Pancontrol DMM - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Maxlor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2014, 10:12:04 pm
content: Screw you topic deleters. If I take the time to post an answer, I damn well want it posted too!So here it is:What they call PAN 185 is sitting around at work under the name Voltcraft MT-52. It's rebranded chinese whiteware.It feels solid while handling, but I think it's rather expensive (77 EUR) for its accuracy (1.2% basic DC). Then again, it does have some functions not usually found on DMM (luxmeter, ambient temperature an humidity). The probes feel cheap.I haven't checked its internals.Generally I'd stay away from rebranded stuff though. I feel that with them, there's just another middleman to drive up the price without any real benefit. If you want a chinese meter, buy Mastech or Uni-T directly :-) .

author: retiredcaps
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2014, 10:23:27 pm
content: Quote from: Maxlor on January 07, 2014, 10:12:04 pmVoltcraft MT-52 looks like CEM DT-51Voltcrafthttp://www.conrad.de/medias/global/ce/1000_1999/1200/1220/1229/122900_BB_01_FB.EPS_1000.jpgCEMhttp://www.cem-instruments.com/en/UploadFile/20110111155419858.jpgPAN 185http://www.pancontrol.at/fileDB/Files/Multimeter/PAN-185-Multisensorgeraet.pdf

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 04:15:45 am
content: I posted too! Why would anyone ask a question and then delete the thread? I am going to stop participating here if this is allowed again. I don't like wasting my time.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 04:56:17 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on January 08, 2014, 04:15:45 amI guess that N.M. in the screenshot takes care of the " identify the asshole" question from another thread.I thought the ability to delete the entire thread was fixed?? That, and if I remember correctly the deleted stuff now no longer is deleted permanently but goes into some plavce (subforum for admins maybe?) so that it can be easily moved again.So maybe an admin can restore that thread?

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 06:00:41 am
content: Random guess, because users should since a few days no longer to be able to delete their threads: A moderator deleted it because it looks awfully like some spam for that company?

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 06:21:05 am
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 08, 2014, 06:00:41 amWell I thought that and was going to berate the person that then reposted the spam but decided not to as I did something like that once and it didn't go well.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 06:45:00 am
content: Sorry, that was me being suspicious. New user registered that day within hours and first post being a link to a company. Either astroturfing or spam, so I sent a note to the Mods.Sorry if it was a genuine company, but those should be in the Buy/sell section, and done as a commercial advert. Not Test Equipt.

author: Jon86
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 07:33:04 am
content: Quote from: SeanB on January 08, 2014, 06:45:00 amI guess I'm missing something, but wasn't he just asking whether anyone has used them and knows what they're like?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 07:43:04 am
content: It starts that way..........

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 07:56:51 am
content: Quote from: Jon86 on January 08, 2014, 07:33:04 amI bet you're waiting for a Nigerian Prince to get back to you on that $10,000,000 he said he was sending?

author: KedasProbe
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2014, 08:18:54 am
content: Isn't there a forum setting that you have to be registered for a number of days before you can do your first post? (I have seen that on other sites)It also forces some new people to search better before asking.

author: N.M
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 11, 2014, 10:40:40 am
content: @mrflibblei am not an asshole! and also have deleted nothing!I am electrical engineering student in 4 semester. I just wanted to ask if anyone has experience with the DMM.I want to measure small currents in the micro range.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 11, 2014, 01:53:50 pm
content: My apologies if the mods deleted your thread and left you looking like the culprit. As I said in the original thread, those meters are just rebrands of CEM and other meters. If you are interested in getting something better known I would be happy to provide information.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2014, 04:22:27 pm
content: Quote from: N.M on January 11, 2014, 10:40:40 amI was referring tothis post.

author: N.M
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 11, 2014, 10:11:00 pm
content: I went today at the conrad shop and i was looking at the DMMs and touched them, there were many in different price ranges, i should say most of them are voltcraft branded, there was even fluke but none had a microAmp range. i hoped to find the agilent U1242B but it was't there.sorry for the following stupid questionI do not understand for what we need to measure as accurately like 0.05%, at my uni. we needed an accurate measurement for offset-voltage/current and that's it. can someone give me an example please where it is important to do accurate measurement? but I know If i want to perform measurements on 230V and more, i should never use cheap devices from the junk box but rely on high-quality goods.

author: Lightages
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 12, 2014, 01:50:57 am
content: High accuracy can be important for checking the monotonicity of a D/A converter, or for certain battery systems you want to be sure of the voltages, calibrating other devices, etc.Higher accuracy can also come into play when you are working near the bottom of a range where only a few lower digits of the display are being used. Here the % of the reading is important but more important is the number of digits out the display can be. For example a meter might be rated at 0.1% +1Digit. This would be a better meter than one rated at 0.05% +20Digits when used at the lower end of the range.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2014, 02:34:09 am
content: Quote from: Lightages on January 12, 2014, 01:50:57 amIndeed. And I used a 5 1/2 digit meter for precisely that earlier today (DAC check). Another thing where it was useful today was to measure power supply ripple. Incidentally if you want to use it for that you want to make sure the DMM you're getting is true RMS, and has sufficient bandwidth.

author: Maxlor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2014, 12:03:01 pm
content: I have a real life situation for you: last year, I developed a wireless sensor system at work. What I describe here is not exactly what happened, but it's not far off.The product in the end runs off a CR2032 coin cell, and I estimate average idle power consumption to be in the 3uA range, which should give me a couple of years of runtime. However, if I make a mistake in my software, a wrong setting there or an inefficient algorithm here, it's rather easy to elevate this to 40uA, which means the coin cell only lasts a couple of months. The 3uA are for the final product, with the high efficiency parts and without any extra testing circuitry. The dev hardware I have right now is much worse in power consumption, let's say, 200uA.Still, I need to minimalize power consumption now, part by part. The software has a lot of influence on power consumption. For example, I might disable all external interrupts on the microcontroller and instead have the watchdog wake it up every 10ms to see whether something is happening. Or maybe use a 20ms interval, but only if it results in a noticeable decrease in power consumption. Or disable the watchdog altogether and enable external interrupts. You can only really figure out what's most efficient with testing and measuring.So I'm looking at differences in the single-digit uA range, on top of 200uA total consumption. Using a cheaper DMM which usually has between 1% and 3% accuracy on the DC current range, you can't quite be confident that what the meter is showing you is really there, and is not owed to temperature differences because the DMM is warming up or something like that. Measured values might be different the next day, which makes you hunt after ghost issues that aren't really there.If you use more expensive meter like the U1242B you mentioned (heh, and incidentally, I used a U1241B for this task), the specified accuracy leads to an error below 0.5uA for the given application. And its precision (repeatability, i.e. if there is an error, at least the error will be the same the next day) is probably an order of magnitude better than that. It really makes development much easier when you don't have to second-guess your instruments.

author: N.M
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: January 14, 2014, 06:22:59 pm
content: thx Maxlor and all of you, i got it