Multimeter recommendations

[chinsk]

At this point I really do not trust my multimeter at lower resistances, its simply not appear to have much precision at the resistances that cartos and atomizers are. I was curious, what multimeter/ohmmeters are some of you guys using that are yielding accurate readings at lower resistances?

 

[steliosak]

Mastech MAS830

Its cheap but accurate to .1 Ohm and that's all you need.

 

[SCTony]

I am using ESR-micro Meter which is primarily an in-circuit capacitor tester but will do up to 99 ohms. Made in Russia and I had to use Google translate a lot. Costs about $70 total. Very nice guy to deal with and no qualms about sending him money first. I've had it about a year now and I assume it is still available. Russian ordering site

 

[chinsk]

Thanks for the suggestions. What caused me to head in this direction is the fact that a 1.5ohm DC cartomizer is registering as 1.7ohm (which I understand can be considered within manufacturing tolerances) and my CE2s which are supposed to be 2.6-2.8ohm are registering as 3.1ohm. My multimeter doesn't have resolution settings, just a single resistance setting so I am wondering if it just sucks at low resistances. It isn't the fanciest multimeter in the world, it is just a $50 job that I bought years ago because I needed a clamp style ammeter to troubleshoot a dryer issue. I have another el cheapo one at work that I am going to check my CE2s out on tomorrow and see what it reads at.

 

[steliosak]

OK

Remember to subtract the Internal Resistance of the multimeter itself (if any).

 

[Sicarius]

Fluke all the way.

 

[DarkAynjil]

fluke 115.

I find it hard to believe that a radioshack dmm won't keep up with it though. I have used a radioshack pocket dmm side by side with a fluke, and while there are some accuracy issues with the cheapo meter, it usually reads within .1 ohms of my fluke. Bear in mind that while the COIL is probably within spec (2.6 - 2.8 or whatever), it has to go through a (usually) horrible solder joint or two.

 

[chinsk]

I tried out the old Sears DMM I had in my workbag and it appears to be closer to the advertised measurements. CE2s are measuring at 2.6 vs 3.1 (labeled 2.6-2.8) and the DCT is measuring 1.5 vs 1.7 (labeled 1.5).

 

[DarkAynjil]

Are you touching your leads together before measuring? Some meters require it for zeroing. It is possible the meter's internal resistance has drifted... kind of makes me miss the "zero" knob found on the old analog meter...

 

[chinsk]

Yep, did that. I just think my other meter isnt precise enough on the resistance measurement, its more geared toward current and voltage measurement. I noticed the old pocket sears one auto adjusts for mega and kilo so its better suited for ohm measurements, whereas my other one appears to only read ohms upto 9999.