I did mention using the HF meter on the 20 ma current scale as a DCC five amp meter. The below link shows how it is done. I made two sets. The fellow use to show the HF meter a few years ago.
It is accurate. Our club booster would trip at about 4.97 0r 4.98 amps.I have a high wattage rheostat I clip accross the track for a load and dial down the resistance.
We had thought of getting a RRamp meter but they liked this.
Two three terminal chips do the conversion.
http://www.circuitous.ca/DCCammeter10.html
In fact, you can measure AC current using one of the resistors. 0.1 ohms, 1 percent, 5 watt resistor.. Use the meter on AC and measure AC voltage drop across the resistor. Ohms law if no meter to calculate AC current. Just buy an extra resistor or two. Put it in series with the load.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
A few years ago, I worked near our local HF and passed it twice a day. With those "Free" coupons I got 9 meters, 18 tape measures,11 magnetic trays,14 screwdriver sets and 19 LED mini flashlights in that time period. I do like their tool boxes.
I think it refers to their parking lot sale as the ad also says "See What's New"
https://www.harborfreight.com/
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
New Harbor Fright add says ''Everything must go.''. Do you think they are going by the way of Radio Shack?
To me nothing can beat the Simpson 260. I recently retired as an industrial electrician & a 260 has always been part of my arsenal for the past 45 years. I do have a number of different brand digitals as well... Mostly Clamp on amp/volt combinations.. funny thing I found. that the cheapest HF one reads almost exactly the same as a nice Fluke that I own
rrinker As for car chargers - on an older classic car that doesn;t have all the electronics of a modern car - I'd just put a battery disconnect on it and that way nothing could drain the battery when it's parker - also nothign can fail, or mice eat a wire, and cause the thing to catch on fire. My car is too modern for such things, it would go nuts if I pulled the battery when I park it for the winter - I have a battery tender I got at HF and it's kept it good
As for car chargers - on an older classic car that doesn;t have all the electronics of a modern car - I'd just put a battery disconnect on it and that way nothing could drain the battery when it's parker - also nothign can fail, or mice eat a wire, and cause the thing to catch on fire. My car is too modern for such things, it would go nuts if I pulled the battery when I park it for the winter - I have a battery tender I got at HF and it's kept it good
I park my car and I leave it. That's it. I have a security system in my car. My car calls me on my phone if it moves.
TF
After if such a thing happens my car will tell me where it is GPS x 3 I pay for that service too.
It's a drain on the battery
I still remember the tool guy that used to be at local train shows selling the very same Cen-Tech meter you get at harbor Freight. For $15! At that time, if you actually paid for it at HF, it was $3. You can still find them on Amazon and other palces for $20+. It's the same meter.
As for car chargers - on an older classic car that doesn;t have all the electronics of a modern car - I'd just put a battery disconnect on it and that way nothing could drain the battery when it's parker - also nothign can fail, or mice eat a wire, and cause the thing to catch on fire. My car is too modern for such things, it would go nuts if I pulled the battery when I park it for the winter - I have a battery tender I got at HF and it's kept it good (actually, the car before this one as well) for 5 years now. When I still ha dmy lawn tractor - I was too cheap to go to the battery outlet and get a cheap battery, I just connected the battery tender between mowings and it was good enough to get it started next time I needed it. Curse of newer cars with all their electronics though - my '92 truck sat for 2 months without being started and still it started right up, granted that was in the summer. In winter I park the car (it has performacne tires which don't like being cold and definitely do NOT go in the snow) and drive the truck.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Drill bits yes. Mel, Harbor Freight does have those little ones that I seem to bust all the time. Replaced cheap at Harbor Freight
I bought two electronic items at Harbor Freight not long ago. A cigarette lighter phone charger for my phone and a battery monitor for my 69 classic car.
The charger for my phone didn't work right from the start. I wasn't about to stick the battery monitor on my classic car after that. I returned them both.
You get what you pay for. I bought a battery Governor from Napa that is on my classic car now because my security system draws so much current from the battery it needs to be continually trickle charged.
I will pay for the good stuff. Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of good stuff from Harbor Freight I buy and I am happy with. Just Not Electronics
Lone Wolf and Santa Fe RR_Mel Solder a single strand of stranded #30 wire across the fuse, I’ve been doing that for years and never a problem. Those quick blow low amperage instrument fuses are $$$$, the single strand will blow quick enough to protect the innards. Thank you for the tip. The fuses cost more than a new meter.
RR_Mel Solder a single strand of stranded #30 wire across the fuse, I’ve been doing that for years and never a problem. Those quick blow low amperage instrument fuses are $$$$, the single strand will blow quick enough to protect the innards.
Solder a single strand of stranded #30 wire across the fuse, I’ve been doing that for years and never a problem. Those quick blow low amperage instrument fuses are $$$$, the single strand will blow quick enough to protect the innards.
Not so fast. Fuses are there to prevent expensive smoke!
Also, some Flukes use an expensive fuse, which must be replaced with exactly the same type, as it is also a shunt. Just stuffing any handy fuse in there makes the ammeter function useless, as it needs the shunt created by the fuse specified for it.
The FLuke 70 and 80 series meters are traditionally "electrician's" meters - made to take a beating, made to measure high voltage and current safely. Hence the rubber baby buggy bumpers around them that keep the plastic case from getting smashed. Definitely good stuff.
But not so good for DCC model railroading - the RMS functionality will actually read way off, not more accurately, when measuring DCC. None of my good quality meters reads DCC track voltage as accurately as the cheap Harbor Freight meter. Except my venerable old Fluke 8060. One of the early LCD handhelds, still of the type where the range selection is pushbuttons down the left side of the meter instead of a dial knob. It does true RMS measurements of sine, square, and triangle waves at frequencies up to somewhere near 30KHz. Most RMS meters only do sine, up to maybe double lien frequency, 120Hz. Or a True RMS meter than can handle different wave shapes, but also only up to a limited frequency range, far below DCC frquencies. So while it sounds like they shoudl do better than a cheap meter that does no sort of RMS measurement at all - actually, they don't, where DCC is concerned.
I bought the 8060 used on eBay, pretty cheap. It needed some cleaning up, and internally there is a zebra strip connecting the LCD to the board which needed a good cleaning, as dirty/poor contact was causing some segments to not show up properly. But after that - still works good. It probably should be recapped and calibrated, but it actually measures within spec compared to my reference source. I have two newer full feature meters though that I use much more, excpet for DCC track voltage, becau while they are both True RMS meters, the top frequency is too low to accurately measure DCC. The one is quite neat, user updateble firmware, data logging to an SD card, and Bluetooth connectivity to dat logging and display apps for IOS and Android.
Most of the time I jsut use them o measure resistors - I can;t see the colors very well on those new blue packaged ones, and some of the colors look way too much alike. I n certain positions it's prety easy to figure out what color it is trying to be, since the other option makes no sense. But, it's also just as easy to touch the resitor across the test leads and make sure I am putting the correct value in. Maybe I should just buy better quality resistors with darker, clearer markings.
So does a new battery.
I really wouldn;t jumper over the fuse. It's bad enough the 10 amp range doesn;t have ANY fuse whatsoever. THatmeans if you overload or short out while plugged in for the 10 amp range, the whole meter will likely just blow up in your hands. That fuse is on the low amp range, and will blow if you exceed 200ma. THere's not much in model railroading that 200ma is enough, most things you would be on the 10 amp range. testing current to a single LED maybe, for the 200ma range.
ANd better quality probes and leads or not - I would never use the HF meter for household wiring - the leads it comes with would probably just melt in your hands if overloaded or shorted. Good probes and leads won't - however, then the meter itself will melt. There's a video of 'fully destructive' testing of that and similar cheap meters.
A good meter rated for high voltage measurements has VERY expensive fuses - not glass ones. They are ceramic and designed so that the fuse itself will not explode and/or arc. My two good handheld meters have 2 such fuses, one for the low current range, one for the high current range. One learns to be careful on the low current range and not exceed the limit and blow that fuse.
Saftey/anti-blowing up tip: Start with the highest range, volts or aamps, whatever you are measuring, and work down from there. At least with a manual meter. 14V across the raisl on DCC will show up on the 200V AC range, you just won;t have much precision. But you can see it is 14V which means you cna turn down to the 20V range and not be over range. 10-15ma through an LED wills how on the 10 amp range, again not very precise, but you can see that it is not over the 200ma limit of the low current range, so you can switch to 200ma and test again.
On an analog meter - it's almost MORE important - overranging one too drastically can easily damage the meter movement as it bangs into the stop at the high end. That is a rather expensive mistake.
SeeYou190 I have a twenty year old Fluke model 73 meter that has quite lilterally been through hell with me. You cannot imagine the conditions this meter has endured, and it is still as good as new, except for the grease stains all over it. . You do get what you pay for. . . -Kevin .
I have a twenty year old Fluke model 73 meter that has quite lilterally been through hell with me. You cannot imagine the conditions this meter has endured, and it is still as good as new, except for the grease stains all over it.
.
You do get what you pay for.
-Kevin
I've got one of those, too. Looks about the same.
Gary
The real problem with Harbor Freight is quality control, but the prices are great or better than great.
I picked up my VOM from one of those overstock type stores in Manhattan called Lot Less for like $5. serves me quite well. I also use an old diet scale that cost me 25 cents at a rummage sale to weigh rolling stock also serves quite well.
Joe Staten Island West
I have eight HF meters hardwired into four MRC Controlmaster 20 PS. The leads where cut and soldered into the track circuits to monitor voltage and amperage of each PS. The readings are comparable to my Fluke meter. This setup has been in place for years. Only problem I have encountered.....leaving meter turned on and 9v battery going dead. Planned for battery replacement when I installed on the control panel, so no problem replacing. Also use HF meter hardwired to rotary switch to monitor AC output of two Lionel ZW transformers running my O- gauge layout. To date, I’ve had no issues.
Lone Wolf and Santa Fe I have two Harbor Freight meters, the red digital one and a black analog one from a long time ago. Both worked fine until I tested high voltage while they were in a low voltage mode. Oops! I blew up the fuses in both of them. Now I have to decide if I want to spend more money on fuses or just buy another meter for less…..
I have two Harbor Freight meters, the red digital one and a black analog one from a long time ago. Both worked fine until I tested high voltage while they were in a low voltage mode. Oops! I blew up the fuses in both of them. Now I have to decide if I want to spend more money on fuses or just buy another meter for less…..
Have 4 of 5 of the HF meters, they're good enough for general trouble shooting and it doesn't matter if they get dropped, thrown(don't ask), run over or lost. Keep one my car and truck.
With a better set of three foot leads I used mine for checking house wiring. No problem.
I use to keep one in the car.
richg1998 My first meter was a Heathkit VOM I built in 1955. Lasted many years until the meter movement gave out. When I worked for NASA in 1970 I bid on surplus stuff. Got a nice HP tube type VTVM. That lasted until I had to move some years later. Rich
My first meter was a Heathkit VOM I built in 1955. Lasted many years until the meter movement gave out.
When I worked for NASA in 1970 I bid on surplus stuff. Got a nice HP tube type VTVM. That lasted until I had to move some years later.
Harbor Freight has some fantastic items. I love that they allow me to use two coupons! Their customer service is what to expect from an electronics store.
I have one voltimeter that works great. The 1st one never worked. Te manager didn't believe me about it not working, so I put into an outlet. After one probe shot off and caused a spark, that was enough for him. In this case, the customer was right!