The Fluke 8000A, My First Digital VOM

[@dimbulb330]

You mention it's a sort of specialised channel and the increase in the number of followers, it's because you're a very smart guy. No question about it. A hearty well done for all your work and videos.

[@ArslanG47]

Excellent video, it brings clarity! Now I have a better idea what to buy and how much to spend on my first meter. Many thanks, as always.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Glad it helped. In my case, as I began to work on more complex designs, I basically out grew the equipment I started with. Good luck with your search.

[@orionsmith7668]

Thanks for spelling out your reasons behind recommendations, makes perfect sense. Those that work on commercial equipment with crazy fault currents vs bench use are very different cases.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Exactly!!

[@orionsmith7668]

Keep up the excellent work, many thanks.

[@SIXSTRING63]

Great video as always Joe. I always look forward to viewing a new video from you. No surprise here about the rise in followers, your knowledge and engineering chops are second to none on KZbin I’ve found so far. Anybody who asks me about what meters I would recommend I send them to your channel to let them see for themselves the testing you put them through with charted results. I’m surprised one of these meter companies have not approached you to be a design consultant with your ability to redesign some of these meters that fail easily to be a top notch meter after your improvements to the circuit. A few years ago I purchased a few old bench meters similar to the Fluke here, a GW Instek 8135 and a BK model identical to the 8135 other than case color and name plate. They both have a 13+v open circuit voltage also in resistance mode. They looked to be a college sale of old equipment, $15 a piece and both work perfect so it was a cheap investment. I recently purchased the Brymen BM525s with the built in data logger similar to the Fluke 189. Doesn’t have the resolution as the 869s but like it so far. If you ever get the chance to look at the model I would be interested in your thoughts on that one. Thanks for all your time invested and sharing your knowledge. 👍

[@joesmith-je3tq]

It's difficult for me to believe an engineer designing handheld meters would not understand how to make one survive. I think it is more that people like cheap products, no matter how poor their quality is. Then again, I have tested some very expensive meters that also performed poorly. Hard to say what the problem is.

[@SIXSTRING63]

Exactly on the expensive meters, like the poor shielding issue in the Gossen. Some of the huge improvements you made in some of these cheap meters look to be very marginal cost wise for them to improve performance. Maybe that is the answer, build to fail to buy another at a low price in our throw away world. I believe some folks are engineers only buy title and a degree. I've dealt with many in the mechanical engineering world who didn't have clue on real world application unfortunately. It makes for educational video topics at least :-) @@joesmith-je3tq

[@joesmith-je3tq]

@@SIXSTRING63 The Gossen was one of the worse meters I looked at IMO from a price performance standpoint. It's really sad as had they allowed for more battery capacity, maybe ditched the latching relays and add a shield as you mention, that meter would be very nice. Engineering driven by marketing? With all the hype in some of the EEVBLOG videos about Gossen, it wasn't at all what I would have expected.

[@hightttech]

That quick overview of your DIY input circuit very helpful. Thanks.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Keep in mind that adding over 2K of series resistance and the added capacitance would cause problems with some functions. Normally, I would just attenuate the signal but in this case, the meter doesn't have a lot of resolution and giving up 10X or more wouldn't help.

[@derektodd4126]

Thanks very much for the video. Looking forward to what's next. Best wishes from Northern Ireland.

[@TyStyckify]

I used to work in a calibration lab with 6.5 digit fluke on my bench and with Pomona micrograbbers I was a depot level wizard. Never smoked one but had plenty of colleagues who did which is the reason I never personally owned any fluke. Simpson 260 is my goto tank of a meter. While not a DMM, my tolerances aren't that critical anymore - retired ET that dabbles. Save the bucks for a scope.

[@DaruoshAghajaney]

I'm only 34 years old and when I was a kid, I wouldn't even dreaming of a bench meter like 8000A :-) Never knew it didn't have any front end protection.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

When I bought it, I didn't think about how robust it may or may not be. Even my cheap analog meter was pretty tough and if I damaged it, it was easy enough and fairly inexpensive to bring back to life. The Fluke really opened my eyes. I vowed never to buy another after this one, but now that I have been testing them it appears they learned some valuable lessons over the years.

[@sorinmiliescu]

I was just nine years old when you bought your first Fluke...

[@lord_haven1114]

I have that 8000a as well. My story isn’t as good as yours, though. I had bought a pair for a good price as I wanted one of the meters in the pair, and the 8000a was the other one. It still works, fairly accurate and it’s pretty clean! I like pulling it out once in a while. Anyway, cool video and I appreciate the stories

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Welcome to the 8000A owners club.

[@SDsailor7]

@@joesmith-je3tq What type of leads does the fluke 8000A use? Thank you

[@CliveChamberlain946]

Disco Joe! I had the frizzy's too. I reserved my model 77 in the fall of '83. It's malfunctioning now but I recall it's a bit odd at 3200 counts.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

I bet you could find an old 77 if you wanted to try and breath some life back into yours. It was hardly worth spending any time on the 8000A, except it being my first one. Like that old analog meter, it can sit on a shelf as a reminder of how far we have come.

[@MalagasOnFire]

Going to change leads to read mA on free meter at 16:46 .. yeah it is shared with volts :P its the habit of using proper separation on DMM

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Exactly!

[@regscriven]

Hi Joe thanks for another excellent post , i have a Brymen 257s surprisingly it won't read 3 series diodes , about 1.566v open circuit voltage

[@mdzacharias]

If I recall correctly, the CenTech input impedance is 1 MOhm.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

That's correct.

[@kwd57]

My first Fluke was the 8060A, which was less dependable than the free harbor freight meter.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

I saw one of those in a salvage shop but they wanted way too much for it.

[@michaelpolydefkis7766]

Gotta love how that bm869s is all over your videos. Wonder how the 525s/829s compare to it. Maybe you'll do a comparison one day...

[@SilentGloves]

Is a meter really even broken in if it doesn't have at least one soldering iron melt?

[@gatesmw50]

joesmith I have 2 of these 8000A meters and both have the same issue. That being, part of the LED segment is not working. The top right segment appears as a 6 when it is really an 8. Wish I could find these segmented chips or a blown meter with good chips.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

eBay may be your best choice for parts, or just scrap one of your meters to make a good one.

[@SDsailor7]

@@joesmith-je3tq Hi, I would like to know what type of probe/leads it takes? and are they still being made? Thank you, very informative and interesting video

[@MrMJY]

Greetings from S.Korea.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Hello

[@fly-lucky]

Have you considered running tests on original fluke 83 and 87? Curious if they hold up as well as v series.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

I don't normally test old meters as their condition would be unknown. They would have to be NOS. That said, I did show an old 77 which wasn't very robust. Of course I've shown my first Fluke seen in this video as well. The 77 would have been a big improvement as far as electrical robustness.

[@fly-lucky]

I understand unknown results. Have you considered running p3 kill A watt power meters? Just curious 🤔

[@brunomahle1618]

Hi Joe,...Not sure you will see this, but... whats the story with the "black"189? I just gotta know!

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Did you go back and watch the video about it as this video talks about? Just use the YT search off the main page and look for 189.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

If you follow the link in the description to the EEVBLOG, look in the index for the 189, you can see pictures of the case and how badly it had been damaged.

[@brunomahle1618]

@@joesmith-je3tq Thanks for the reply. Will look... see you on eevbl...

[@wktodd]

Had to check,, my first digital was an hp 3435a . It was broken when given to me . Hp quoted £700 the replacement chip ( an auto ranging switch ) , way, way out of my range, so I made a replacement from a bunch of CMOS switches . It worked , after a fashion, a bit of drift and offset . I didn't care I had a digital meter :-)

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Having used an analog meter for so long, I know what you mean.

[@pa4tim]

My first bench meter was also a HP 3435A, I had 3 dead 8000a's, made 2 working again with the parts of the 3rd and still have the one with the 20A option. My favorite handheld is also the Brymen 869S I bought after seeing it in your videos. My most used meter is a Keithley 7510 (I repair measurement and calibration gear for a living (and some nich market industrial stuff, PCBs that are not longer serviced by the machinebuilder, no schematics and no way to test it in situ or power it up on the bench. Often it can only be repaired by checking all parts. I build and have a lot of component testers and fixtures for this)

[@joesmith-je3tq]

@@pa4tim Three dead 8000As??!! lol. When I was looking for ones to scrap for parts, I was amazed what people were asking for them. IMO, they are worth about as much as the free HF meter. lol. Had this not been my first digital VOM, I would have recycled it years ago. Now it can rest as a shelf queen. Seems like I saw some of your videos showing you working on a calibrator. I can imagine some of those get cooked over years of 24/7 operation.

[@pa4tim]

@@joesmith-je3tq bought one for 10 euro, the other 2 were gifts. I only use it sometimes as a current monitor because it can do 20A. I indeed have a youtube channel. I have not made videos for a while. I have some footage ready but the editing costs so much time and we have a very bad internet speed (i live in the middle of nowhere) A 30 min video costs me around 8 ours uploading. I used to do that on a linux laptop with open shot, it died and now I use W10 and also openshot but that crashes all the time. And I could not find time to find and learn an other editing program.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

@@pa4tim Dang, that is some slow internet speeds. On my 8000A, they only rate it for 2A.

[@MarcoFranceschini1971]

Great Joe...great meter...

[@electroniquepassion]

Thank 👍

[@goranpanic3741]

will you test volcraft vc 830 ,vc 850 dmm from Germany. They seem very robust.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Looks like a rebranded UNI-T. Doing a search, there is a fair amount of information here: www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/bought-a-new-multimeter-from-conrad-voltcraft-vc-850/

[@robertcalkjr.8325]

Thanks Joe.

[@friedmule5403]

joe smith do you test for dmm speed, I mean if you want to measure inrush current or voltage spikes that only lasts 0.1us or less, can the meters measure it correct as max or something like that?

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Some of the meters I have looked at do have a peak detection circuit. In a few of those cases, I have demonstrated it. If I want to look at signals like you describe, I am using a scope. I can tell a lot more about what is going on this way and would trust the data.

[@MarcoFranceschini1971]

In 1974 i was three...years old.

[@SDsailor7]

What are transients? anyone know? Thank you

[@razapata666]

hi i have the same multimeter! its great for the cellar, with the red leds. do u have a study in electronics or "only" a hobby? cheers

[@mikeadler434]

👍👍

[@alanholt6535]

I use one of those at work.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

One of whats? The ESD mat? I use an ESD mat at work as well. It's a small world.

[@alanholt6535]

The 8000a. I use one on a daily basis.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

What sort of work are you doing?

[@alanholt6535]

@@joesmith-je3tq Avionics repair.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

@@alanholt6535 Do they mandate this meter? Do you use it off the bench?

[@friedmule5403]

Your channel may be a nice channel, but I think that when people discover the quality of your content, they want to support you and now knows where to get the best reviews.

[@technologicalsingularity1788]

NWE VIDEO OF JOE SMITH = like before watch

[@felixcat4346]

Pi over the square root of 3.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

Cheap meters averaging meters will typically estimate RMS using pi/sqrt8 not three. You can find this information in some Fluke manuals. Try here for example: dam-assets.fluke.com/s3fs-public/2646876_6001_eng_a_w.pdf

[@felixcat4346]

This is a kind of funny video. All things depreciate, except Elvis's guitar. Test equipment depreciates in value simply because it is massed produced and has no intrinsic value except to its original owner. This is what Andy Warhol was about. If you don't know better you may think this stuff has "magical properties" like the holy grail. It doesn't.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

The magical properties in this old relic is the memories it brings and seeing how far we have progressed. Back then, I couldn't imagine a free battery powered handheld meter like the 830, where today I would have little use for one.

[@wktodd]

@@joesmith-je3tq Progressed and regressed. The manual for my HP3435a is superb , everything necessary to calibrate the meter or fix it when broke . I doubt such documentation exists for my ut181.

[@joesmith-je3tq]

@@wktodd I am sure they have it well documented. It's just not available to the public. The 8000A is well documented but the custom ICs prevent any major repairs.

[@John_Smith__]

Very good idea to make that external protection, thanks fro sharing you make great videos!

[@John_Smith__]

The Harbour Freight DMM is the famous 830B digital multimeter. It costa around 3$-4$ on aliexpress or ebay. And that is Delivered to home.