I spent a lot of time on the teardown video going through most of the meter in a bit of detail, so I won't waste a ton of space on words here, if you're interested in my thoughts, watch the video:
Full gallery of photos is
here, all pictures below link to full (ie. huge) images.
Any thoughts on why there's a backup battery in here? There are at least two separate EEPROMs in the meter visible in this shot.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/47-4/_MG_5116.JPG)
High impedance madness! Is that the reference in the machined can? If you look closely at the full-res shot, you can even see a resistor crammed in directly between the pin and the board. What are those black bricks (there are 3 that look similar around the meter)?
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/75-4/_MG_5123.JPG)
Hang on a second... what on Earth is going on with those ceramic things? The curlies had me confused for a while, but they must be for strain / vibration tolerance - not sure what these things are doing though, they don't seem to have any components on them.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/83-4/_MG_5125.JPG)
Some interesting ceramic transistor carriers.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/79-4/_MG_5124.JPG)
Haven't seen this sort of isolation before, but they use a copy of it on each board (digital and analog). I suppose they're isolating the same lines on both boards - either that or there are actually 6 lines, with 3 isolated on each board. Also wondering what the paper-like flat part is, marked M003 in this shot, there are a few similar devices scattered in this section.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/95-4/_MG_5128.JPG)
Can anyone tell me what's up with the capacitor top right (potted looking black thing beside the big hybrid)? Never seen a capacitor potted like that before, what's the dielectric? It's 33nF, IIRC 50V.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/103-4/_MG_5130.JPG)
These 5x7 dot matrix LED arrays used for units display are fantastic looking, and I didn't know about them before. Very tiny LED dies too. Interesting.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/115-4/_MG_5133.JPG)
And we'll end with an action shot.
![](http://www.ve7xen.com/gallery/d/123-4/_MG_5135.JPG)
A neat meter and fun to look at inside.