At 07:22 AM 3/20/2014, Carl Denk wrote: >On the other hand as much I I try to buy USA made, I find the Fluke >instruments severely overpriced, and I wonder if you got inside, if the >USA made is 100% or 51%, both meet the requirements for USA made with >some other requirements. You are correct - Fluke test equipment tends to be *MUCH* more=20 expensive than similar-looking gear. But there is a difference. I've purchased a *lot* of test equipment since I started in what was=20 first my hobby and is now my vocation. I still have much of that=20 equipment today - most of it even works! Along the way, I've learned a lot. My earliest digital multimeter was a Fluke 8000A bench-top unit,=20 purchased in the late '70s. It was a combo battery / AC-powered=20 instrument and it still works well today. I just have to feed it new=20 ni-cads every few years. I've since purchased literally dozens of meters since then - lots of=20 Fluke gear and lots of no-name meters purchased from the likes of=20 Deal Extreme, Xeltek, Princess Auto, Canadian Tire, MRO (a local=20 electronics store), others. The Fluke meters always win in terms of usability and speed. The=20 Fluke meters update the display much better than some of the other=20 inexpensive meters - one meter from Canadian Tire is just awful when=20 measuring DC voltage because the display takes several seconds to=20 settle down to the final (incorrect) value. Far too long a time=20 constant on the low-pass filter. But one important criteria for me now is safety. My Fluke hand-held meters have separate input jacks for measuring=20 current. The meter also beeps (loudly) at you if you set the meter=20 to measure voltage while a test lead is plugged into one of the current jac= ks. That's a big deal for me now. I read a while back about how an=20 electrician received extensive Arc-Flash burns while using an=20 inexpensive hand-held meter while working on a power distribution=20 center. I don't recall the voltage but it would have been either=20 480V or 600V. Anyway, he had mistakenly set his meter to measure=20 current instead of voltage and the meter exploded in his hand. Both=20 of his hands and arms were severely damaged - the hand holding the=20 meter as well as the hand holding the test probe. Because this happened in the USA, he attempted to sue everybody even=20 remotely connected with the meter: the manufacturer, the importer,=20 the distributor, the retail outlet where he purchased the=20 meter. Oddly enough, he wasn't successful in extracting money from=20 any of those people. Most of the reasons why he wasn't successful in suing was because of=20 his incompetence. He was using a meter that was clearly NOT rated=20 for the work that he was doing (didn't have the proper category=20 rating) *and* he had set the meter to current mode rather than=20 voltage before making his measurement. The consensus appears to be=20 that although the meter wasn't rated for his application, it would=20 not have failed catastrophically if it had been set to the proper=20 voltage range (rather than current). And that's a really big deal for me. Most inexpensive meters opt for=20 convenience and have the low-current input terminal the same as the=20 voltage and resistance terminal. Quite frankly, I despised Fluke=20 when they separated the current jack from the voltage / resistance=20 jack because it *wasn't* convenient - I had to consciously move the=20 meter lead when switching between voltage and current modes. But I=20 got used to it. Now I won't purchase a meter unless it has both of its current jacks=20 separate from the voltage / resistance jack. I'm probably the only person in my shop who routinely works with 480V=20 & 600V industrial voltages. But most everyone else is exposed to=20 120V / 208V measurements on an occasional basis. I prefer to have=20 test equipment that won't fail catastrophically if someone goofs up=20 while making that measurement. dwayne --=20 Dwayne Reid Trinity Electronics Systems Ltd Edmonton, AB, CANADA (780) 489-3199 voice (780) 487-6397 fax www.trinity-electronics.com Custom Electronics Design and Manufacturing --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .