BSIDE ADM66 6000 Count, decent small sub $20 USD meter - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2020, 07:45:08 am
content: This has been on my bench for a while, ADM66 from BSIDE.It's your typical (for the modern world) three terminal 6000 count TRMS meter.Interestingly it does not appear to have a separate EEPROM, so I'm guessing that the chipset is not the familiar DTM chipset from the Anengs etc which have the characteristic eeprom for cal and settings.Usual functions plus temperature, non-contact, uA range (100 Ohm shunt with 600uA and 6000uA ranges)Diode test voltage is 3v+, suitable for white/blue leds which is always handy.It's fairly small, perhaps a little larger than the Aneng 8002 etc.Probe holders are on the sides, which does look a little funny, but they aren't that bad. The probes supplied have a weird colour scheme if you remove the probe shroud the very tip of the probe is coloured opposite the body, so the red probe has a black tip and vice-versa. Weird, cost cutting measure on plastics and moulding I assume.Inside it's all pretty tidy, two ceramic fuses 5x20mm size which is nice. As I say, eeprom noticable by it's absence, single small PTC. A proper (0.1 Ohm) high current shunt rather than a surface mount resistor as I've seen in some other cheap meters recently.All in all, I quite like it. Just a couple of niggles really.The NCV isn't very sensitive. Not that I think NCV is all that useful, but if it's there is should be usable. Other meters I have with it are significantly more sensitive (enough to reliably trace cabling inside a wall for example, which this meter I think struggles with).There is no marking that the current ranges should be limited to 250v, which they should be because the 5x20mm fuses are only rated to 250v. The manual also specifies 700v fuses, which, as far as I know, do not exist in 5x20mm size.Accuracy isn't specified to be quite as good as some other meters (but bear in mind, I have not actually tested for accuracy). For example resistance ranges are pretty much all 0.8%+5, where perhaps 0.5%+3 would be more typical. With that said, it's a sub $20 meter, the accuracy we get these days for so little is astounding.Anyway. There you go. Photos to follow.

author: exe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 14, 2020, 10:27:13 am
content: Wow, it's so empty inside...What about capacitance measuring? Can it do sub-10pF measurements? I also don't see any REL button, which could be quite useful for measuring resistors and capacitors (too bad Anengs lack it as well). Do you know if it's possible to calibrate it?PS Send one to Joe Smith

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 14, 2020, 11:19:05 am
content: By the book the minimum capacitance range is 9.999nF 3% + 3 counts (9999 counts in capacitance mode and frequency, 6000 counts other modes), so in theory, yes.But in practice at least with the one on my desk it seems to be calibrated about 80pF low and clipped to zero, that is 100pF will read as 0.02nF (and 120 as 0.04...), so the answer is yeah, but you might have to work out just how much buffer capacitance to zero it out. To be fair this was a super crude test with random ceramics. I don't have anything remotely suitable to properly evaluate accuracy, especially not that low.No rel (or max/min), but this is typical for pretty much all the cheap Chinese meters, in fact I think I only have 1 meter with Rel (VC99) out of about 10 cheapos within my reach. Just seems to be something they don't bother with.No idea on calibration. The header holes visible in the last photo on the edge I expect probably break out pins for writing an eeprom built into the chipset, but there is no marking as to what they are, and no idea what the chipset is.