Hot take: that multimeter you carry is lying to you on DC voltage readings

Last month I caught my Fluke 87V reading 0.3V high on a 24V rail and swapping in a cheap $30 Uni-T showed me the real value, has anyone else run into calibration drift on supposedly rock solid meters?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade61816d ago

The cheap meters can actually stay more accurate because they skip the complex filtering circuits that drift over time.

felix_martin5616d ago

Huh, that's a really interesting take @jade618. I've been messing with vintage analog meters for years, and one thing I notice is that the cheap modern ones often have terrible input protection. One slip with a probe near a live circuit and the whole thing goes up in smoke, while my old Simpson still works fine. But you're right that the simple stuff can stay consistent over decades, no digital drift or capacitor aging to worry about. Really makes you wonder what tradeoffs matter most depending on what you're actually trying to measure day to day.