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General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc. |
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3rd Mar 2020, 11:52 pm | #21 |
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,867
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Re: Which bench multimeter?
Another use for a high resolution DVM is tracing shorts on boards. A multilayer PCB with a ground plane and a power plane with one shorted device or decoupler pulling the supply down is a classic puzzle.
With a current limited PSU putting a moderate current into the thing, you can plot a contour map of the relative potentials of all the accessible points for each plane. You can even measure the voltage drop along the j-lead of an SMT chip. Cheating? yes, but it doesn't half make life easier. Once you have some good tackle, you find new ways of using it. David
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4th Mar 2020, 12:46 am | #22 |
Octode
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Liss, Hampshire, UK.
Posts: 1,873
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Re: Which bench multimeter?
We had both the Keithley and the few of the HP's (although branded Keysight) where I used to work which were probably bought from an end of year surplus. When I first saw them I thought what are we ever going to use these for? However, the portable multimeters kept on disappearing while these ones stayed on the shelf so I gave them a try and I certainly found them very useful - especially the high resistance range on the HP which was very useful for finding leaking connectors.
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