A look at the Uni-T UT210E

[thaistatos]

anyone found a solution with brighter backlight while using rechargable Eneloops?
I do not know if there is a separate led driver (but most probably backlight would not dim that much with fading battery voltage)  or if it is just directly connected to the batteries with a current limiting resistor?

[stj]

it's just a current limiting resistor.

[thaistatos]

according to this:
https://lygte-info.dk/review/DMMUNI-TUT210E%20UK.html

Backlight only works down to about 2.6V where it is fairly dim.

it might match with current/voltage diagramm on page 15:
http://docplayer.net/45296962-Nf2w757gt-v1f1-pb-free-reflow-soldering-application-built-in-esd-protection-device-rohs-compliant.html
65mA for 2.7V, 10 mA for 2.6V

Might be a reason to switch to amber LEDs which might have lower forward voltage, like in Brymen BM257S or BM 319S, both powered by 2x1.5V batteries.
On the other hand, Brymen BM235 with also 2x1.5V power supply works till DMM shuts down:

https://lygte-info.dk/review/DMMBrymen%20BM235%20UK.html

Meter works down to 1.7V where meter turns off, battery symbol show at 2.5V.
Backlight fades with falling voltage, but works down to meter turns off

I didn´t find a white led with low forward voltage around 2.2V.

[stj]

it's actually not bad at 2.4v - perfectly viewable.
i actually heard people complain it was too bright at 3v

[thaistatos]

I run into problems flashing the chip.
I followed instructions from
got a programmer, test clip, reading of data was ok and was exactly the same the examples.
When trying to flash there was a message " chip main memory with the contents are in disagreement"
Software version used was 1.29 on Windows 10.
I tried different other older and newer software versions without success.
erasing and verifying even without test clip attached gives the same positive feedback.
I assume test clip should be ok, as reading was without problems.
There are rumors that 1,29 could not write, but other software versions did not help.
Any ideas?

edit:
Solution: checked the continuity between the pins at the flasher and the pins at the PCB with attached test clip. Turns out test clip is crap. I had to push it directly to the PCB, otherwise it either looses contact on pin 4 GND or pin 7 WP.
Does anyone has a link to better test clip available?

[Terry01]

I run into problems flashing the chip.
I followed instructions from
got a programmer, test clip, reading of data was ok and was exactly the same the examples.
When trying to flash there was a message " chip main memory with the contents are in disagreement"
Software version used was 1.29 on Windows 10.
I tried different other older and newer software versions without success.
erasing and verifying even without test clip attached gives the same positive feedback.
I assume test clip should be ok, as reading was without problems.
There are rumors that 1,29 could not write, but other software versions did not help.
Any ideas?

edit:
Solution: checked the continuity between the pins at the flasher and the pins at the PCB with attached test clip. Turns out test clip is crap. I had to push it directly to the PCB, otherwise it either looses contact on pin 4 GND or pin 7 WP.
Does anyone has a link to better test clip available?

Well cool video!

I also have the UT210E and think it really is an awesome wee meter! It is as accurate as all my other meters which are much more high end. To the point of being uncanny! I couldn't believe it at 1st!
I keep trying to catch it out hoping it'll measure way off the mark, to try and justify to myself the extra £££'s I've(stupidly) spent on all the other meters. I haven't managed to yet and i'm sure it flips me "the bird" every time it hangs with them no probs !


Just to put things in perspective the cheapest meter after the UT210E is 4 times as expensive, the worst is well over 10 times the price of the UT210E! Sure a couple have a odd feature the UT210E doesn't have but.... go figure! I would recommend the UT210E to anyone! It really is an awesome wee meter!

[thaistatos]

anyone experienced problems with the autorange in resistance measure mode with 10000 count?
I flashed to 10000 count and tried to measure for example 10k.
Coming from short circuit to 10k it says OL, coming from open loop to 10k it seems ok. Same problem with 1k, 100k and most probably 1M, but as resistance is a little bit off (or UT210) it displays 998k, which seems to work.

[JonnyM]

I hooked mine up to an arduino and made a backup of the eeprom
then I copied the 0x50 and 0x51calibration values to the JAY_i2cArduino210E.ino and ran the arduino program. Now my voltage and resistance is messed up. It reads 1.7 ohms with nothing connected.. Current ranges works fine. Is it possible to reflash my full backup.hex using just an arduino?

[jayjr1105]

Did you make sure you don't have the older chip? It can't do 10000 count.  Before and after dumps would help us determine if anything is wrong.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[stj]

actually it can do 10,000 count - just not in AC volts - the true-RMS function cant handle it above 7,000 counts.

[JonnyM]

Did you make sure you don't have the older chip? It can't do 10000 count.  Before and after dumps would help us determine if anything is wrong.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I got it fixed   
My configuration had somehow gotten completely messed up, luckily I backed it up beforehand.

This is what the dump looked like when it didn't work yesterday, compared to my backup: https://pastebin.com/qx7DVERZ

I didn't know how I could upload the entire backup.hex so I had to write it byte by byte in the arduino ide, like this: 
writeByte(I2C_ADDR, 0x10, (byte) 0x70);
writeByte(I2C_ADDR, 0x11, (byte) 0x17);
writeByte(I2C_ADDR, 0x12, (byte) 0x98);
...

[jayjr1105]

actually it can do 10,000 count - just not in AC volts - the true-RMS function cant handle it above 7,000 counts.

Yes I knew it was an RMS limit, wasn't sure if it messes anything else up. 

Did you make sure you don't have the older chip? It can't do 10000 count.  Before and after dumps would help us determine if anything is wrong.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

I got it fixed   
My configuration had somehow gotten completely messed up, luckily I backed it up beforehand.

This is what the dump looked like when it didn't work yesterday, compared to my backup: https://pastebin.com/qx7DVERZ

I didn't know how I could upload the entire backup.hex so I had to write it byte by byte in the arduino ide, like this: 
writeByte(I2C_ADDR, 0x10, (byte) 0x70);
writeByte(I2C_ADDR, 0x11, (byte) 0x17);
writeByte(I2C_ADDR, 0x12, (byte) 0x98);
...

Glad you got it figured out.  I thought my ino file was pretty much bug free.

[simon.jowett]

I enjoyed reading this blog post and have produced a "How to" video - hope you like it!

https://youtu.be/KIHGHWJFyGU

All credit to the people who did the hard work working this out in the 1st place!

[bitseeker]

Nice vid, Simon.  Thanks for the heads up.

[cdev]

So, probing around with my UT210E in NCV mode, it seems that a few known to be low voltage wires around my computer desk activate the voltage alarm. For example, the area around the Enter key on the PS2 keyboard I am typing on now does. Just the area around the Enter key and a second area around the numeric pad. What is it measuring?

I am thinking that the UT201E NCV function may be useful in finding previously unknown sources of RFI.

[Bud]

Why did you swap yellow and blue buttons?

[TheBigT]

I bought my UT210E a few weeks ago, because in its stock configuration it already seemed like a tremendous deal. But I was annoyed by the default AC selection behavior, so I went looking for a simple solution... and stumbled upon this diamond encrusted goldmine instead.

First I considered using the solder-less method with the clamp and EEPROM programmer, but since I'm cheap and impatient, and had an Arduino on my desk anyway, I decided to go with the Arduino approach. And since -- in addition to my wonderful character traits above -- I'm also lazy, I just broke off five precision pin headers, rammed them haphazardly into the through holes on the meter's board and stuck proto board cables in them, while holding a sixth one to the cap on pin 55. Shockingly enough this super-ghetto approach worked, and somehow I even managed to avoid frying the meter with the loose cables. I'm happy to say that the mods have elevated my new toy to a whole different level...

Thanks to all the contributors for building up this wonderful resource!!!

[djQUAN]

I bought my UT210E a few weeks ago, because in its stock configuration it already seemed like a tremendous deal. But I was annoyed by the default AC selection behavior, so I went looking for a simple solution... and stumbled upon this diamond encrusted goldmine instead.

First I considered using the solder-less method with the clamp and EEPROM programmer, but since I'm cheap and impatient, and had an Arduino on my desk anyway, I decided to go with the Arduino approach. And since -- in addition to my wonderful character traits above -- I'm also lazy, I just broke off five precision pin headers, rammed them haphazardly into the through holes on the meter's board and stuck proto board cables in them, while holding a sixth one to the cap on pin 55. Shockingly enough this super-ghetto approach worked, and somehow I even managed to avoid frying the meter with the loose cables. I'm happy to say that the mods have elevated my new toy to a whole different level...

Thanks to all the contributors for building up this wonderful resource!!!

That's how I did mine on two meters already, plus the various debugging/mod-test-mod-test cycles. Works a treat, the meter innards still looks untampered.

[ONDevil]

Hello,
i bought an UT216C ClampMeter and see the Mod`s in here.

The Real Bad thinks on this Meter is the short Backlight Time and on every Start set to AC.
Now i want to change that.

I find the eeprom Chip inside and read out with my new TL866II Plus Programmer.
But i don`t know what i have to change to get the Backlight on/off (without Timer) and have DC as Standard?

Can anyone help me?

(I made a Dump of the original Settings)

Code: [Select]

FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 52 00 FA 00 F0 C3 03
10 17 38 18 44 02 6E 4B 64 3C 3C 3C 0A FF 40 FF
C7 97 C8 80 64 00 96 00 00 80 00 80 00 80 00 80
4E 02 09 D6 FD 08 5A 06 0B 9F 12 0A 10 07 0A 00
00 01 00 01 00 07 74 04 64 00 64 00 64 00 00 00
4D 7D CC 6F 00 80 00 80 00 80 00 80 00 80 00 80
B1 7F 15 80 01 00 F1 2A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
83 81 00 80 76 82 E0 7C 08 07 00 00 00 00 00 00
FC 1C 01 98 18 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
F8 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
0D 00 02 10 0D 00 03 20 20 00 03 20 20 00 03 10
41 00 03 08 41 00 03 05 41 00 03 05 0D 00 02 20
00 80 00 80 00 80 00 80 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF
FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF 5A C7 CE 0F 0F 40 00 00


[stj]

kill backlight timeout
change location fc to 00 (normally 0f)

dc mode first:
make 2A range dc>ac instead of ac>dc
87 = 16 (normally 17)
97 = 17 (normally 16)

make 20A range dc>ac instead of ac>dc
8b = 18 (normally 19)
9b = 19 (normally 18)

make 100A range dc>ac instead of ac>dc
8d = 1a (normally 1b)
9d = 1b (normally 1a)

make Vdc>Vac(with mv) instead of Vac>Vdc
8e = 05 (normally 04)
9e = 06 (normally 05)

[dreno]

Where did you buy your uni-t from, from a reputable source or aliexpress or banggood?

[stuartk]

kill backlight timeout
change location fc to 00 (normally 0f)

dc mode first:
make 2A range dc>ac instead of ac>dc
87 = 16 (normally 17)
97 = 17 (normally 16)

make 20A range dc>ac instead of ac>dc
8b = 18 (normally 19)
9b = 19 (normally 18)

make 100A range dc>ac instead of ac>dc
8d = 1a (normally 1b)
9d = 1b (normally 1a)

make Vdc>Vac(with mv) instead of Vac>Vdc
8e = 05 (normally 04)
9e = 06 (normally 05)

After going through the whole thread, I picked the exact same modifications. I didn't want the dot-less mode or the higher count as I like the artwork and screen icons on the multimeter matching up with the actual reading.

I purchased mine on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/252445358891 for 34 US$ 2 weeks ago. Came with the latest chip-set. I noticed that they just increased their prices to $45.50. 

[ONDevil]

@stj

thx for your quick answer but it is not working.
I hope i made it right and use the function GoTo to find your described locations..

Sorry i`m new in programming and have no experience!
(I bought the TL866 II Plus to beginn programming)

I have marked the adresses with yellow points in the Attachments Picture
and filled the location with the new values but it is not working. (the new values are not on the picture.. just for show the original values)

@dreno

i bought my UT216C on ebay for 57,98€ (shipped in 4days, from and to Germany)

Please excuse my bad english

edit: add attachments

[stj]

there is no attachement.

[ONDevil]

there is no attachement.

Now added, sorry

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