Fluke 187 is my favorite DMM. Indestructible, accurate, no-questions-asked lifetime return policy, and not cheap but decently competitive, lots of ranges and features, great accessories. Almost $400. Mention it in your Will. The Fluke 73 series is solid, basic, durable, warranteed, and can be bought for $150 smackers or less. What more do you want? I have some insitek equipment and it is pretty cost effective, however not as durable as the fluke stuff I .. ah... hate to admit I had Radio Shack multimeters for a couple of years. At $125, it was a very cost effective meter, and had lots and lots of features, but didn't last more than two years use in a lab before the testlead sockets snapped off. If you buy a Radio Shack meter, plan to buy again. The RS was actually a re-labeled Metex M3860D. Metex makes a lot of cost-effective, feature-rich meters. I have a Metex M3860D meter at home, and for low volume use it is a lot of meter for not much money. Transistor checker, Thermocouple ranges, frequency output and frequency measurement, a lab in a box. RS232 output makes it a poor man's datalogger. In a lab, it is fragile and has a short warrantee period. $150 I had an Extech meter that was hard to read, problem-prone, and I sent it in for warrantee (to KOREA!) and never saw it or my money again. I hope you do not consider Extech, with a short warrantee period, poor quality, tech support from Elbonia, and highway robbery as company policy. But they are cheap! Agilent? You can have my Agilent scope if you pry it from my cold dead fingers. I have nothing bad to say about Agilent. -- Lawrence Lile Senior Project Engineer Toastmaster, Inc. Division of Salton, Inc. 573-446-5661 voice 573-446-5676 fax Shawn Wilton Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 04/18/2004 08:46 PM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: [EE]: DMM reccomendation? Fluke. If you can't afford Tek. Stay away from Agilent. Shawn Wilton Junior in CpE MicroBiologist Phone: (503) 881-2707 Email: shawn@black9.net http://black9.net Randy Glenn wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm part of a group putting together an undergraduate Electronics lab, > and we're looking at what kind of DMM to get. We've got a budget, so > we've been looking at more affordable stuff (i.e. not Tek or Agilent). > > Does anyone have any reccomendations as to what kind of benchtop DMMs > would be appropriate? Right now, we're looking at the Instek GDM-8246 - > anyone have any experiences with their equipment? > > Thanks, > > -Randy Glenn > Computer Engineering and Management III, McMaster University > Chair, McMaster IEEE Student Branch > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different > ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body