Re: Cheap multimeters
Where the equipment has mains (or large enough batteries) red LED display takes some beating.
It's interesting how good the LCD contrast is on the toy DT830 variants. Good choice of segment size as well. Not suitable for high current or high voltage, as people have said, but on the plus side if you get one that wasn't made on a friday afternoon or in a shadow/clone factory they can be quite stable. Mine shows 2.05v on a DC source of 2.048v after 25 years use, but generally the test leads supplied should be discarded or donated to the fairies at the bottom of the garden as skipping ropes- they are no use for anything else. The LCD display really does not like a damp atmosphere, it goes crazy like a schoolboy's calculator that's been thrown across the room once too often.
One nice simple (and presumably cheap) hand-held is the DT3266L. I found mine in a skip but have yet to find any leads for it. It's more steered towards electricians than electronics engineers so is fairly basic in it's functions. I keep meaning to check if the clamp function works on DC- some of them have a hall effect sensor i think..
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