Adam Savage's Favorite Tools: Best Budget Multimeter!

I have the nice $500+ CATIII FLUKE 179 multimeter that I'm required by standards to use at work - I also have 2 of these $50 FLUKE 101's at home and honestly I have never ever ever thought to myself "dang I need to get the big FLUKE from work!"

99.999% of you will NEVER need to use all the features on the cheaper 101 let alone all of the features on a more expensive one. $50 gets you all the function you're going to need for almost every situation you're going to be in all in a handy package. Spend $100 and you have one for your truck/carry kit and one for your stationary, so you're never caught lacking. Either way if you're reading this and you have money or are going to have money and have been thinking about expanding your tool set or need - whatever you were thinking do not buy it, buy this instead. It's $50 or cheaper and completely unlocks the abilty to handle and learn an entire world of maintenence and engineering that no other tool will even remotely allow you to interact with. Any other tool can wait, buy this.

My Fluke 77 was new in 1983. It still met ALL calibration specifications in July this year, when it was stolen. My Fluke 179, long discontinued, is my absolute favorite meter, EVER. I EVEN BOUGHT A SPARE since the 179’s replacement model is not my cup of tea. I gifted a Fluke 77 to my daughter since she was born the same year I bought my first one. She and her meter turned 40 September 1st!

FYI, don't get the 101...get the 106 or 107 as they have a 10 amp current setting which is needed for measuring current draw in circuits. The 101 does not do this, it can only do milliamps which really only works at integrated circuit levels.

The first DMM is gold. The "new" one is complete crap. Made in China. Not Fluke. (The name is licensed.) And the meter doesn't include basic safety features.

😮 Fluke 77 now 360 🤑 Crazy 🤪

Thank you Adam

Intelligent guy. Used to watch the show religiously. But, also annoyingly self-absorbed, and uses the over-worked, cliche' Californian, "amazing" way too often to the point of annoyance. If you're so hip and cool and Californian, come up with a better exclamation than "amazing."

To the rest of us, it just means you took a hit of LSD or a toke of weed. AMAZING!

The cheap Flukes have some functionality removed and I an Extech EX330 instead.

I like my Uni-T 210e
it does ac/dc amps, volts and ohms
amazon has them
most only do ac amps so this one is nice

He thinks light bulbs have filaments. Adorable

Any multimeter without continuity is just trash... it's the most used feature, period.

So passionate ❤️

nah, mate your first meter should be 12$ and straight from china they work great for what they are and when you enevitably blow it up measuring current across mains or something stupid like that then you won't feel so bad having turned it into a pile of ash. once you've had some time working with electronics and you start to care a bit more about a tool you use everyday then you should buy a fluke, (preferably from an old dude who's had their meter for a decade or two)

handy pocket sized meter, we use these for isolation verification and field testing onsite to prove dead before we work on a device, cat 3 600v ac is minimum for us here but its handy to not have to grab the big meter for every job or isolation.

20 years hvac. Fluke hates/disrespects HVAC guys by not providing them a legit meter. They can go F themselves I've been saying it for decades. and the 324 at 4k max ohm resistance can suck it. Fieldpiece are WAY better. But this meter is a ridiculously impressive phone size meter with incredible capability. Except an amp probe. Thats where they tease us. Oh to make matters worse they sell a i400 and a 107 as if either of those were worth anything to us. Really theyre in it for the money obviously. Im going to get this little bad boy cuz its 45 dollars and its tiny. hopefully it will make my job a little easier. But my main meters are always going to be fieldpiece.

Adam, I've been building circuits and designing them for almost 20 years and well, there's so much to cover and learn, we find electronic engineers specializing in just specific areas, voltage regulators power supplies or audio experts there's so much to learn you stick to certain areas

But hell yes, without a multimeter, basic tasks are impossible take a simple problem like your cat jumped up and rips out a DC power cable, you end up with 2 wires, soldering and putting them back is easy


But how do you know which is positive and negative? You could grab a suitable resistor and led wire it up hope the voltage isn't too high

So Meh.. a multimeter makes life easier! But even a cheap $10 one will suffice for basic electronics price goes up the more accurate or the more precision it has

Thanks Adam, you made me miss Grant! He and Tim Hunkin are pretty much why I got into electronics..

Rip

That little Fluke is so over priced. Poor Adam probably doesnt realise it doesnt even measure current. Totally paying for the name. Get a ANENG 8008. Same size, half the price at least and also measures current. It even has a little signal generator built in!!

How do you measure capacitors to see if they are good.

I bought 20$ and plugged into socket outlet and it fried. I need something with protection so they dont frie when I make mistake.

Fluke meters are way over priced because they were never designed for consumers. Much of the high price is due to contracts with the military and other big corps where consistency over time is important. Many Fluke meters don't even have true RMS and still use old chips to keep their meter consistent. Consistency does not mean more accurate. It just means that users can test equipment the same today as they did 40 years ago. For instance, the military has a bazillion pages of data for testing and it is much cheaper and easier to pay Fluke big bucks to keep their meters consistent over time, than continuously revamp a sh!t load of database. Not to mention more risk in serious mistakes when changing test methods.

Hobbyists will never benefit from the added cost of Fluke meters. There are many better meters (more accurate, many more functions, much lower price....) for consumers. Fluke also makes (buys from China with their name on it) over priced meters, where equivalents are considerably cheaper, are at least the same quality and several have many more features.

I have nothing against Fluke. I just think it is a bad idea to pay extra for the Fluke name when none of the bloated cost will benefit consumers or hobbyists.

You aren't a hack on this front. Everything that you said is correct, and the suggestion on the entry level fluke is excellent. Happy metering!

That multimeter will last probably longer than me.... 😁

I ended up buying a Fluke 107 from Lowe's. They were out of stock and upgraded me to a Fluke 110 Plus for the same price! You sold me on the Flukes.. mine is orange, though.

HeeHee!

Great buy getting the Fluke at Foothills. I lived near Apple headquarters before we moved over to Santa Cruz. have a healthy 2023.

$44 is not a budget multimeter.

Awesome video! Loved it - buying one now - thanks for the advice!

ive been using my Fluke 87V for over 20 years on aircraft avionics, automotive, house, and now robots. it works great

Foothill College!!!!
Oh yeah! Two BIG thumbs up for them:
1) Andy Fraknoi and SV Astronomy Lecture Series. Man, oh man, what a wonderful program!
2) Dr. Seefeld's European work abroad program in the 80's. Thanks to them, I experienced truly amazing summer work abroad in Germany. Danke sehr!!!

It's 2023 , Fluke 77 = $355.00 after 10% discount. Happny New Year

With 30yrs in the electrical field, I can confirm Fluke is worth the price. Most people have no clue about the additional protection built into Fluke devices. Things like transient voltage and incorrect connections can kill or injure without the safeguards built into these devices. Be careful about buying those cheap meters.

I watched this a year ago, and today i now own a fluke 101. Thank you. - Longtime fan.

Guy is a national treasure in my opinion.

Just came across this review just after I replaced my old 20 year old simple fluke 10 meter after seeing this one making a cameo appearance in a Tom Sachs video." It still worked well but need a new set of leads , the time that prompted the change was its battery management was poor , maybe because I always forgot to turn it off and finding a 9v battery at short notice was annoying.
Had to purchase a grey import as Fluke doesn’t sell the 101 in Australia and strict speaking mine isn’t a fluke as it has their Chinese language logo and branding on it …

my fluke for my job description is the 789 i need that loop calibrator for testing my sensor on the equipment

Just bought a Fluke 289...Super Awesome features including data logging, low pass filter, Bluetooth adapter to view on your smart phone or computer, etc... The Fluke 289 is the Best out of ALL of all the Fluke multimeters I've owned in over 30 years. Fluke is the best still. No they don't say "John Fluke - Made in the U.S.A." on the back of the units anymore but hey...even my ex wife was "Made in China"...Aloha!!!

A friend of mine has a Fluke 115. I've seen him drop it countless times. I've seen him actually take a few jolts with it. It's almost a 15 year old meter, and still works like it was brand new. Because of seeing his take years of abuse and still work perfectly, I ended up buying my own Fluke 117 2 years ago. Worth every penny of that $240.

I just successfully repaired a missing ground circuit using my fluke 115. The continuity feature and a 12 volt power pack and banana plugs. And Two needle probes.

Whilst Fluke stuff is good (i have had a couple over the years) they are VASTLY over priced for two reasons. 1) Made in America. 2) they are long lived devises (they are not discontinued after 24 months to push the new model). Because of this the US armed forces write their test procedures SPECIFICALLY using Fluke equipment so any technician can pick up the test procedures with the correct Fluke unit and the manual will tell him/her what setting to use, what probes in what hole etc. Not having to update test procedures every couple of years is worth more than saving a few bucks on cheaper gear for the forces.

I love Fluke stuff and would buy it if i could justify the cost for my hobbiest use...But there are perfectly good WAY cheaper alternatives out there. For home/hobby use its akin to cracking an egg with a gold plated sledgehammer.

I should add...I am in Europe (Germany to be specific) the $44 Fluke 101 is €129 here.

Fluke 101 baby! the only downside is not having another plug in for Amps

Damn, this was a good
one! Fluke 101, check.

We all had Fluke 77's in every toolbox, being an electro-environmental technician on C-130's, in the Air Force. He is right, its probably the all around best digital mm ever made. Solid as a tank, never fails, and accurate. I dropped one off the wing of the aircraft, it fell about 20 feet to concrete. Just a minor scuff on edge, worked perfectly.

My grandparents lived in Los Altos Hills for forty years, and we took the 280 exit at Foothill College on Moody Rd. every time we went to visit. Thanks for that bit of nostalgia. I actually played in David Packard’s apricot orchard as a kid, since my grandparents lived adjacent to it.
That area is totally different now.

A person who seeks knowledge to understand more realizes that his knowledge of the unknown is vast while a man who seeks to understand to look smart in a conversation knows everything about nothing. Sure adam could just pretend to know more about it and nobody would question him, but he doesn't and that's what makes him respectable to me.

While Fluke is undeniably the gold standard, there are some great cheaper meters out there, AstroAI M6K0R can be had with all features of top end Fluke for $30 or so, which if you are not working on things commercially or government stuff, but just hobbying about will be just fine. For hobby grade stuff Fluke wont offer anything that one of those wont. Flukes have lifetime warranty and very good support, which is part of the reason they are so expensive.

Fluke 107 is a better value with Amperage setting.

I want a Porsche in Fluke yellow.

So you know, you can’t "measure" ohms/continuity with a multimeter. The multimeter measures R=V/I and computes the ohms for you….based on ohms law…..😮

thanks for the info have a great day