im just looking into buying a decent multimeter for work

Is the Fluke 117 recomended oorr ??

thx ..

 

You don't say what your work is, and there are a million good multimeters out there, but it's hard to go wrong with Fluke. That particular model has all the important features for general purpose use.

 

ok carbide my work is doing electrical residentual houses .. thx

 

Good purpose meter for just about all electrical work.

A few pluses...
Reduces chance of false readings due to ghost voltage with new, low impedance design.
VoltAlert..... senses the presence of ac voltage without carrying a second tool.

A possible negative... It doesn't measure milliamps(ma) or microamps(ua). Used in furnace servicing.


Good review on you tube... you tube/watch?v=3k9nVg03Wi4

 

Fluke will work great, but probably overkill for most residential uses. Even cheap $15, $20 multimeters are more than enough in most cases.
You don't need True RMS for residential electrical work as frequency will always be 60Hz or 50Hz depending on your country/region.

Getting one with clamp meter may be better. That way you can measure the load on circuit.

 

While I agree that true RMS isn't absolutely essential for typical residential electrical work, I'd like to clarify that it has nothing to do with AC being 50/60 Hz. A "standard" or non-true RMS meter assumes the wave shape it is measuring is a sine wave. It measures peak voltage (or current) and calculates and displays RMS value based on that assumption. When the wave shape is not a sine wave it will not display the correct RMS value. Non-sine wave measurements can come up in residential work, like some types of dimmers or motor controls, but are certainly more likely to be needed in industrial or commercial work. Measuring current in LED lighting circuits will often involve non-sine waveforms, so True RMS is useful there as well.

 

I always thought frequency has to do with RMS as well, but looking it up again. Nope.
Guess I remembered wrong.

Even in the case of motor control or dimmer testing, True RMS probably is not necessary for common electrical repairs because all you are trying to test is if they work or not. Accurate voltage reading isn't that important.

I have 1 True RMS and 4 non-true RMS multimeter. 3 of them are under $20 and other 2 over $100. Never actually had any use for True RMS reading. On residential electrical works, I only needed to check if I was getting 120 or 240V or nothing at all. Accuracy within +- 10V was more than enough for me.

Only device I wish I had time to time is clamp meter, but, I don't need it often enough to purchase one.

 

Completely agree. It's probably only been 10-15 years that TRMS meters have reached a price point where they are fairly common out of the lab setting and somehow we got by just fine.