External power for hand held meters?

[J-R]

So much for keeping the discussion technical...  If you live in a country with high import fees/taxes, then why not work to get things changed??  With regard to shipping costs, go research the reason some countries can ship you items for pennies, while others have to pay tens or hundreds of dollars.  It will probably make you angry...  Regardless, its still obvious that shipping for a single item is going to be silly expensive, so order in quantity.  There are re-shippers available that can consolidate things for you.  Why not buy a dozen various bits of test equipment, have it all shipped over, fix and keep what you want, sell the rest in-country?

IMHO, the older Fluke and Keithley bench DMMs with the mechanical push-button switches are not ideal for a modern electronics bench since the buttons can be noisy, sticky, pop out, need cleaning, etc.  Feature sets are somewhat limited, and the LCD displays are just not that great.  Granted, the Keithley 197/197A is pretty good at what it does.

Running wires outside of a handheld DMM's case is typically frowned upon.  I suppose if you are truly looking for a proper project, you could replace the internal batteries with a LiPo pouch cell and add a Qi charging setup inside the DMM.  Run the DMM all day on the batteries, then charge it back up while you sleep.

[BillyO]

That price does not include VAT

Dont it, would you like to see the invoice ?

Warranty?  Good luck with that.

Not a problem as its down to the company i purchased it from ,a well established name  in the uk ,who are part of a larger global company,to deal with warranty claims,not the manufacturer.

Then it seems you bought it from someplace in the UK, not AliExpress or other some such place.  Bad assumption on my part.  That link Fungus gave was just a google search.

Anyway, no issue then.

I still use my Flukes.  Mostly for fixing period stuff, but that 8050A is a nice meter no matter what way you slice it, and they can be had for a low price.  Plus, they do fit well into an equipment shelf.  Better than most meters you can get for under $50.  That one in the picture I posted matches my Siglent SDM3055 within it's stated accuracy in every range.  Not bad for a DMM old enough to be a grandfather.

As for the Owon, the only issue I have with it is it's lack of stackability.  It otherwise from the specs and user reports it seems like a nice unit.  If it had been available back 12 or so years ago I would have jumped on it over the UNI-T POS UT803 I got back then.  Now that thing just sits there holding something else up at eye level.  It's only redeeming feature is that it is both mains and battery powered.

You live and you learn.

[BillyO]

Just curious in having an extern power for handhelds on the bench.  Most of my work is low voltage embedded systems, so not too concerned.

External battery packs might be a solution.  Something with an 18650 or two in it would power the average handheld DMM for days or weeks before needing to be charged.  The manufacturer could allow you to disable auto-off once the pack is plugged in.  Might be a good feature.

[hostile]

That looks nice, how do you like it?

[Fungus]

$50 + $79 shipping + taxes ... adds up to ... quite a lot for a manual ranging meter with limited functions.

That place is a 30 minute drive from me where I do a lot of my grocery shopping (everything is far from where I am).   But it serves to illustrate the pricing.

Sure... if I happened to live near a place where I could just drop by, pick out the best one from the pile, try it out, pay no shipping, I'd have a stack of them, too.

That's not usually the case though. Buying online is a lot more expensive and a lot riskier.

[Fungus]

The manufacturer could allow you to disable auto-off once the pack is plugged in.

Many handhelds let you disable it by holding down a button at power-on or whatever.

The ones that start beeping to warn you after 15 minutes are really annoying.

I don't mind them powering off but do they really have to beep???     

[GLouie]

Here's the Fluke AC adapter for the 80s handhelds like 8060A, with the long custom barrel plug. I got this at a surplus store with the Fluke name defaced, but the model number made it obvious. Otherwise, it looks like an ordinary Ault wall wart adapter of the day.

[BillyO]

The ones that start beeping to warn you after 15 minutes are really annoying.

Agreed.  Not even sure what use that is.

[Kean]

That looks nice, how do you like it?

When there are multiple threads of discussion going on then it is best to quote the person you are replying to.

[Kean]

Here's the Fluke AC adapter for the 80s handhelds like 8060A, with the long custom barrel plug.

Similar thing required for charging batteries in my old Philips/Fluke PM93 Scopemeter. A pain in the butt to source or hack together.