Need multimeter: Do inexpensive ones allow testing through insulated wire?

Look forward to hearing from you.

I still can't figure out how the wood detection works, the other two are quite obvious. It works anyway. I haven't seen in any special shop (from where I buy wholesale materials) any such tool of good quality, like a fluke. Only the largest one carries a professional line of multimeters, I don't remember the brand, but an european version of Fluke. I even measure the leakage resistance of a heating element with the megohm scale of a multimeter, and not with a Meger as it's *supposed* to be, FWIW, and usually an earth leakage trips the main GFCI, anyway.

Stud finders do not detect the wood, they detect the difference in the density or "hollowness" of the wall just like you can by tapping on the wall and listening to the sound difference as you pass over a stud. Electricians found studs that way for many years before the detectors were available.

Don Young

Stud finders just use the change in capacitance (due to different dielectric constants) to detect the wood. Pretty basic stuff and not much to it at all. I layer out the board for and built one way back as a school project.

Dave.