AVOmeter compared to cheap modern digital meter

AVO is still producing meters and test equipment. Their meggar and ground tester are some of my favorites.

Accuracy and speed is the only differences that I know of. I still have an old Sperry analog meggar. Works fine for the purpose, I have no reason to upgrade it.

The answer is "it depends". The cheapo electronic meters are often peak detecting, they detect the peak voltage and infer an RMS value from this. Any distortion is the waveform and they are very inaccurate. Most analog meters are average responding. They can also be inaccurate for less than perfect sinusoidal waveforms. Some very expensive true RMS analog meters did/do exist. They use hot-wire or electrodynonometer movements. I am not familiar with the meter in question, so I can't say whether it is true RMS or not.

For me, I only buy true rms meters. They cost more, but I have wasted many an hour responding to electricians complaining about voltage unbalance only to find out they were using some cheap ass meter that was measuring incorrectly.

Charles Perry P.E.

I wouldn't sell my Salford Selectest Super 50 - but I don't use it! You can often buy those on eBay for a modest price, whereas the Avometers were going for a lot more.

Why do you ask?

about 30kg lighter!!

David - who > How do bargain basement modern digital meters perform compared to

I'm a bit of a Luddite but not on DVMs. The only facility I miss is for observing fluctuating DC levels where my Fluke nominal LCD analogue scale is useless. I certainly don't miss those high V batteries for high ohms, the few K loading on circuits rather than Megs and the infuriating mechanical cut-outs that you only had to drop something on the bench and that damned button would jump out.

Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

Sometimes useful to ignore leakage currents on AC circuits!

shhhhhhh

I really can't say, but Check this one out I'd order a dozen for friends & family.

Hot Hot Hot }:-)

How so to a Dirt Cheap DMM ?

I have a couple of the cheap DMMs from Harbor Freight. They aren't lab grade, but for 99% of time you need a simple DMM it will do the job. I bought them because there are times I need to monitor five or six items at once on my bench and I wasn't going to spend a couple hundred dollars each for three more lab grade meters.

Since .1% SMD resistors are so cheap these days, the can manufacture a fairly accurate meter for very little money because they don't have to calibrate every range by hand.

I own a multitude of test gear, from a cheapo £3,99 multimeter to a £2,500 scopemeter.

Then again, I probably use both the cheapest gear and the most expensive an equal amount of time.

If you are technically savvy enough you will know what test gear is most appropriate and when.

Old AVO multimeters are probably amongst the best you might ever use, by the way. If anyone tries to argue otherwise then they haven't a clue !!!.

If I sound condescending I don't mean to !!!.

Regards, CG BSc (Hons) (Open))