Unpopular opinion: those $20 multimeters are fine for 90% of what we do

I was working on a busted toaster yesterday and my Fluke was across town in my truck. Grabbed the Harbor Freight special from my kitchen drawer and it read the same continuity and voltage as the expensive one. I get needing precision for certain jobs but the gatekeeping about cheap meters is exhausting. Has anyone else found a cheap tool that actually works fine for basic fixes?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_joel7d ago

Dude wait, you keep a Harbor Freight special in your KITCHEN DRAWER for toaster duty? That's actually brilliant and I'm mad I didn't think of it sooner. I've got three of those cheap orange ones scattered around my garage and basement because they're honestly fine for checking if a wire is live or a switch is busted. One time I dropped my Fluke from a ladder and it died, but my $8 Cen-Tech still works after being run over by a pallet jack. The gatekeeping is ridiculous when most of us aren't doing lab work.

eric_price7d ago

Respectfully, that cheap meter might read the same number but it doesn't have the same safety rating if something goes wrong. A good Fluke has layers of protection if you accidentally probe a live circuit with the meter set wrong. The real risk isn't accuracy, it's the meter blowing up in your hand.