Big Clive's "Trashy" meter, unboxed ( Duratool D03047 multimeter )

[Fungus]

After the previous "trashy" meter thread I was curious so I spent this month's fun money on some of Big Clive's favorite meter the Duratool D03047.

The meters cost me €3.78 each (+tax) but the only place I could find them was on Farnell where there's a minimum shipping fee of €14.   

Oh, well. In for a penny, in for a pound... I ordered three of them to make the postage worthwhile. They arrived today:



The nicely-printed box they come in shows a yellow meter but they were black on the inside, just like Clive's.



First impressions are of a well made DT830 in a rubber boot. The dial is clicky, the printing on the front is very easy to read.

(Clive says the rubber boot gives it a "cheap, Fluke-like appeal" and he's right. I like the way it feels in the hand...)

Opening it up: The plastic case isn't what I'd call "thick" but it's thick enough. Certainly not eggshell thin like some other DT830s I've seen.

Inside we see more "DT830 done right". There's two ceramic fuses for the different current ranges, a beeper, and the quality of the PCB, etc., is very good apart from a bit of flux residue around the hand-soldered parts.

Little details stand out, eg. The 5A current shunt is sleeved for some reason. The strain relief on the battery cable looks good - I've see DT830s where the battery cable breaks off almost every time you take the back off.



The input jacks are solid tubes (not the rolled/split-metal type) and are soldered to a small daughterboard. They look quite sturdy. The daughterboard has the 5A fuse soldered to it. The 500mA fuse is clipped to the main PCB. The fuses are marked "500V".



The probes it comes with aren't the best (obviously) but they aren't the worst either. They're certainly a step up from the average DT830 probe.

They're fully shrouded and fit very tightly in the meter (probably thanks to the solid input jacks).



The safety claim is "CAT I 500V". That seems slightly overcautious but I'm not going to argue. I didn't buy it to work on mains AC.



The back of the meter has a batch number lasered onto it. A sign of real factory quality control processes?



I did a few function tests:
Volts was spot on
Amps was spot on
Ohms was about three counts too low on 10k+1k resistors.
Continuity is latched, medium-loud, not very fast.
The square wave function outputs a 50Hz, 2.2V square wave.
Diode test is ~3V open circuit, it lights up my big white test LED, no problem.



There's no backlight but the display is incredibly contrasty.
Power consumption is under 300uA so the battery should last for thousands of hours (plural).

The manual is surprisingly(refreshingly?) specific about overload protection on each range:



Verdict: I like it! I nominate this for "cheapest meter that's actually worth owning". 

Could it replace my Anengs? Answer: Yes.  The only thing I might miss would be auto-ranging on the Ohms range.

(it's also a lot smaller/cuter than most of them and costs a fraction of the price.  )

It's hard to believe they can sell this for €3.78 through reputable sellers in Europe.

[Fungus]

Ref: "Trashy meters"

[nigelwright7557]

I have bought sub £10 multimeters before and they do work a bit.
I usually find low ohms readings are off.

I spent about £25 on a Kaiweets multimeter and that has been much better.
Low ohms readings are spot on.

[Fungus]

I have bought sub £10 multimeters before and they do work a bit.
I usually find low ohms readings are off.

Let's see...

I shorted the probes on the 200 Ohm range and it said "0.4".

I measured a 2 Ohm resistor and it said "2.3".

Seems good to me!

[David Aurora]

I don't get it- why do people buy stuff like this?

I mean, I'd get buying one for a kid that wants to measure a few batteries I guess, but do people get this stuff for morbid curiosity, or to collect, or for doing actual work? I genuinely don't understand the appeal 

[Fungus]

I don't get it- why do people buy stuff like this?

I mean, I'd get buying one for a kid that wants to measure a few batteries I guess, but do people get this stuff for morbid curiosity, or to collect, or for doing actual work? I genuinely don't understand the appeal 

Me? I can't imagine a world where not a single person would want to own one just for the fun of it.

[Fungus]

Edit: Title changed in case anybody wants to search for this meter on google

[robert.rozee]

I don't get it- why do people buy stuff like this? I mean, I'd get buying one for a kid that wants to measure a few batteries I guess, but do people get this stuff for morbid curiosity, or to collect, or for doing actual work? I genuinely don't understand the appeal 

as long as you're not measuring anything over 50v or so, these meters are perfectly adequate. and compared to any analog meter (i remember the days before DMMs were available) the accuracy is pretty impressive. not to forget the minimal power consumption of the ICL7106 chip that invariable runs the meter.

what lets these meters down is the cost-cutting to the nth degree. if you just doubled the build cost the meters could be so much better with:
1. separate current terminals, so have a 4th terminal for uA and mA;
2. powered by 6x AA cells instead of a PP9;
3. NO higher voltage ranges;
4. NO transistor tester.


cheers,
rob   :-)

[Fungus]

I wonder if the sleeve on the shunt is to stop sparks jumping to COM from the other input jacks?

It seems unnecessary in a meter with this rating but I can't think of any other reason.



Maybe they assume that not everybody knows what "CAT I" means.

[joeqsmith]

Never seen a sleeve on a shunt like that.  In this case may the owner grabs a deep banana jacked leads (or a nail) and shorts the shunt to common.   The sleeve may help prevent that, once....   

Harbor Freight changed the max voltage marking on their free meters.  Of course, they can still read well about it.   Seems like 2kV? 

[Fungus]

Never seen a sleeve on a shunt like that.  In this case may the owner grabs a deep banana jacked leads (or a nail) and shorts the shunt to common.   The sleeve may help prevent that, once....

That's Clive's theory, too, see his video at 21:16 onwards.

The shunt's quite a long way off to the side of the input jacks though (see video). An extra long banana plug wouldn't touch it.

If people are poking mains wires directly into the input jacks of multimeters then most bets are off anyway. I wonder if Flukes protect people from that?

[NoisyBoy]

Everyone has a different use case, priority, budget, and economic resources.  While this may not be the preferred meter for someone who frequent this forum, it may be perfectly adequate for many.  I am sure the existence of such meter enabled many to become interested in electronics and turned it into a career.  So I am grateful of such meters, I have no problem with them as long as they state the limitations properly, so informed buyers will not doing something stupid with them and get hurt as a result.

But I do agree with many of you that I would not use it for high voltage work, I got about 4 of such meters from Harbor Freight (3 of them were free), the leads from each of them broke in different fashion, with wires coming out from either end, and that’s with minimal use. User can easily get a shock if it is used in HV scenario. 

I don't get it- why do people buy stuff like this?

I mean, I'd get buying one for a kid that wants to measure a few batteries I guess, but do people get this stuff for morbid curiosity, or to collect, or for doing actual work? I genuinely don't understand the appeal 

[Fungus]

I got about 4 of such meters from Harbor Freight (3 of them were free), the leads from each of them broke in different fashion, with wires coming out from either end, and that’s with minimal use.

The typical "Harbor Freight" leads are very weak. The probe handles are hollow tubes (see pic above) so the wires can twist around inside them and eventually break off.

The secret is to inject a bit of hot glue in the end of the tubes. 

[David Aurora]

I don't get it- why do people buy stuff like this?

I mean, I'd get buying one for a kid that wants to measure a few batteries I guess, but do people get this stuff for morbid curiosity, or to collect, or for doing actual work? I genuinely don't understand the appeal 

Me? I can't imagine a world where not a single person would want to own one just for the fun of it.

Yeah I guess I just don't get what "the fun of it" is supposed to be with these things? Like is it the "I got a bargain" feeling if it works or something?

[David Aurora]

Everyone has a different use case, priority, budget, and economic resources.  While this may not be the preferred meter for someone who frequent this forum, it may be perfectly adequate for many.  I am sure the existence of such meter enabled many to become interested in electronics and turned it into a career.  So I am grateful of such meters, I have no problem with them as long as they state the limitations properly, so informed buyers will not doing something stupid with them and get hurt as a result.

But I do agree with many of you that I would not use it for high voltage work, I got about 4 of such meters from Harbor Freight (3 of them were free), the leads from each of them broke in different fashion, with wires coming out from either end, and that’s with minimal use. User can easily get a shock if it is used in HV scenario. 

I don't get it- why do people buy stuff like this?

I mean, I'd get buying one for a kid that wants to measure a few batteries I guess, but do people get this stuff for morbid curiosity, or to collect, or for doing actual work? I genuinely don't understand the appeal 

Yeah I can totally understand someone going "I have X dollars, this is literally my only option", 100%. It just baffles me that anyone else would buy one. Having owned shit like that myself when I was broke and starting out I was so glad to get rid of it at the first chance I got and be able to actually trust my tools. But hey, people collect shit like stamps and spoons, to each their own, I'd just love to know what the draw of these things is?

[Fungus]

Like is it the "I got a bargain" feeling if it works or something?

Nope. Not even close.

Yeah I can totally understand someone going "I have X dollars, this is literally my only option", 100%. It just baffles me that anyone else would buy one. Having owned shit like that myself when I was broke and starting out I was so glad to get rid of it at the first chance I got and be able to actually trust my tools. But hey, people collect shit like stamps and spoons, to each their own, I'd just love to know what the draw of these things is?

I guess this is a bit like humor: If I have to explain it to you then you'll never really appreciate it, but here goes...

Leaving aside the fact that I don't recall a DT830 ever giving me a reason not to trust it (they either work or they don't) and the fact that I believe I get more "trust" from owning several cheap meters that agree with each other than by owning a single monolithic multimeter, no matter how expensive, I can come up with plenty of reasons to buy meters like this:

a) You can own lots of them and leave them in different places where they might be needed.
b) You can use them in bars where they might get beer or allioli spilled on them (ie. Arduino club meetings).
c) They're small and fit in cases/pockets easily, no special protective case needed.
d) You can use them at shows or places where an expensive meter might go missing if you take your eye off it.
e) You can let other people use them without worrying they'll drop them or scratch the screen or blow a $15 fuse with an AA battery.
f) You can give them away to beginners or other people who don't have a meter yet, turn them into enthusiasts.
g) It's just plain good fun to open new things and learn from what's inside them.

(See Clive's video for more reasons...)

Any info about this sort of meter is useful and these seem like worthwhile meters to me, hence the post.

PS: Have you never, ever, collected anything at all?

[David Aurora]

Like is it the "I got a bargain" feeling if it works or something?

Nope. Not even close.

Yeah I can totally understand someone going "I have X dollars, this is literally my only option", 100%. It just baffles me that anyone else would buy one. Having owned shit like that myself when I was broke and starting out I was so glad to get rid of it at the first chance I got and be able to actually trust my tools. But hey, people collect shit like stamps and spoons, to each their own, I'd just love to know what the draw of these things is?

I guess this is a bit like humor: If I have to explain it to you then you'll never really appreciate it, but here goes...

Leaving aside the fact that I don't recall a DT830 ever giving me a reason not to trust it (they either work or they don't) and the fact that I believe I get more "trust" from owning several cheap meters that agree with each other than by owning a single monolithic multimeter, no matter how expensive, I can come up with plenty of reasons to buy meters like this:

a) You can own lots of them and leave them in different places where they might be needed.
b) You can use them in bars where they might get beer or allioli spilled on them (ie. Arduino club meetings).
c) They're small and fit in cases/pockets easily, no special protective case needed.
d) You can use them at shows or places where an expensive meter might go missing if you take your eye off it.
e) You can let other people use them without worrying they'll drop them or scratch the screen or blow a $15 fuse with an AA battery.
f) You can give them away to beginners or other people who don't have a meter yet, turn them into enthusiasts.
g) It's just plain good fun to open new things and learn from what's inside them.

(See Clive's video for more reasons...)

Any info about this sort of meter is useful and these seem like worthwhile meters to me, hence the post.

PS: Have you never, ever, collected anything at all?

Not really  Maybe music I guess, but not as a collector, just as a lifelong music fan/musician that wanted to listen to it all.

For me meters are just tools rather than anything I'd think about collecting. Like I'm not going to go buy 12 cheap screwdrivers in case I need to take one on holiday, keep one in the car, have one to display and so on, I'm just going to buy a good one and look after it. I'll generally only grab a second one if I find I need two at once.

I guess though I've got a very different take on the trust thing too, maybe partly because I'm generally working at higher voltages. If I'm sticking my fingers in a 600V circuit I feel confident that my good meters are telling me the truth about what's there. I'm not worried that I left them on a little long last week and the battery has faded and thrown readings off or the banana terminals have cracked solder joints or something like that. I also don't want to have to double check a measurement with 3 different meters to get confidence in a reading.

Hey, you do you, whatever floats your boat. I've just always wondered about this, especially when I see guys like Clive using them when he could very likely choose a better made unit.

[NoisyBoy]

I will share my use case for my Harbor Freight meters.

When I work on electrical problems on my cars or tractors, I don’t need accuracy and precision, often all I need to see is whether it is receiving power, or rough voltage.  While working in the engine compartment, my gloves are covered with grime, oil, smudges, hydraulic fluid, etc…. It leaves a greasy black smudge on everything I touch.  While I have nice Fluke and Brymen handhelds, the black oil and smudge will never come off the case, and it will fill every cracks.  Since I am working on low voltage with no need for accuracy, I can care less about what happens to the HF meters, if they get trashed, into the trash they go.  I view them as disposable meters for truly dirty work.

DMM is like dishes at home, there is fine China, there is everyday dishes, they is plastic and paper disposable dishes. There is nothing wrong to have more than one type of dishes.

[xrunner]

Yep, kept one in my vehicle for years. Didn't care what happened to it. Eventually the battery corroded and I threw it out (should have repaired it though). No doubt it would have still worked.

[David Aurora]

I will share my use case for my Harbor Freight meters.

When I work on electrical problems on my cars or tractors, I don’t need accuracy and precision, often all I need to see is whether it is receiving power, or rough voltage.  While working in the engine compartment, my gloves are covered with grime, oil, smudges, hydraulic fluid, etc…. It leaves a greasy black smudge on everything I touch.  While I have nice Fluke and Brymen handhelds, the black oil and smudge will never come off the case, and it will fill every cracks.  Since I am working on low voltage with no need for accuracy, I can care less about what happens to the HF meters, if they get trashed, into the trash they go.  I view them as disposable meters for truly dirty work.

DMM is like dishes at home, there is fine China, there is everyday dishes, they is plastic and paper disposable dishes. There is nothing wrong to have more than one type of dishes.

That I get, 100%. Totally usable as a disposable yes/no meter if things aren't mission critical

[Nikola Tesla Junior IV]

I will share my use case for my Harbor Freight meters.

When I work on electrical problems on my cars or tractors, I don’t need accuracy and precision, often all I need to see is whether it is receiving power, or rough voltage.  While working in the engine compartment, my gloves are covered with grime, oil, smudges, hydraulic fluid, etc…. It leaves a greasy black smudge on everything I touch.  While I have nice Fluke and Brymen handhelds, the black oil and smudge will never come off the case, and it will fill every cracks.  Since I am working on low voltage with no need for accuracy, I can care less about what happens to the HF meters, if they get trashed, into the trash they go.  I view them as disposable meters for truly dirty work.

DMM is like dishes at home, there is fine China, there is everyday dishes, they is plastic and paper disposable dishes. There is nothing wrong to have more than one type of dishes.

Though I strongly agree in "Buy once, Cry once", and I tend to despise waste so I understand where some posters are coming from, the description quoted above couldn't have been said better. There is a time and a place for disposable equipment. Gloves would be another good example. I don't use my deerskin gloves to change the oil. If you intend to not treat it like the disposable meter it is, then I suggest you do yourself a favor.

[Fungus]

DMM is like dishes at home, there is fine China, there is everyday dishes, they is plastic and paper disposable dishes. There is nothing wrong to have more than one type of dishes.

Yep. I wouldn't eat off disposable dishes at home but if I'm just grabbing something to eat there's my favorite chipped plate...

It's not the whole picture though. Refusing to touch anything but Flukes seems to me like a certain person sitting at a roped off table in a gold plated country club: I'm sure it's a fine dining experience and all but last night I sat on a hard metal chair on a noisy street corner, eating a kebab and drinking straight out of a can. Donald will never experience that, so all he'll never have a reference point to truly appreciate the finer stuff.

I'm a bit of a Clive at heart, I'll sit on noisy street corners for fun and I will use this meter. It's cute, it's clicky and it amuses me to do so.

Though I strongly agree in "Buy once, Cry once", and I tend to despise waste so I understand where some posters are coming from, the description quoted above couldn't have been said better. There is a time and a place for disposable equipment. Gloves would be another good example. I don't use my deerskin gloves to change the oil. If you intend to not treat it like the disposable meter it is, then I suggest you do yourself a favor.

Here's another curveball...

I also own one of these: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004478400063.html

On paper it's completely useless - can't even measure voltages below 0.8V(!), but I find myself using it a lot lately.


As Clive notes: Manual ranging multimeters spend most of their time in either the 20V or continuity-test ranges and I'm sure we can all relate to that.

My little Zoyi switches between those two ranges on the fly. Hold the black probe on GND and poke around: If you touch a ground pin it beeps, if you touch a power pin it shows the voltage there. High impedance? It shows a resistance.

To switch to current measurement you just move the cable to the mA input. That's it. No need to touch a dial or do anything else, it senses the probe in the input jack and switches over to current measurement all by itself.

(it also tuts at you disapprovingly if you leave the probe there and there's no current flowing, which is cool)

It also reads voltages unbelievably fast. You know the game where you bang your probes together in continuity mode to see if you can beat the beeper? With this meter you can play that game with voltage measurements and the meter will win most of the time.

I'd never have known any of this if I hadn't spent my "fun money" on one a few months ago.

I will share my use case for my Harbor Freight meters.

When I work on electrical problems on my cars or tractors, I don’t need accuracy and precision, often all I need to see is whether it is receiving power, or rough voltage.  While working in the engine compartment, my gloves are covered with grime, oil, smudges, hydraulic fluid, etc…. It leaves a greasy black smudge on everything I touch.  While I have nice Fluke and Brymen handhelds, the black oil and smudge will never come off the case, and it will fill every cracks.  Since I am working on low voltage with no need for accuracy, I can care less about what happens to the HF meters, if they get trashed, into the trash they go.  I view them as disposable meters for truly dirty work.

You need one of those ^^

It's one of the physically toughest meters ever made. Run over it with your tractor and it won't care (remember to upload the video).

There's also no dial to turn, just a single button to use it.

[Fungus]

I guess though I've got a very different take on the trust thing too, maybe partly because I'm generally working at higher voltages. If I'm sticking my fingers in a 600V circuit I feel confident that my good meters are telling me the truth about what's there.

That's a whole other scenario, nothing to do with what's being discussed here.

PS: Clive says he uses Flukes at work.

[David Aurora]

I guess though I've got a very different take on the trust thing too, maybe partly because I'm generally working at higher voltages. If I'm sticking my fingers in a 600V circuit I feel confident that my good meters are telling me the truth about what's there.

That's a whole other scenario, nothing to do with what's being discussed here.

PS: Clive says he uses Flukes at work.

It isn't really clear what's being discussed here other than cheap meters. Is there a specific voltage or accuracy spec I missed in your post?

That'd make sense about Clive, I was always puzzled seeing those meters in his vids.

I don't really get the thing in your other post either about refusing to use cheap tools being like "sitting at a roped off table in a gold plated country club". It's not at all like a kebabs vs fine dining thing. Good tools aren't about elitism or being "finer stuff", the point is for them to help get the job done properly and quickly. It's also relative- if you're a hobbyist you might think a $500 or whatever meter is overkill, but if that's how you make your living the goalpost of what a tool is worth shifts pretty quickly. I'm a very low level hobbyist/shithouse machinist so it's hard for me to justify hundreds of bucks on a set of calipers for myself, but I'm not about to suggest that any machinist insisting on proper Mitutoyos over bargain bin ones is being too precious about their tools.

Case in point- 45 minutes ago I was on a callout where I needed to make a couple power supply adjustments on a pretty damn expensive bit of gear that I'd rather not stuff up and have to fix for free. The client isn't just paying for expertise, they're also paying for the peace of mind that if your meter says it's XYZ volts, then it's XYZ volts, no ifs or buts about it, their gear (read:livelihood) is in safe hands. They don't wanna see me whip out 3 meters to see if they all agree (and god knows what you're supposed to do if they don't when the clock is ticking), they wanna see the good stuff and the right reading.

I also used a proper screwdriver for the trimpot. I'm sure we could have gone kebab style and used a fingernail or sharpened stick or something instead, but I don't think they'd feel too great calling me back for the next job if I did that.

With all this said, I 100% get what NoisyBoy said about a good purpose of these things. Or simply just the budgetary thing- if all I have is a $5 meter then that's what I have to use, but from experience you can be damn sure that the first bit of money I make with it is getting dumped into a better one rather than buying another crap one. Hell, "Fuck you I like them" is a perfectly good reason too. I was just trying to understand the attraction.

[EEVblog]

Ceramic fuses? 

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/trashy-meters-redux/?action=dlattach;attach=1759493;image