that video I linked stumbled into the same problem because they followed the manual.    Just something to be aware of.

I did not read the manual, but I have a couple of multimeters that can measure power and they all work the same way with the common terminal as reference. I would be very surprised if you found one that did not use the common terminal as reference and that meter would need some clear markings on it!

[joeqsmith]

I didn't write the manual for this meter and am only pointing out the problem with it.  When I first noticed it with the draft manual and preproduction meter, I was showing the problem to Dave and I think it went right over his head.   Rather than trying to understand what was being shown I just got an ear full about how I had the meter hooked up wrong.  Of course the fan boys wanted to jump in on that one.   So yeah, I agree many people are indeed rather naive but worse, the manual last I knew still to this day does not help this group by showing the proper way to make the measurement.   Even the person who had made that video I linked stumbled into the same problem because they followed the manual.    Just something to be aware of.

I did not read the manual, but I have a couple of multimeters that can measure power and they all work the same way with the common terminal as reference. I would be very surprised if you found one that did not use the common terminal as reference and that meter would need some clear markings on it!

I imagine many people will take the time to read the manual and use it for a reference when taking measurements.   I would imagine in general people are going to trust the manual to have the proper procedures.  Consider that not everyone is going to be an expert when it comes to making measurements with their 121GW like you are.   Calling them naive is correct but doesn't help matters.  Rather we took the approach to try and educate this group on how it works and how to correctly use it.   

[HKJ]

I imagine many people will take the time to read the manual and use it for a reference when taking measurements.   I would imagine in general people are going to trust the manual to have the proper procedures.  Consider that not everyone is going to be an expert when it comes to making measurements with their 121GW like you are.   Calling them naive is correct but doesn't help matters.  Rather we took the approach to try and educate this group on how it works and how to correctly use it.   

So the issue it not the meter and have never been (It works like any other meter with power measurement), but the manual is not good enough.

[joeqsmith]

I imagine many people will take the time to read the manual and use it for a reference when taking measurements.   I would imagine in general people are going to trust the manual to have the proper procedures.  Consider that not everyone is going to be an expert when it comes to making measurements with their 121GW like you are.   Calling them naive is correct but doesn't help matters.  Rather we took the approach to try and educate this group on how it works and how to correctly use it.   

So the issue it not the meter and have never been (It works like any other meter with power measurement), but the manual is not good enough.

The issue is if someone without your expert level of knowledge follows the users manual to make VA measurements, it will not yield accurate results.  It's not my design and I did not write the manual.  They certainly could design the meter to work as the manual suggests or they could just change the manual.   Again when I brought it up and suggested changing how it should be wired, I was told that I had the meter incorrectly connected (in other words the manual was the intended way to wire it).   IMO, I would have just changed the manual but here we are, what, three years later and it's still a problem.   I hadn't thought about it until  KainkaLabs had posted that video where they were following the manual and coming up with incorrect results.   

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/eevblog-121gw-discussion-thread/msg2191287/#msg2191287

The meter I use doesn't have a common reference but its designed to measure the mains.

[coromonadalix]

this thread should be merged with the 150$  meter thread ?

[EEVblog]

this thread should be merged with the 150$  meter thread ?

No. This is NOT the $150 meter I've been talking about for some time.

[EEVblog]

curren measurment issue - https://youtu.be/csANYnvL32k
voltage  issue - please check Joe YT chanel
I am not tracing this since Joe review, maybe problems are fixed now? I wonder if this new is also having the same problems?

First time I have seen that video.
Just tried to replicate it with the same AC currents and couldn't. Although I was using a low voltage source instead of mains. So 

[CDaniel]

This issue could be with a particular firmware version , anyway it is far from finished ... and never will be 

[Dr. Frank]

curren measurment issue - https://youtu.be/csANYnvL32k
voltage  issue - please check Joe YT chanel
I am not tracing this since Joe review, maybe problems are fixed now? I wonder if this new is also having the same problems?

First time I have seen that video.
Just tried to replicate it with the same AC currents and couldn't. Although I was using a low voltage source instead of mains. So 

That's a very strange setup. His explanations are practically incomprehensible,so I assume it's a sort of dimmer module and a LED bulb containing an SMPU in series, probably creating a very irregular ac-current waveform with a high crest factor / high DC superposition.
The hardware / software of the GW121 has definitely big weaknesses with superimposed DC on AC signals, which seems to be the case here, again.
Therefore, in such situations, an overrange condition is not detected properly, and then a  clipping occurs in too a low range, exactly what this guy demonstrates when he uses a fixed, upper range.
So that's nothing new, and has been discussed in length already. (superimposed DC on AC in ACV mode, w/o giving a high voltage warning)
Frank
 

[EEVblog]

curren measurment issue - https://youtu.be/csANYnvL32k
voltage  issue - please check Joe YT chanel
I am not tracing this since Joe review, maybe problems are fixed now? I wonder if this new is also having the same problems?

First time I have seen that video.
Just tried to replicate it with the same AC currents and couldn't. Although I was using a low voltage source instead of mains. So 

That's a very strange setup. His explanations are practically incomprehensible,so I assume it's a sort of dimmer module and a LED bulb containing an SMPU in series, probably creating a very irregular ac-current waveform with a high crest factor / high DC superposition.
The hardware / software of the GW121 has definitely big weaknesses with superimposed DC on AC signals, which seems to be the case here, again.
Therefore, in such situations, an overrange condition is not detected properly, and then a  clipping occurs in too a low range, exactly what this guy demonstrates when he uses a fixed, upper range.
So that's nothing new, and has been discussed in length already. (superimposed DC on AC in ACV mode, w/o giving a high voltage warning)
Frank

Yep, not much I can do without more details. Likely related to the large DC offset voltage issue I would assume.

[joeqsmith]

I wrote Scott to see if he would post a scope shot of the current and maybe a CSV file.   I've suggested he place that information here.   

I did try to replicate it as well using the Arb.  These included DC biased waves and such.  Scott has the early version of the meters.  If I still can't replicate what he shows using my released meter, I'll try it with the proto.