(SNIP)
I agree with MacMeter... having a meter you don't give a damn about can be a useful thing; it's part of how I still have the same 1st gen 87 almost 30 years later.
I made sure every time I had me a "Here, hold my beer and watch this... " moment, I was using a cheapie meter as a sacrificial element, not my Fluke.
Cheers,
mnem
I am MOOP.
I tend to feel the same way, but am well aware of how silly that is. You have a meter that's built to withstand serious abuse and you protect and baby it. Instead, you use another meter that's much more likely to die in the line of fire and to do so in a spectaculair and possibly dangerous fashion.
Well... the difference is that you pay the big bucks for when you HAVE TO GET the measurement, and so that when you ACCIDENTALLY do something stupid, it doesn't kill you or the meter. The times when you KNOW you're doing something stupid... that's when you want a "burner" instrument.
i do have 3 scopes - maybe i need an equal number of scopes!
oh wait, i also have a Tektronix waveform/vector analyser - maybe that counts as a 4th scope?
*Hangs head in shame*
I had to clear out my storage and parted with a number of my babies... I now "only" have my first Tek, a 465 which still has the ubiquitous intermittent HV fault... A 2230 that is on the bench for its 3rd rebuild of the voltage doubler/flyback... A 2465 bought on fleaBay that I can trace back to NASA and a 2465B inherited from my last corporate gig... and my new DS1054... oh, and a "parts" 2465. And an old Hitachi V-212 I keep just because it has a curve tracer hooked up to it... No, REALLY... that's ALL...
Sonufacrap... wait... I have a Clone 16-CH logic analyzer too... Dammit, whatever you've got, it's contagious!!!
Cheers,
mnem
And yet, I STILL can't find my pants.