Shopsmith Forums

A good quality volt ohm meter is worth its weight in gold. I prefer a VOM with an analog meter movement. I must have 10 meters if I have one. My Simpson 260 is probably my favorite.

It's like a pair of vice grips. I may not use one all the time, but I don't want a toolbox without one.

I use mine frequently, but I wouldn't characterize my shop as a wood shop.

It is a tool... Of course you need one...


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OHMMMMMM, I don't have one, used to, but it "migrated" to some where.
I would not use it much anyway. I have a pretty hard and fast rule: If it might shock me, or blow me up, I call a pro. I have found this to be a good rule for me. Anything other that very basic stuff like replacing switches, outlets or lighting a pilot is best left to my friendly local guys. I KNOW my limits.

backhertz wrote:... I prefer a VOM with an analog meter movement. ...

Why? Please explain.

Ed in Tampa wrote:Why? Please explain.

I agree!!!!

A digital meter tells you nothing about rapid changes in that which is being measured.

It becomes impossible to judge the frequency of those changes nor their range.

Being able to do that is critical when trouble shooting malfunctioning stuff.

A nice feature of some digital meters, is an led line that indicates those variations as they occur.

JPG40504 wrote:I agree!!!!

A digital meter tells you nothing about rapid changes in that which is being measured.

It becomes impossible to judge the frequency of those changes nor their range.

Being able to do that is critical when trouble shooting malfunctioning stuff.

A nice feature of some digital meters, is an led line that indicates those variations as they occur.

I must not get in a debate here because troubleshooting techniques are very individualistic. When I need to know how rapidly changes are occurring I drag out a scope. Waveform analysis is much more revealing than watching a VOM's rate of change.

I'm much more simplistic. When I use a VOM I'm looking for an expected voltage, a continuity or want to measure overall amperage.

I can't think of anything I would what to see the wave form of since it is probably generated in an IC circuit and there would be nothing I could do about it anyhow.

I know early on in the computer industry I use to tote around really spiffy oscilloscope but before long they were replaced with what we call latch cards. Cards that contained actual circuits we could dial in and see if the logic was functioning as expected. And later to self diagnostics where the computer would more or less tell which circuit was failing. I might be a circuit on 20 cards that needed to swapped out to see if the it could be narrowed down to one card or not. But we could do that faster than setting up a scope.

I could possible see a scope on old TV and Radio's we played with in school but even today's TV are usually on a dozen or less IC chips mounted to a board or two. Easier to replace the board and in many cases today the TV or radio. I have more than one where the whole of the electronics was contained in a solid block of plastic impossible to change it.

JPG40504 wrote:I agree!!!!

A digital meter tells you nothing about rapid changes in that which is being measured.

It becomes impossible to judge the frequency of those changes nor their range.

Being able to do that is critical when trouble shooting malfunctioning stuff.

A nice feature of some digital meters, is an led line that indicates those variations as they occur.

That is true of a cheap digital multimeter like you buy for $10 at Walmart (which I use most of the time). If you get something better, like a Fluke, you've got a higher frequency of readings and can see it fluctuate just like an analog. Heck, even on my cheap digital multimeter I can see anything that would be more than a vibration on the analog.