Electric Tester

[LJ-TJ]

Well, as everyone knows or most no I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to wiring in the motorhome. However anyone who has to do any kind of wiring in their rig weather it be 12 volt or 110 has got to get one of these gizmos. It's fantastic and it's made for most of us. A little pricey but worth every penny. I just checked the wiring harness on my 318 at it was a cake walk. Just thought I'd let you know. Sob know's what I talking about as does Wonder Brad, Tinia, Froggy  >Grin< 



http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=Fluke+T5+Voltage%2C+&_sacat=See-All-Categories

[ibdilbert01]

Actually, for the Fluke brand, that's not a bad price.    Fluke has always been a leader in multimeters and oscilloscopes and in my humble opinion make top notch equipment that last the test of time.

If one is looking for a decent meter and doesn't want to spend as much, I've actually had really good luck with Harbor Freight meters.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result/?category=&q=multi+meter

Here are the harbor freight ones I've had with a short review.

7 Function Digital Multimeter w/ backlight.  $9.99  Actually was a great little meter that stopped working when dropped it.  (Obviously failed my drop test, and I drop things a lot).
  http://www.harborfreight.com/7-function-digital-multimeter-92020.html

Digital Clamp Meter $12.99 - Very simple but limited volt / cont. meter.  Also very tiny, mine is the older model, this one looks the same, except mine is not yellow.   This is actually the one I keep in my tool box in the rear of the RV. It has an AC Clamp for amps, but like most of these lower end meters, the clamp doesn't work for DC.
http://www.harborfreight.com/digital-clamp-meter-96308.html

And my favorite one harbor freight use to carry but sadly doesn't anymore was a re-badged Protek.  Harbor Freight sold it as a Mastech ms8229.  Harbor Freights price if I remember correctly was $34.00 dollars on sale.

Here is the Protek Model.
http://salestores.com/protek63.html

It not only is it a Standard multimeter with extended features, it will measure Humidity, Luminance, Sound level and Temperature.  Not really a cheap meter, but I would buy one again in a heart beat if mine stopped working.   

[ibdilbert01]

Looks like they brought this item back.

http://www.harborfreightusa.com/usa/itemdisplay/displayItem.do?itemid=98674&submit2=find+it

I was in one of the Harbor Freights on the West side of Columbus today and they had a stack of these marked at $39.99.  I bought one for my brother and it only rang up at $31.99, I assume they are on sale.

[ibdilbert01]

$1.99 multimeters *Sale*
http://www.harborfreight.com/7-function-digital-multimeter-90899.html?utm_source=prospects&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2810B

[Oz]

Multimeters are definitely an indespensible tool.  Even I learned to use one.

A very common problem is checking grounds.  When I installed a remote starting unit in my wife's first PT Cruiser, the kit came with this cool little electrical testing tool:  Just stab the probe in a wire and it would tell you if the wire was hot, by lighting up red, and it told you if it was a ground, by lighting up green!  If you know you're testing a ground wire and it doesn't light-up... bad ground!  That's really a nice, cheap little gizmo when you have multi-banded color wiring with no common color for ground wires throughout the electrical system and you have no schematic, or a PO did some creative wiring of their own (which never happens, I'm sure).

Of course, the multimeter can also be used to determine ground wires too, I would assume, I just never looked it up to see how it's done.

[wizardbill]

I bought this exact one two weeks ago at Harbor Freight in Austin, TX for $9.99 + 1.0825% sales tax.

[ibdilbert01]

A "VERY" simplistic tutorial on how to use a multimeter.

http://www.afrotechmods.com/videos/multimeter_tutorial.htm

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

Everyone has their favorite test devices.  I have an 70 Ford pickup that still has points ignition so I use an automotive style one.  Plus it measures RPM also.
http://www.actron.com/product_detail.php?pid=16155

Dave

[DaveVA78Chieftain]

The downside of the clampon meters above are that they only check AC amps not DC amps.
When you search for a DC clamp on meter you will discover most are real pricy (either with built in meter or accessory probe style).

Sears carries a clamp on meter (model 82369) that does read both AC and DC amps (up to 400) for $60 which I feel is a good deal.  Does everything we need it to do.



Measures:
AC or DC Volts: 0 - 600 (5 ranges)
AC or DC Amps: 0 - 400 (2 ranges) - enough to measure starter current draw which is 180-200 amps;  Now you can know just how much that mysterious alternator is putting out.
Resistance: 0 - 40M Ohm
Capacitance: 0 - 100 microfarad  (AC Start capacitors)
Frequency:  0 - 150KHz  (Generator setup)
Duty Cycle:  0 - 99% (pulse trains like injectors)
Temperature: -58F to 1832F (probe included  )

Manual: http://metersupport.com/manuals/82369.pdf

Handy Automotive electrical electrical testing document by Fluke: http://assets.fluke.com/appnotes/automotive/beatbook.pdf

Dave