The best piece of equipment, hands down (IMHO) is a lab-bench power supply. One with dual digital displays for current and voltage, and 4 separate knobs (coarse and fine for voltage and current-limit). Something like this:
X5045 Pro Series 30V 5A Digital DC Power Supply Precision Variable Adjustable | eBay
The reason: Multi-meters test resistances at very low currents. With something like this, you can pump 1A (or more) through your coil head, and read the voltage across it. Since you're dealing with larger voltages, this tends to be very accurate. You can also use this as a voltmeter (Set the output voltage to 0, put the leads across a battery, and the Vout reading will tell you the voltage). You can use them to charge
batteries (by using the current-limiting correctly to limit the current) and to "flame" nichrome or kanthal (wire up a length, and crank it up a bit). You can test a coil under load; even if it's a direct short, the supply will limit the current so you don't vaporize the coil or damage a battery. And when desperate, you can use it
to
vape off of (If you're at home or have a very long extension cord ;-)
Second choice would be to get one of those resistance boxes specifically designed for atomizers, like this one:
https://www.fasttech.com/p/1897900
This can ONLY be used to test coil resistances (not battery voltages, etc) but in terms of commonly available and affordable tools these work very well. The fact that you connect the atty directly onto a mating connector (rather than holding probes on it) gives better results than most lower-end multimeters.
Generic multimeters, even some moderately-priced ones, aren't as useful as they might seem; many of them won't measure high DC currents, or low resistances accurately. Some are better than others.
My opinions only; others will have different opinions.
