Cheap digital meters

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Clearspring1-at-aol-dot-com>

Hi folks,

A while back someone posted mentioning the inexpensive digital meters sold by 
Harbor Freight Tools.  These meters have an AC ammeter with a clamp-style 
inductive pickup (Ranges: 20, 200, 1000), as well as the usual ranges of AC 
and DC volts and resistance; leads, etc.  If memory serves they were $15 or 
so back then, and have dropped to $9.99 now.  Pretty inexpensive, if you can 
use something like this.  A similar meter with a Peak Hold function is 
$19.95.  I have the latter and the meters are well worth the price (to me).

I found accuracy on the clamp pickup good if the wire is located at the right 
spot within the clamp area, but can vary up to 10% (reads high) if the wire 
is in the wrong location within the clamp.  So a bit of checking where to lay 
the wire, while checking amps against a decent series-connected meter, will 
get you good accuracy in your future uses.

Clamp-on Meter:  #42396-2RKH    $9.99
Same with Peak Hold   #42397-1RKH    $19.99

The number of the catalog these are in: 732-G

www.harborfreight-dot-com
1-800-423-2567

Regards,

Michael Tandy