Extech 330 - Useable more than 15 minutes ?  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: old gregg
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 07:50:28 pm
content: Hi guys,I needed a new meter, something less cheap than the one I had, I recently bought one of these Extech 330. Works good but...it turns itself off after 15 minutes, even if usedI'm measuring resistors and bang it beeps and goes to sleep. I must confess that's amazingly annoying !I know that the meter goes to sleepy time after 15 min ofinactivitybut what about in use ? the manual is rather short on this.Is it something I don't understand or is it something wrong with my unit ? I used to leave the meter ON when I'm breadboarding (turning it off and on is really annoying) but this one won't let me do that.I'm running the test of connecting it to my power supply, I change the voltage for time to time and it goes off after the 15 minutes regardless of what I'm doing. How can I measure drift in time with that ?Are there any users of this particular meter to help me with this problem before returning it to the seller?The metter is good albeit a bit slow on readings and the continuity test is a total fail, all the paramaters work good but this sudden shut down is odd.

author: Wytnucls
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 08:03:08 pm
content: I suspect that by inactivity they mean no button press or rotary switch movement.Not much you can do about it, apart from buying another meter with an APO override.

author: Zbig
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 09:32:16 pm
content: Try turning it on with different buttons pressed. Chances are you'll find a "magic" one which disables the Auto-Off feature until the next power cycle.

author: electronics man
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 09:37:31 pm
content: I love the ex330 but it bleeps after 15 mins warning me that it will turn off then after a while it bleeps again and turns off so just move the dial before it goes off.

author: Hydrawerk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 09:38:32 pm
content: My UT70A does the same. (But I never measured the exact time.) Well, this might me quite common at cheap multimeters.

author: Terabyte2007
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 10:54:26 pm
content: Quote from: old gregg on March 23, 2014, 07:50:28 pmWhile the meter is off. Hold down the MODE button and switch the rotary dial to your desired setting. When it settles, release the MODE button. This should do the trick for you! Yes I know, it's not documented in the manual.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 03:56:24 am
content: Quote from: 3roomlab on March 23, 2014, 09:43:20 pmI think not.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 04:15:58 am
content: Seriously dumb idea!The UNI-Ts from the early 2000s did the same thing.My (then) employer bought a bunch of them which we were supposed to use when setting up our product for shipment.Some of the test points were hard to get to,so you would do the first few,& the bloody thing would turn off!My old Fluke 77 shuts down after a long period of inactivity,but in its case,itreally meansinactivity.The other problems were slow operation when taking readings,& incorrect resistance readings when the battery had not yet become low enough for the "batt" symbol to show.UNI-T may have moved on from this sort of stuff,but it seems others haven't.

author: old gregg
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 03:40:14 pm
content: thanks everyone for the answers, really nice !Well, I ran a test for 1h and yes, inactivity means no buttons press or rotary movement as Wytnucls suggested. Really odd and the manual says nothing about it I was like a monkey with that thing.Now that I know I'm ok but the manual should be more clear about that . If I had the issue I'm sure other people had the same case.Quotethanks for the trick. It will cancel the turn off fonction for the time that the meter is used ? it isn't saved for future use?

author: tech5940
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2015, 09:42:27 pm
content: Quote from: Terabyte2007 on March 23, 2014, 10:54:26 pmThis was a great trick to come across, thank you! I know its an old thread but maybe by now some new people will benefit from it like I did. It seems it holds this setting until you turn it off. So for example you can HOLD MODE, switch to Vdc then release mode and it will not auto off even if you move from Vdc. Once you turn if off though you have to hold mode again on start-up.