Multimeter comparo - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Kevinmatth
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 02, 2023, 03:37:04 pm
content: Will someone look at these two meters and tell me which one is a better meter in general. Does the ideal have better capacitance range? Im pretty new at this. Thank you for your help. Two meters are the Ideal 61-757 and the Kaiweets HT208D. I attached the user manuals and screen shots of the specs of it makes it easier.

author: Kevinmatth
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 02, 2023, 03:38:21 pm
content: The kaiweets ht208d manual is too large to upload.

author: Veteran68
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2023, 03:55:52 pm
content: What do you intend to do with the meter? Since these are both clamp meters, I'm assuming you intend to use it more for household mains electrical work than for low voltage electronics work.For simple household mains work, either are probably fine. The Kaiweets has slightly better AC voltage accuracy but then again someone making AC measurements with budget meters is typically not concerned with absolute accuracy, so that 0.2% higher accuracy is probably not important to you. The NCV feature on the HT208D is incredibly sensitive, so much so as to be practically useless for anything beyond "something in the general area around me is probably live." The Ideal may have better transient protection, since as I recall the Kaiweets has very little protection, but I don't know that for sure. That's not something you normally see written up in the manual specs.For low voltage DC work, the Ideal has pretty poor accuracy specs in DCV at 1.0% +/- 5 digits. For most hobbyists, DCV is the function you'll probably use most, followed by resistance, continuity, and diode mode. Capacitance mode is not all that useful in a DMM (some meters don't even have it), and when it is seriously needed most people lean towards an LCR meter. There's more to testing capacitors than just reading a capacitance value at whatever test frequency a DMM might use to test them. But again, you typically aren't using a clamp meter for bench DC work, short of the occasional quick current measurement where you can fit the clamp without breaking a circuit.On paper the Kaiweets has better specs all around. I have it and it's a pretty good little clamp meter that's packed with features. But neither of these meters are what I'd consider professional quality.

author: Kevinmatth
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: September 02, 2023, 09:24:09 pm
content: Veteran68, I am so thankful for your input. I have been studying this for weeks. I have a super cheap Dr Meter MS88 that I've had for years and I was using it to check my Prius for parasitic drain and putting it in line with the 12v battery. I started thinking about getting a clamp meter that I could use in other repair work that would be accurate as a DMM too. So I found the ideal 61-757 and bought it. I noticed that it had peak and min/max but started noticing that most other clamps had inrush instead. I felt like I got the wrong clamp so I started the search again. I started calling every multimeter manufacturer I could get on the phone to ask why most have inrush and what would be more useful to have just in case one day I need to learn to use peak or in-rush. Now I have some here for guidance since none of the meter manufacturers could really help me much. Knowing all that, do you have any suggestions that would be better? The ideal was $133 which was more than I wanted to spend. So when I found the Kaiweets, I thought the specs looked a little better and it had in-rush and it was cheaper.

author: Solder_Junkie
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2023, 09:37:31 pm
content: Watch this video, about 5 mins in. Then you will see why professionals, and those who care about their safety, buy Fluke meters. Some models (the USA made ones) come with a lifetime warranty.https://youtu.be/OEoazQ1zuUM?feature=sharedSJ

author: liaifat85
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2023, 03:03:03 pm
content: For industrial uses, I think the IDEAL Electrical 61-757 is better.

author: ledtester
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 06, 2023, 01:13:03 am
content: Quote from: Solder_Junkie on September 02, 2023, 09:37:31 pmReminds me of the good ol' days of EEVblog!EEVblog #84 - High Energy Multimeter Destructionhttps://youtu.be/M-FZP1U2dkM