[tangent]

In the initial version of my resistor matching article, which I finished back in mid-summer, I baldly stated that Agilent owned the bench DMM market, and Fluke owned the handheld market. At the time, Fluke only had two bench DMMs, one of which cost more than my first four cars combined, and another which was a joke compared to those in Agilent's line. On the handheld front, Agilent had gotten out of that market years ago, ceding it to Fluke. It was a pretty clear-cut situation.

Then about a month ago, Agilent introduced the new U1250A line of handheld DMMs which exceeds Fluke's 180 series, at least on paper. And then yesterday, I received a flyer in the mail from Fluke announcing a pair of new benchtop meters with prices and features interleaved with Agilent's.

Game on!

[size=xx-small](Yes, I've already reworked the resistor matching article.)[/size]

 

[Voodoochile]

That 1252 is a lot of meter for the money... even for list. Game on, indeed!

 

[tangent]

I only worry that Agilent has gone off to some ODM house for these instead of developing them in-house. They did it on their low-end scopes. Check out the videos on Tek's site comparing their TDS2000 series to the Agilent DSO3000 series. Absolutely devastating.

The only thing wrong I've found in their analysis so far is a cheap shot about the Agilent being made in China...well, guess where my TDS2012 was made.

 

[bperboy]

A bit OT, but Tangent, I bought a STEPS board from you a week or so ago, and today I stuffed it. I got the thing built and tested to 24v in under 2hours! No electrocution either!

EDIT: On the topic of DMM, I've got one of those harbor-freight? 3 dollar jobs, and I can tell you, I wish I had a nice fluke 189!

 

[ATAT]

tangent - whats the difference between the new and old fluke handhelds? I've used the old / new flukes once and they seem to be the same in accuracy and such..

 

[tangent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bperboy A bit OT, but Tangent, I bought a STEPS board from you a week or so ago, and today I stuffed it. I got the thing built and tested to 24v in under 2hours! No electrocution either! EDIT: On the topic of DMM, I've got one of those harbor-freight? 3 dollar jobs, and I can tell you, I wish I had a nice fluke 189!

No, no, no. Go get one of the Agilents instead so you can dial your new power supply in to 24.000V and give us a report. Sacrifice your wallet for the cause! Do it, do it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATAT whats the difference between the new and old fluke handhelds?

I don't understand why you're bringing that up here...Fluke's new meters are benchtops.

Are you really asking how, say, the 89 IV compares to the 189? I can't tell you that from personal experience; I moved from a 73 III to a 189, skipping over the 80 series entirely. But a thread in which expert bigcat39 participated, I recall that he said that the newer units have better specs but live more tightly within them, while the older ones stayed well inside their looser specs. I don't recall if he said that the newer ones actually performed better. In at least one area -- the shock cases -- the new ones are a step backwards. The best argument in favor of the newer meters is probably just more features: the backlight, decent capacitance measurement, etc. If you're a happy 80 series user, I don't see a good reason to upgrade to a new Fluke if you don't need the features.

In fact, you might just wait, to see if Fluke responds to this shot from Agilent. I found the IR data transfer feature on the 189 to be too much hassle for its value; even laptops and high-end business printers no longer have IRDA ports on them anymore. If it were USB, as in the new Agilent handhelds, I might have actually used it.

If you were actually asking how the handhelds compare to the new benchtops, my recent changes to the resistor matching article should make the vast differences clear.

 

[bperboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tangent No, no, no. Go get one of the Agilents instead so you can dial your new power supply in to 24.000V and give us a report. Sacrifice your wallet for the cause! Do it, do it!

I really want to, I just can't justify, can't justify! Too much emptiness in the wallet!! I've got my M^3 right now, so I'm cash depleted.

 

[Voodoochile]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tangent The only thing wrong I've found in their analysis so far is a cheap shot about the Agilent being made in China...well, guess where my TDS2012 was made.

Yeah, China gets a bad rap for poor products. I do believe that a lot of the product of China is of pretty poor quality, but I also don't believe that it's all bad product, by virtue of being made in China.

It seems to me that some products are very nice, and that China will produce what it is asked to produce, at a given price point. In other words, if a company gives them some specs, and says "how inexpensively can you make this and still have it meet this spec?" then things like chassis durability, long-term durability, or ergonomic treatments all go out the window first. Because their relative operational overhead is so small, it's where everone turns to save a buck on production costs.

I can remember a long time ago when products 'Made in Japan' were deemed to be of poor quality. By the late 70's, if you had some stereo or photo gear that really is made in Japan, it was typically of exceedingly high quality; and while not inexpensive, was still reasonable. Their Honda and Toyota cars, of course, are outstanding.

Sorry for the long-winded sidestep! I just think that companies should engage China in a more thoughtful way, more often. Why shoot for the absolute lowest price point, when they could make something truly nice, and still have an attractive price point? Please don't answer, though.

 

[kklee]

Okay, it was bad enough that I started visiting Head-Fi and began collecting headphones (and building too many DIY amps).

Now this thread has me wanting to replace my old Fluke 77 that's been doing it's job just fine for the past 20 years. Ignorance was truly bliss until I read this thread. Argh!

 

[Blind Tree Frog]

Did fluke recently buy Meterman? i was at a local shop and was looking at their handhelds and the Meterman stuff was all listed under fluke in the system.

 

[Xakepa]

Well, I already went through my first broken Fluke 189. Came out the plastic rail which holds the 4 sockets on the bottom is not clamped to the PCB with plastic hooks, but holds on the 8 soldering joints of the socktes->which have pretty thin and pretty long leads->after repetitive slight bending (like pulling/pushing leads 1000 times) one of them broke. On lower-class 75 model those same sokets are held in place by metal clamps instead...

The good side of the story is that Fluke is selling spare parts thru their website, and that particular one was $15. Even though the min order is said to be $25, Fluke sent that one to me for no additional charge.

 

[Voodoochile]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kklee Okay, it was bad enough that I started visiting Head-Fi and began collecting headphones (and building too many DIY amps).

Go ahead, replace a perfectly good meter! It's all in good fun, right?

And yes, Fluke owns Meterman/Wavetek.

Diamond-Star probably owns Fluke.

Sony Records probably owns Agilent.

And Beatrice Foods probably owns Tek.

 

[SiBurning]

Would a cheap difference amplifier be a satisfactory replacement for a good meter if the only need for accuracy was for resistor matching?

 

[Xakepa]

And what's the point of matching 1% resisitors if they travel north and south with the temperature...not talking about lytic caps etc...

 

[Blind Tree Frog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoochile Go ahead, replace a perfectly good meter! It's all in good fun, right? And yes, Fluke owns Meterman/Wavetek. Diamond-Star probably owns Fluke. Sony Records probably owns Agilent. And Beatrice Foods probably owns Tek.

Bleh, now to find the buying guide that will walk my through my options.