Looking for a decent cheap multimeter - under 50$ [eBay?].

Hello everyone.

I'm looking to buy a new multimeter.
My budget is 50$ and I know I can't get something really good with that.

I would want the multimeter to read capacitance, frequency and duty cycle, relative mode.
Having min/max mode and temperature measurement would be nice too but not really required.

The budget of 50$ includes shipping to Israel.
So I rather buy it from eBay or some place where I can see how much the shipping costs straight away.

Thanks in advance.

I suppose you don't have any Kmart stores over there, do you?

I got mine for $35 from Kmart, and the price has gone down to between $25 and $30 now. Perfectly decent Craftsman DMM that has served me well for nearly 5 years (and still going strong!) The only sign of wear is a little cracking on the probe cables, and that's just because of how I wrap them around the meter for storage.

**broken link removed**

If you can find one of these somewhere, it's definitely worth it!
Good luck!
Regards,
Der Strom

P.S. Just did a search on Ebay and got a few hits. First is **broken link removed** one, that's a slightly simpler version of mine. The other one is **broken link removed**, which is actually a kit. If you ask me, it's probably the best deal--it comes with the same meter I have, and the entire kit costs less than what I got the meter for!

P.P.S. Looked more at the kit. It says it only ships to the U.S., but you may be able to get a middleman here to ship it to Israel. Just throwing out some ideas here

Here are couple of multimeters I've found, help me choose.

1. **broken link removed**
I noticed that the input impedance is rated in MW instead of MOhm, did I miss anything or did they fail ? (Also shows that way on manufacturers website).

2. **broken link removed**
This one is really dodgy.

3. **broken link removed**
This one looks good.

4. **broken link removed**
This one is very similar to VC99 but has a 1pf of resolution for capacitance while VC99 only has 10pf.

So which one should I get ?
They are all cheap Chinese meters.
I'm not going to measure any high voltage so Input protection isn't a big deal and I'm not planning on dropping it (not too much hopefully).
What's up with this Vichy/Victor company ? why does it have 2 names ?

**broken link removed**
This is what I have and bought one for the Son too. About 3 years and still good

Either of the Vichy/Victor ones look good. Might actually get myself one cause i need a second meter pretty soon.
what Tytower suggested would be ok. Dealextreme has a fluke china 15B for 74.40 free ship i think.

+1 for the Jaycar multimeters. I have one similar to **broken link removed** and it has served me well for a couple of years.

Out of that list, the second one (dodgy one), is the one that I would go for if I was really stuck

Auto-power off is a good feature to have. I think only my Fluke 77 does that.

Here is a few close to home. https://www.circuitspecialists.com/digital-multimeters I got the *8264 free from here with a large purchase.

UNI-T UT71E is a very complete dmm , capacitance is up to 40 mF and frequency up to 400 Mhz , but i don't know if the quality is good ..

ItsMike said:

Here are couple of multimeters I've found, help me choose.

1. **broken link removed**
I noticed that the input impedance is rated in MW instead of MOhm, did I miss anything or did they fail ? (Also shows that way on manufacturers website).

2. **broken link removed**
This one is really dodgy.

3. **broken link removed**
This one looks good.

4. **broken link removed**
This one is very similar to VC99 but has a 1pf of resolution for capacitance while VC99 only has 10pf.

So which one should I get ?
They are all cheap Chinese meters.
I'm not going to measure any high voltage so Input protection isn't a big deal and I'm not planning on dropping it (not too much hopefully).
What's up with this Vichy/Victor company ? why does it have 2 names ?

Click to expand...

they use ''w'' letter in plase of ohm, that the text is readable with different machines and eliminates possible grammal errors. Any right members?
I have two of those vichy's, they'll do fine, at least i haven't complained. vichy/victor, are same brand, can't be sure, both mimic fluke with their casing.

Sorry if i'm terrbily wrong, i didn't bother using google for clarifcation purposes

KeepItSimpleStupid said:

Auto-power off is a good feature to have. I think only my Fluke 77 does that.

Click to expand...

I think most do it, but it's a pain in the bum if you can't disable it - one of my meters gives instructions on disabling it, but never seems to do so

The Fluke 77 (first version) kinda yells at you. Display changes to 4 dots. You still have to turn it off. I never had any issues with it wanting to be off and I wanted it on.
Now, the Circuit Specialists meter, yes issues,

I don't really see the point of auto-switch off that just prompts you to turn it off

The reason for wanting it to remain on, is (for example) if you were using a PC connected meter to monitor a voltage waiting for a fault to occur.

Incidentally, referring to post #9, I've recently bought a Uni-T meter - a UT60A, which seems quite decent, but I've not managed to get it to talk to my PC yet!

[quote Nigel Goodwin]I don't really see the point of auto-switch off that just prompts you to turn it off [/quote]

Reduction in power consumption.

Currently, I don't own a "peak-hold" meter.