I’m shopping for a benchtop digital multimeter - what do you recommend?
I want to be able to do general purpose electrical and electronic measurements, and also good versatile resistance measurements, including 4 wire, especially but not exclusively in the hundreds of ohms range. I also want to be able to test low resistances like wire resistance and high resistances like insulation leakage, but think I’ll probably also get separate products to do these, so am not too worried about how low and high the resistance ranges are. I have other products for very accurate measurements in the hundreds of ohms, too.
I want to be able to communicate with it using a PC. But I want this communication to be simple and open, and not much tied to specific software products. I think this means ASCII text over RS232 for controlling the DMM and getting individual or time series readings. My interests are low speed, typically 1 Hz or possibly as fast as 5 or 10, for which RS232 is fine. I also do a lot of data acquisition with what we’d call DAQ equipment, as opposed to a meter you usually look at but might occasionally talk to. My present interest is definitely in the “meter you look at but also with a serial port available” camp.
Most important, I want the DMM operation to be simple enough I don’t need to hold a complicated programming model in my head for it. Preferably there should be a fairly large number of buttons and the function of each one is superficially obvious.
Especially, I want to avoid situations where some weird and obscure mode or feature is engaged and I don’t know it. Therefore, programmable temporary offsets and min/max and hold and variable time scale filtering are potentially more of a problem than a desireable feature. The exact annoyance I want to avoid like the plague is the funny feature somebody adds because they have microprocessor capability left unused, but is poorly thought out and not worth learning. I want to use this more to be sure I understand what is going on, than to do fancy or very high accuracy measurements (which I do elsewhere with equipment that is easier to get confused about).
4 or 5 or so digits feels right.
I’ve had an HP/Agilent 34401A, and they are nice and presently an option, but are a little fancier and harder to remember the programming model and easier to get into a confusing mode than I wish for. I’ve also read about the Fluke 8808A, and it sounds very good, and is my best option so far.
There is no set budget for this. I bet it will be a few hundred dollars, but if it’s $1000 or so that would be fine. I really want to hit the most effective option, not the fanciest, and the decision isn’t driven by cost as much as being effective. Spending a couple days working through some confusing problem with the meter itself will burn through its cost anyway, so that tells you where the priorities lie.
So, what do you like?
BTW since this is in the IMHO forum I think it’d be OK to engage in some observations about how irritatingly fussy I am being, especially if you are also recommending something useful.