Had to pick between a cheap multimeter and borrowing a Fluke on a Navy contract job last month

I was on this quick turnaround job at a hangar in Norfolk, doing some troubleshooting on an old P-3 Orion. My own multimeter just died that morning, battery leaked all over, and the only options were a beat up $15 one from the gas station or asking the lead tech to borrow his personal Fluke. I figured the gas station one would give me false readings or just crap out, so I swallowed my pride and went to the lead. He handed it over, gave me this look like 'don't scratch it,' and sure enough it got me straight to a bad ground in the nav antenna relay. Took maybe 20 minutes total. That $15 meter would have had me chasing ghosts for hours. Anyone else had to decide between trusting cheap gear or borrowing from a grumpy senior tech?

2 comments

2 Comments

parkerb7525d ago

Used to be the guy who would rather trust a cheap meter than ask for help. Had some pride thing about not looking like I didn't know what I was doing. Then I was on a helo in Corpus trying to trace a intermittent fault in the fuel quantity system and my $25 Cen-Tech was giving me 3 different readings on the same wire. Eventually caved and borrowed a senior's Agilent. Found the bad solder joint in maybe 10 minutes. That was the day I learned the difference between getting the job done and chasing your tail for 2 hours.

wyatt_chen8625d ago

Jumped right into that story thinking you were gonna say you almost crashed or something, but 3 readings on the same wire from a Cen-Tech? That's wild, man. I've seen those meters drift when the temp changes but that's a whole new level of junk. I had a similar thing happen with a $30 clamp meter once, it told me a circuit was dead so I went in barehanded (stupid, I know). Got bit by 120V and threw that thing in the trash the same day. Makes you wonder what kind of safety "features" they skip to hit that price point.