well, some people do some extreme things when they have no choice.
i have read of a guy checking the 3KV output of a fence charger he repaired,
first with a fluke - killed it!
then with a low end uni-t that actually gave him the reading!!!!!
another guy testing the neck socket of a crt without knowing how high the focus voltage is.
so low current HV is more "available" than people realise.
It seems I read one about a fencer as well but I don't recall the Fluke/UNI-T part. It may have been a whole different case. I imagine this sort of thing happens more frequently than what is ever posted.
I have a friend who was doing something similar trying to read the primary side off the coil in a lawn tractor. The first two meters he tried would not give a stable reading, so he used one of the UT210E clamps and it worked. No meters were damaged in that case.
I play around a fair amount with low current higher voltages which is partly why I am interested in running the meters this way. I would never think of hooking up a meter to a fencer but then again, I did try that fly swatter after Scott posted about it.
Here's this morning's comment for the day:
Your video actually shown that this dirt-cheap device is at very least conform with CATII/300, means it's compeletely safe to be used in electrical household.
According to spec CATII/300 it should be capable to withstand upto 2500V impulse voltage. Note that It said: impulse, a voltage spike, not a contstant current.
Why does he feel my tests show the meter is completely safe? People can't read, don't want to take the time to read or they just like to state their opinions no matter if they know something about it or not. I can only guess what that last sentence means. It's too bad these people won't post their opinions in this forum. If you could actually get some constructive dialog (rare), it may actually help the group.