“Blown” Fuses in Several New Multimeters

[Gyro]

Nobody has answer for why brand new meters have blown fuse. I don't either except perhaps those are not brand new.

Nor me. I'm sure Fluke and Brymen don't ship new meters with dead fuses, so I can only put it down to 'finger trouble' sometime in their short lives.

[wraper]

Nobody has answer for why brand new meters have blown fuse. I don't either except perhaps those are not brand new.

IMHO the answer is quite clear:

Then, just out of interest, I then opened up the brand new Fluke 179 and tested both fuses in the 179 (out of the meter). One of them was open - no continuity. (Checked with a new Fluke 87V.) What?? This was a brand new meter and the only thing I tested with it, for function was continuity, the resistance of the leads, a couple of AA alkaline batteries and the AC house current. IN the AC voltage setting - NOT in the current setting.

"brand new"

[Fungus]

An AA battery is perfectly capable of blowing one of those fuses if the leads are in the wrong holes.

[wraper]

An AA battery is perfectly capable of blowing one of those fuses if the leads are in the wrong holes.

Alkaline most likely won't be able to blow 11A fuse, but can easily blow 440mA. A few NiMH in series (much lower ESR) probably will blow 11A fuse too, a single battery likely won't be enough due to multimeter lead resistance.

[Fungus]

An AA battery is perfectly capable of blowing one of those fuses if the leads are in the wrong holes.

Alkaline most likely won't be able to blow 11A fuse, but can easily blow 440mA.

I didn't say which one. 

[Locator]

I get it - don't do it. That wasn't my question. Lead "alarms" wouldn't have helped and I'm not defending the 117 that I blew the fuse on. The leads were in the correct jacks for the dial setting - they were in the 10A jack and the dial was on the "A"/amps setting. There should not be no alarm showing in that case. The mistake was - I accidentally touched the leads to the outlet and blew the fuse when distracted. Got it. You're not supposed to do that, I get it...

My question - and surprise/alarm is - I don't know why all the other bad fuses. And no, they were never used to check current, nor voltages with the leads in the current jacks. My assumption is I've received some previously used meters from Amazon. If you've bought much from Amazon, you have often received things people have returned. It's usually easy to tell, when the display protector has been removed or there is hair on the meter or the meter is turned backward, with a magnet against the face, or there is a return shipping label from some other Amazon customer in the package, etc...

And I have plenty of devices to check that an outlet is working - I was checking the consistency of the AC readings on each of the meters. How else would you do that? Not that I need to give this info, either, but I personally keep plugs in the current jacks on my multimeters. It's something I rarely have to use, the aforementioned time, notwithstanding. I have clamp meters for that.

And - WHY would checking alkaline batteries with DC voltage on any multimeter blow a fuse? It wouldn't.

[Fungus]

And - WHY would checking alkaline batteries with DC voltage on any multimeter blow a fuse? It wouldn't.

No, but people get the leads in the wrong holes.

Bopttom line: No "new" meter would have blown fuses. If you're buying off Amazon and it arrives with a blown fuse then return it ASAP.

[J-R]

I've purchased two Fluke DMMs from the Amazon Warehouse that were returns.  87V and 287.  Both were in great condition and came with third-party calibration data (per the listing), although the Bluetooth to IR adapter was missing from the 287.  I contacted customer service and got a some money back.  Was a steal of a deal.

Anyway, long story short: neither had any blown fuses.

However, plenty of used handheld and bench DMMs that I've purchased on eBay have had blown fuses.  Obviously user error.  But that is the job of the fuses.  Most recent was a mint condition Fluke 45.  The 10A input uses a 15A fast-blow fuse.