DMM Archives - Logis Labs

I picked up a Hewlett-Packard 3457A digital multimeter. This is professional quality test equipment and it places the lab into a new league of measurement capability.

Laboratory Grade Equipment

I have been on the web researching metrology quality meters for the past few months. So, when I saw this unit, I had to get it. I paid a little bit more than usual for this than for my other equipment, but it is still a bargain price for laboratory grade equipment.

The 3457A came to market in 1986. The chassis is wide and designed to fit in an equipment rack. It’s not very tall and it’s not very deep, so it fits nicely on my shelf.

So Many Buttons

The 3457A is a 6.5 digit multimeter that can measure everything that I would need to measure in any of my projects. It has one of the greatest number of buttons of any piece of equipment past or present. There are 42 front panel buttons, not including the power button, and all but a couple the buttons have a secondary function. That is a lot of buttons.

So Many Digits

At 6.5 digits, the display can show a full six digits to the right of the decimal point. That’s a lot of digits. ¹ The number of digits is not always a good measure of the capability of a meter. Along with the number of digits displayed, the accuracy and resolution of a meter is also determined by the number of “counts” ².

Best of all, this 3457A, and all other HP equipment, has a computer interface, HP-IB.³ Granted, it’s not modern ethernet wi-fi, but it has computer control capability to enable laboratory automation.

Laboratory automation, that’s my goal.

Since, there is so much to talk about with this DMM, I will save it for a dedicated page later on. But for now, I have to go play with this thing.

6.5 digits is a measurement sensitivity down to 100 nanovolts. [↩]
Fluke Blog Digital Multimeters: “What is the difference between counts and digits?” [↩]
Hewlett-Packard-Interface Bus, HP-IB, or now called General Purpose-Interface Bus, GP-IB [↩]

Basic Measurements

Anybody who works with electricity needs a device that measures the absolute basics, a multimeter². I wanted something simple and inexpensive but built with quality. And for fundamental electrical measurements, Fluke is one of the brands that first comes to my mind, the other being Keithley Instruments.

There are many reviews on handheld multimeters, on the EEVBlog³ and on YouTube, created by many handheld multimeter enthusiasts. I didn’t know there were so many different brands available (and I didn’t know that there were so many multimeter fanatics).

Specifications

The Fluke 101 is a simple device and it fits nicely in the palm of the hand. It measures AC and DC Voltage (up to 600 Volts CAT III)⁴ , AC Frequency, Resistance, and Capacitance. It also tests for electrical continuity and tests for defective Diodes as well. And it comes with a set of Fluke quality test probes with batteries included. Other competing products have more features, but for my first device, simple is better. But the Fluke 101 does not measure electrical current. So, I will have to pick up other pieces of equipment to fill that measurement deficiency.

A Tough Little Meter

There is a YouTube video where the reviewer pumped a full 13,000 Volts into the Fluke 101. This little meter absorbed all that voltage with no problems at all..

This is one tough little meter.

A digital meter displays the reading in numerical digits while the more traditional analog meters display the reading with a moving needle along a printed scale [↩]

A meter is an instrument that measures some quantity, e.g. voltage. A multimeter is an instrument that measures multiple quantities, e.g. voltage, current, and resistance. [↩]

See the multimeter review spreadsheets. [↩]

CAT III is a safety standard that enables the instrument to be resilient to high energy transients. [↩]

Tag: DMM

Hewlett-Packard 3457A Digital Multimeter