Depending Only On One Multimeter For Troubleshooting?
Is it necessary or a must to have some good meters in order to perform the electronics troubleshooting job? If you are repairing circuit board that consist of some basic electronic components and not complicated design then it is not neccesary to have specialize test equipment. You can directly replace the suspect component and retest it in order to locate the faulty part. However, if you are in repair business or serious in electronics repair then you really need those good meters.
The reason i say this is not because I wants to promote those good meters, it is because those meters really had helped me to speed up my repair work. When I do a repair work, time is my major concern. I can't spend too much time on an equipment. I really need those good meters to help out my work. There is no way one could use a multimeter to accurately test the ESR of electrolytic capacitor, test the capacitance value, test the coil for shorted turns, test the waveform and etc. You need specific meter for each specific task.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, if you repair board that consist of some basic components then you do not need good meters. What if you are troubleshooting a board that consist of 4 to 8 layers, many SMD components and etc? If there is one component shorted in a big board, with the help of a short circuit finder tester you can isolate the problem in minutes. Yes of course you can use a multimeter (the old way) or solder one by one the component out to test it off board. It may take you hours or even days to locate the shorted component. Worst, you may break the tiny circuit lines if there is too excessive of soldering and unsoldering on a particular component (like SMD ICs). Why make lives difficult when you can solve the problem with the help of a specialize tester?
If you are one of the repair techs that is still using only multimeter for trobuleshooting, I suggest that you try it out on those good meters. Once you have tried and "feel" those good meters I believe you would no longer depending on your multimeter to do the repair work. I know that I can't force you to make such decision but just give yourself a chance to try it out.
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Humphrey
July 28, 2012 at 7:40 am
Absolutely right Mr.Jestine.
Jestine Yong
July 28, 2012 at 8:57 pm
Hi Humphrey,
I wrote quite a similar post about 2 years ago:
https://www.jestineyong.com/one-multimeter-that-can-test-all-components/
Jestine
Mircea
July 28, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Hi jestine! Multimeter is for electronics as a weapon for hunter.
jojogreg
August 9, 2012 at 4:20 am
i agree mr.jestine yong.to make our life much easier in repairing and troubleshooting we need to have other test equipment a must if we are in serious repair business.Having a different kind of meter or test equipment adding set up or display in our repair shop,customers believe that we are good in repairing business..
Jestine Yong
August 9, 2012 at 6:41 am
Hi Jojo,
With more test equipment you also could solve things faster thus have more time for other repair job!
Jestine