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My $18 analog multimeter outlasted the $120 fancy one on a fridge call in Tucson
I keep an old analog meter in my bag that I bought used for $18 at a swap meet in Tucson, and last week it saved me on a fridge that wasn't cooling. The digital meter was jumping all over the place on the compressor windings, so on a hunch I grabbed the analog and watched the needle swing smooth and steady instead. Turned out one winding was weak and the digital was just too twitchy to read it clean. I've started reaching for the cheap one first on motors and coils, weird as that sounds. Anybody else still keep an analog in the truck, or am I the last one?
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jackson.matthew3d ago
The "needle swing smooth and steady" thing sounds good but I gotta ask, was the digital really too twitchy, or was it just reading a bad winding and showing you numbers you didn't like? Compressor windings on a fridge, you're talking maybe a few ohms difference between good and weak, and most cheap digitals aren't great at that low end anyway. The analog isn't magic, it's just damping the readings so your eye can follow the average instead of the jumps. I'd be more ready to believe the digital needed a better meter or a tighter range, not that analog is somehow the answer.
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