[sdiy] Multimeter Quest

[John Potter]

> Hello All - 
> 
> Believe it or not I actually spent several hours searching through the
> list archives and reading specs/features on different multimeters the
> other evening.  I've got a couple quick questions.
> 
> How important is the ability to do transistor hfe testing?  Will my
> synth-diy life suck without this.  I saw some conflicting statements in
> the archives regarding this topic.
> 
> I'm having some trouble tracking a DMM w/ the other features that I'm
> concerned with as well as this feature.  If I through out the HFE testing
> my options seem to open up greatly.  Other features I'm concerned with
> outside of standard IVR measurements are hold, auto/manual ranging, cap,
> diode, high accuracy, and cost < $130US or so.
> 
> True RMS measurements?  Many of the archive notes I found seemed to
> indicate it wasn't all it was cracked up to be but, to me, it kind of
> seems contrary to logic to get a highly accurate DMM and then do
> measuments using a method that will introduce error.  I guess as long as
> you've got a sinusoidal output you could just measure that but what
> happens when you've only got saw, tri, square?  How about if you're
> measuring something like the voltage output from an Envelope?
> 
> As far as "Hold" goes - does it usually Hold at the peak measurement or
> just hold whenever you remove the probes?  I guess I'm asking if you need
> something w/ Min/Max/Avg for that?
> 
> For what it's worth, I've been primarily looking at Fluke and Extech - and
> B+K a little bit.
> 
> Thanks much - I'm sure I'll have a couple more related questions over the
> next couple days.
> 
> JP
> 
> 
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