Fluke or Flir multimeters

Not exactly PLC related, but im curious for your answers.

I have a fluke, its tried and true. But im considering upgrading meters.

I bought myself a Fluke 374 a few years ago, still works well and am happy with it. A couple of times I have run into instances where I needed a meter for mA or mV (the 374 does not have the ability). I believe the 376 can measure mV, but it of course is more expensive. All of the guys I work with use Fluke. Like you said yourself - tried and true.

I use a fluke 87, have been since 1992 and its still working.
I bought a meter case housing for it and a carrying case also.

Although I will admit they are a bit on the pricey side, I have no regrets.

james

James Mcquade said:

I use a fluke 87, have been since 1992 and its still working.
I bought a meter case housing for it and a carrying case also.

Although I will admit they are a bit on the pricey side, I have no regrets.

james

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+1

I also have a Fluke 77 I keep in the toolbox for bench testing purposes. I agree with James - a little more expensive, but they last a long time.

Another vote for Fluke

JasonTheSparky said:

A couple of times I have run into instances where I needed a meter for mA or mV

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If you have the money the 77x is a great meter for MV, the 773 is nice but not cheap and will do just about everything

For generating 4-20 and 0-10 VDC we sell a lot of https://www.plccable.com/analog-simulator-and-generator-with-lcd-0-10vdc-and-4-20ma/

I started using Fluke back in 1985 with a Fluke 77, I'm now using a Fluke 289. I've never had one die on me yet, they just get passed down or retired as I've upgraded.

As a side note, if your interested, I also use a Fluke 376 clamp meter and a Fluke 773 milliamp process clamp meter. Both Have been rock solid.

+1 for Fluke

I've had several Fluke meters over the years and have only had one "die" when I left it laying on an arc welder. I had a Model 23 that survived a 20 foot fall to a concrete floor and survived without any issues. A couple of times over the years, I've handed down my meters to new hires and upgraded myself. To my knowledge, those meters are still working fine. Just have to hand out new leads about once a year.

I've got an Extech (Flir) process calibrator that gets used a few times a year and works well enough, but it doesn't have the durable feel of a Fluke, and if the multimeters are built using the same style case, it wouldn't be something I'd want to use on a daily basis.

Does anyone use the Fluke 190 series II? As a multimeter as well or do you dual wield? *Drool*

I had an incident early in my career where a cheap meter exploded when used on 800V DC (not by me !) that colored my opinion in favor of proven-safe, durable Fluke meters. I bought a Fluke 87-V to reward myself for passing the PE exam.

But a co-worker showed me a meter yesterday that blew my mind.

http://www.redfishinstruments.com/

At first, I figured that a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone was just a silly gadget. But then he started demonstrating it.

The smartphone can be a datalogger, grabbing minimum or maximum or average or trend values from the meter. It can e-mail them or create an HTML or PDF report or save them as a CSV file or an SQLite import file.

The smartphone can call out the meter values audibly. Think about the last time you had to perch your meter precariously so you could see the display while you touched the probes to a circuit. Or the last time you had to go fetch a helper to read the display while you placed the probes.

It even geotags your saved measurements. Can't remember exactly which substation you were at when you created that trend ? No problem, it'll tell you precisely where it was.

It doesn't have to be connected to a smartphone; they've used it with Android-powered watches or wearables. My colleague was using an iPod touch. It's still got its own display and onboard storage.

Standard 1000V Cat III probes/ 600V Cat IV.

A hundred and fifty bucks. In stock at Amazon.

A customer showed this add to me a couple of weeks ago...Still thinking.

http://www.flir.com/flirone/

So Fluke used to brand-label the Flir infra-red cameras, then they developed their own and now compete with Flir. So in retaliation, Flir released a line of meters to compete with Fluke. But I'm pretty sure the Flir meters are a brand label agreement with someone else, I don't think they actually make them.

No one was ever fired for recommending a Fluke.

My Fluke 77 has been reliable since the mid 1980's.

Back in the early 80s, Fluke had some serious competition. Since then, I always go with Fluke. Never had one fail, but a few have grown legs and walked off of jobsites over the years.

When I got the Fluke 77 my Simpson 260 retired but did come out for those times an analog meter worked best. Do you youngsters know when that is?

1970?