Fluke fieldsense contactless voltmeter

[CopperCone]

Isn't he the guy that did a video about having to machine out a collet nut because it was machined so badly that it wasn't even close to concentric, and spent a bunch of time shitting on terrible Chinese manufacturing quality, when the problem all along was that he didn't know the collet nut was *supposed* to be machined like that to retain the collet in the nut?

It really made me wonder how many other topics he goes off on without knowing what he's talking about.  I've recalled other times when he's made comments about something being done wrongly or being badly engineered and he was just wrong.  I am not going to go back and watch all his videos and make a list of those times to satisfy your objections, though.  One other time that sticks out in my mind was when the guy from NYC CNC sent him some stuff and he spent a whole video shitting on the thing.  He was talking about binning fasteners and about the design of the part.  He was completely wrong about many of his objections to the part and just flat out had no idea what he was talking about - yet gave an "expert opinion" on the device without knowing the first thing about the subject matter.

He knows a lot about some things (hydraulics and heavy machinery, it seems), and a little about some things (electronics), but he's far, far, far from an expert or even an informed layman on many of the topics he chooses to speak about.  Machining, engineering and design are three of those topics.

You may be thinking of ChuckE2009.

I have to say I'm growing a bit tired of every Youtuber having a group of naysayers because people occasionally get things wrong. Anyone  who does anything technical seems to be suffering from them. I always wonder how many times these people are wrong in their own endeavours and professional life. It's easy to fool yourself if you don't have an audience of hundreds of thousands and your every move isn't recorded.

Of course, I don't doubt Youtubers regularly being wrong. Many of the ones I appreciate regularly feature this in later videos.

chuckee is in texas or something and he has to deal with contractors and texas people I am surprised he is still sane

[TheAmmoniacal]

All AvE got "wrong" was strongly insinuating the meter being dangerous because you would touch mains voltage - which is not necessarily the case - as long as the path has a sufficiently large resistance. He should have spent the 10 seconds required to do a  current measurement to earth.

AvE went in assuming the FieldSense function was a lot more useful than it actually is, and that clearly annoyed him. i.e. the wire measured has to touch the lip and be properly aligned. He clearly interpreted the marking on the meter to be a crosshair, intuitively you'd put the wire at the center.

I would almost bet the insulation thickness alone on industrial wires are too thick to work? Also, why is the meter showing "No earth ground connection" when that's clearly not the problem? I think that got AvE confused as well.

[Electro Detective]

Whatever some may think of AvE's Youtube style, this T6 magic wand should have worked for him out of the box as advertised,
and any caveats in BOLD included in the instructions.

AvE is no rank amateur/newb and is a confessed satisfied Fluke owner/user. 

It should have worked for him without having to resort to frustration, troubleshooting, doubt, foul language (justified)     then hitting on the internet to suss out corporate agenda/dumbassery and the marketing BS that usually goes with it

This product deserves an  'Unroadworthy' sticker slapped on it, till Fluke staff actually TEST it in real world conditions, and either scrap it
or FIX IT so the customer gets a tool that works as it should

Expecting Fluke's OneHungLow branch to do it for them on top of the 'just make it, don't ask questions...' magic MIC production price is not going to happen any time soon,
OHL has to eat, sleep and turn a nano profit occasionally...   


EEVblog members should not get herded into doing Fluke's homework for them, be it for prestige or whatever

unless BIG R+D and Royalty dollars are being offered   

[Electro Detective]

@ ModemHead, great video mate, and no music, yay!   

You did all the tests I would have done, and fwiw that Agilent performs well to keep up with a 189

Did you try shining a bright light on the plastic cover to see what the go is on the metal track from the springy thingy?

Is there a capacitor there or capacitance from two flaps of copper and insulator, and or a higher value resistor?   

Insulation tester at 50, 100 or 250 VDC  (usually 1 to 4 mA DC output) may show something too in the 500+ to Gigohm x? region
 

Don't lose that purchase receipt   


--------------------


re video  "Fluke T6-600: NOT DANGEROUS"

I call BS on that, the device 'may' not be dangerous (unless mistaken for a banana),
but it's intermittent operation and misleading readings may kiddie walk the user into DANGEROUS lethal voltages

It is supposed to be a go/ no go reliable test instrument not a prima-donna performer 


Don't lose that purchase receipt   


-------------------

FWIW, none of the Youtubers so far have used a Low-Z multimeter to confirm any real or ghost voltages 
More than likely they will trip their GFCI/RCD doing it, so watch out for that.


---------------

My FWIW IMHO conclusion:

T6 is yet another 'open jaw' FAIL product, the 'target range' is a joke and impractical in real world use

dump the thought of blowing money on this overpriced dud 'NONSENSE' meter and get a proper proven 'closed jaw' clamp meter,  Fluke brand or decent competitor, and get on with it   

[joeqsmith]

I fully understand not wanting to damage it.  If it really is not sealed and there is no way to clean/dry, it is concerning.  How would an electrician ever know if the unit had a problem or not?     

If there's anything sensitive to moisture in there, hopefully it's potted?  BTW, I just noticed that the "battery door" is a user-replaceable part (PN 4944370).  Hmmm... there may yet be an opportunity for a semi-destructive tear-down.

Parts are on order.   I went with the lower end model shown.   So no need to waste your time reverse engineering the front or risk damaging yours. 

I have some busy days coming up this week, but I'll see what I can do.  I worked late last night making the video, since I had no idea what I was doing either with the video editor or Youtube.  I have a healthy respect for people who make regular video content, it isn't easy.

Your a natural.  Maybe we will see more ModemHead videos in the future.

To be honest, we're not too far from the old neon screwdriver here.

Well, let's hope it's not that bad.   

[ModemHead]

Parts are on order.   I went with the lower end model shown.   So no need to waste your time reverse engineering the front or risk damaging yours. 

I look forward to your analysis!  I will however try to make some hi-res teardown photos for everyone to see.

[threephase]

@ modemhead, I just watched your video and followed the link here. Thanks for posting it, it has shed some more light on how the device is operating.

I am getting more curious about its functionality, so I too will look forward to more posts on this and it will save me going out and buying one myself, although I may end up getting one to see how it works with the PRV240FS proving unit I already have.

Kind regards

[ModemHead]

Here are some selected teardown photos of the device in question.  The full series can be seen here.  A zip archive (42MB) of the original-size high-res photos available here.

[ModemHead]

@ modemhead, I just watched your video and followed the link here. Thanks for posting it, it has shed some more light on how the device is operating.

Great, that was the intent.

I am getting more curious about its functionality, so I too will look forward to more posts on this and it will save me going out and buying one myself, although I may end up getting one to see how it works with the PRV240FS proving unit I already have.

As far as the contactless voltage sensing goes, it seems to work, but it needs ideal conditions (single conductors, easy access, no rat's nests, and some kind of ground.)  I'm not an electrician so I can't say if that would be useful or not.  But I definitely wouldn't use it for proving.

[ModemHead]

Did you try shining a bright light on the plastic cover to see what the go is on the metal track from the springy thingy?

Can't see a thing.

Is there a capacitor there or capacitance from two flaps of copper and insulator, and or a higher value resistor?

I suddenly remembered I have an LCR meter.  It shows 2.2nF at 100Hz, but only 240pF at 1kHz, so there's probably more than just a capacitor in there.   

Don't lose that purchase receipt   

I maintain some properties and expect to find it quite useful as a plain old electrical tester.  The contactless voltage sensing is more of an engineering curiosity.

[Monkeh]

Are those vias OSP rather than gold plated?

[ModemHead]

Are those vias OSP rather than gold plated?

I don't know, how can I tell?

[Monkeh]

Are those vias OSP rather than gold plated?

I don't know, how can I tell?

Typically by the colour. They look rather pinkish, which suggests bare copper (under a clear coating). My experience is that OSP coatings fail after a year or two and the copper gets eaten rapidly.

[ModemHead]

Are those vias OSP rather than gold plated?

I don't know, how can I tell?

Typically by the colour. They look rather pinkish, which suggests bare copper (under a clear coating). My experience is that OSP coatings fail after a year or two and the copper gets eaten rapidly.

Probably OSP then.  The vias look copper-colored.  Only the test points and contact areas have a gold color.

I have repaired a number of Fluke meters in which I found vias completely eroded away, without an apparent reason.

[joeqsmith]

I suddenly remembered I have an LCR meter.  It shows 2.2nF at 100Hz, but only 240pF at 1kHz, so there's probably more than just a capacitor in there.   
..............
The contactless voltage sensing is more of an engineering curiosity.

What does your LCR show for ESR at 100Hz?  At 1KHz?   I will more than likely open it up at some point.     

If it did not have non-contact voltage sensing, I would not look at it.  That's really the only thing about this meter I am interested in.   

Maybe this weekend I will set aside some time to start looking at it.

[thm_w]

Isn't he the guy that did a video about having to machine out a collet nut because it was machined so badly that it wasn't even close to concentric, and spent a bunch of time shitting on terrible Chinese manufacturing quality, when the problem all along was that he didn't know the collet nut was *supposed* to be machined like that to retain the collet in the nut?

It really made me wonder how many other topics he goes off on without knowing what he's talking about.  I've recalled other times when he's made comments about something being done wrongly or being badly engineered and he was just wrong.  I am not going to go back and watch all his videos and make a list of those times to satisfy your objections, though.  One other time that sticks out in my mind was when the guy from NYC CNC sent him some stuff and he spent a whole video shitting on the thing.  He was talking about binning fasteners and about the design of the part.  He was completely wrong about many of his objections to the part and just flat out had no idea what he was talking about - yet gave an "expert opinion" on the device without knowing the first thing about the subject matter.

He knows a lot about some things (hydraulics and heavy machinery, it seems), and a little about some things (electronics), but he's far, far, far from an expert or even an informed layman on many of the topics he chooses to speak about.  Machining, engineering and design are three of those topics.

You may be thinking of ChuckE2009.

It was AVE with the ER collet.

He got it wrong and one of the top comments was a correction to that, which he responded to acknowledging.
He had some recommendations for the NYC CNC power drawbar, and overall said it was a good design.
So its a total non issue.

You don't watch ave for reliable machining or electrical design advice, you'd watch nyc cnc or another actual industry expert.

[SG-1]

Will it work wearing insulated gloves with leather protectors ?

Can you try it wearing gloves ? 

Even just, nitrile &/or leather gloves...

Thanks

[ModemHead]

What does your LCR show for ESR at 100Hz?  At 1KHz?

[ModemHead]

Will it work wearing insulated gloves with leather protectors ?

Only by touching a hard ground with the black probe.

[joeqsmith]

What does your LCR show for ESR at 100Hz?  At 1KHz?

Thanks for checking.  Looks like an RC which would make a lot more sense.  I really wonder from CE's point of view if a network like this can be used for isolation or if they consider it a direct connection to the line.  It seems it would had to have been evaluated independently but if it really is not sealed, I don't see how it would have made it through.  It seems like there is something in the standards about surfaces that the human can come in contact with.   I'll spend some time reading them before going too deep down this rabbit hole.

I assume it falls under a current limit device.   

[Fungus]

Will it work wearing insulated gloves with leather protectors ?

Only by touching a hard ground with the black probe.

I don't see that as a big problem, you're supposed to know procedures if you're going near anything dangerous.

This is still much safer than using a traditional meter and anything that increases safety is a good thing.

Question is: Does it work?

(I'm guessing it does, Fluke's reputation is on the line if they mess this one up)

[Fungus]

Even if I forked out $380 of my own money for it, I'll still cop the flack either way, so might as well take Fluke's freebie and then bin it? 

Damn the naysayers. You're interested in the new tech, not the meter/manufacturer.

Pick up the freebie, make a video about it, tell the truth.

[Electro Detective]

re  "...Fluke's reputation is on the line if they mess this one up"

Unlikely... they'll sell them off cheap asap, or toss one in for free with an 87V purchase, or flog a 117/T6 combo cheap so no one complains

then do a bit more homework to get the T7 going, fitted with OLED display eye candy, and a   ~s e x y~  rubber curve or two to pull back the hesitant tradies    


or they can go the easy route and supply head-scratching T6 owners    with a free piece of foam to push down and keep the wire in the 'magic jaws' sweet spot   

[joeqsmith]

A few more videos showing it in use. 




https://youtu.be/wFPDORq3erQ

John Ward talks about making sure the power is off....

https://youtu.be/-qh28sHs7XA

[joeqsmith]

Parts arrived.   I have a few things that I need to finish up before getting started.  Keep in mind that once I run it, I doubt I will buy another to run more tests with.  So if you have questions or specific tests you want to see ran on it, you have a few more days.