It's not a fluke that I got a fluke or is it?

RetiredUnit1

RetiredUnit1

Well-known member
So someone on another forum was looking for a cheap multimeter, and that devolved into a discussion of how it's not the best idea in the world to measure 500vdc with a cheap multimeter. And yadda yadda yadda, next thing you know I'm bidding on a Fluke 77 IV on eBay and I WON IT.

410.99 is the list price, I picked this baby up for $95 + shipping (which was quite expensive coming from New York to SoCal). Saving me $315.99!!!!!!!

This baby is BRAND NEW. No perfume, cologne or cleaning fluid smell on the flawless leather case, still had the plastic screen protector on the display. Long and short probes measuring .7R and .1R ohms. And MAN IT IS FAST. Comes up with the measurement in a millisecond and doesn't jump all over the place trying to make it's mind up like my old cheap MM's did....

Rated at 1000v cat IV 10A current. It's got everything I need and more. Color me happy!!!

First Fluke 77IV.jpeg
 
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peccary said:
I have a Fluke 101 and when I measured the voltage on my B-15 built it just gave me little lightning bolts ⚡⚡ :ROFLMAO:
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That's the new inexpensive one available at Amazon, right? Rated at 600v. I did read some complaints on the reviews, that's when I went to eBay and searched for them. To my surprise, there was only 34 minutes left on the one I got and no one else had bid on it yet. Still pinching myself!!!
 
RetiredUnit1 said:
That's the new inexpensive one available at Amazon, right? Rated at 600v. I did read some complaints on the reviews, that's when I went to eBay and searched for them. To my surprise, there was only 34 minutes left on the one I got and no one else had bid on it yet. Still pinching myself!!!
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It's great for pedal building, but it's not able to read over 500 volts (maybe 600?). Either way, it's a great little mm for pedal building, but not quite there for amps.
 
peccary said:
I'm working my way through the Trinity Amps kit. I unfortunately haven't had much time and haven't worked on it in weeks. You can see my progress here if you're interested: https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/trinity-trip-top-build.18220/
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Now THAT is a nice chassis. I'm building a 5F6-A 1959 Bassman and it's a friggen ship in a bottle build. I was just getting ready to plop the main circuit board into place when I realized the PT didn't have a 6.3vac center tap and I had to head back to the drawing board for that piece. I ended up adding a raised ground reference to the artificial center tap board that I can fit in between the main board and the PT.

I have it here in between the rectifier and the first power tube, but I decided there would be too tight of a squeeze to put it there. The two 100R resistors create the artificial center tap off of the heaters, the 180K is a bleeder resistor that comes off of the B+(1), and that applies about 65vdc to raise the reference of the ground which makes the heaters very quiet. While I was at it I moved the backup diodes off of the GZ34 socket, and squeezed an internal HT fuse on the board too.

I also don't get as much time as I'd like to work on this, plus my arthritis goes crazy if I do too much at a time.... sigh...

1707177709786.png Elevated Artificial center tap board.jpeg


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done 1024.jpg

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Got a 89IV nos at a pawn shop in a small town a few years ago. Talked them down to 150 out the door iirc. Wasn't the Cadillac of the IV line but was the fully loaded Lincoln. Light-years better than every fluke any workplace has given me. Simultaneous ac and DC, frequency counting, duty and pulse width, data logging, dbm, dbv, thermocouples... It's speced out. The IV line was the last one before they started pumping them out a price point. You got a good one. Try to avoid transporting it with the leads attached. The posts are solder mounted and will wiggle just enough ...
 
I have a Fluke I bought maybe 20 years ago when I built my first amp. Recently it has miraculously developed a couple of new settings - it will click beyond the first and last setting, but I'm not sure what it is telling me. Maybe it's telling me to buy a new MM? It still works on the labelled settings.
 
My old beast does the same thing. Never been an issue but I think the stops on the rotary switch got messed up. I love the meter though. I also own a cheapo that I only use for the freq to set up bbd clocks.
 
RetiredUnit1 said:
So someone on another forum was looking for a cheap multimeter, and that devolved into a discussion of how it's not the best idea in the world to measure 500vdc with a cheap multimeter. And yadda yadda yadda, next thing you know I'm bidding on a Fluke 77 IV on eBay and I WON IT.

410.99 is the list price, I picked this baby up for $95 + shipping (which was quite expensive coming from New York to SoCal). Saving me $315.99!!!!!!!

This baby is BRAND NEW. No perfume, cologne or cleaning fluid smell on the flawless leather case, still had the plastic screen protector on the display. Long and short probes measuring .7R and .1R ohms. And MAN IT IS FAST. Comes up with the measurement in a millisecond and doesn't jump all over the place trying to make it's mind up like my old cheap MM's did....

Rated at 1000v cat IV 10A current. It's got everything I need and more. Color me happy!!!

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Nice piece, at a great price. An ex-GF used to work at John Fluke and got me several used or out of spec meters and a few other things at one of their yearly employee sales. She gave me a bunch of sweet Erem hand tools from a different job as well. When all the surplussed meters finally started to get too long in the tooth after about 15 years I found a Fluke 179 on a deep discount at eBay, and somehow I got a $50 credit that I could apply at the same time, so $125 delivered, brand new. The 179 has a frequency counter and cap measurement function, both of which are super handy.
 
That's an incredible deal! I was looking at benchtop multimeters on ebay trying to find a decent deal the other night. I need something bigger for amp building. I'm just not too familiar with what's a good deal and what's not such a good deal.
 
cdwillis said:
That's an incredible deal! I was looking at benchtop multimeters on ebay trying to find a decent deal the other night. I need something bigger for amp building. I'm just not too familiar with what's a good deal and what's not such a good deal.
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I had 34 minutes from when I saw the auction to the final bid, so I went to the fluke home page, typed in the model number and saw what the list price was, then I checked out the features and saw it had more than what I knew how to use. Good enough! I was looking at another used one on eBay for just a little bit more that had true RMS reading, but for the life of me I cannot imagine why I'd ever need to know that lol.

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