11

Cheap

multimeters

f there’s one tool that’s almost

indispensable for electronics, it’s a

multimeter. These electronic Swiss Army

knives are often the first thing we reach

for when we have a problem with a circuit.

Without one, it’s hard to find non-conducting

soldered joints, dodgy power supplies, or any

of a myriad of gremlins that can work their way into

an electrical circuit. Working without a multimeter

would be like trying to program without print

statements (or a debugger) – it’s not impossible, and

if you’re determined enough you can do it, but you’re

going to have a lot of unnecessary headaches along

the way.

There are no set features a multimeter has to have,

but generally, the absolute minimum is a voltmeter,

an ammeter, and an ohmmeter. Beyond this, there’s

a wide range of features that can find their way into

multimeters, including capacitance measurement,

frequency measuring, and auto-ranging. Multimeters

can cost thousands of pounds, but hobbyist-level

ones are quite a bit cheaper. For example, the best-

selling multimeter on Amazon UK costs £28.99, while

the cheapest one was £7, at the time of writing.

You can get cheaper meters on direct-from-China

websites, and we set out to try the two cheapest

options we could find.

PICK OF THE BUNCH

We bought two from AliExpress: an analogue

multimeter from NightStar Store for £2.09, and a

digital multimeter from ATTKOO Store for £2.29 (both

including delivery to the UK). Can you really get a

working meter for this little?

DIRECT FROM

SHENZHEN

I

Are budget meters good value for money?

By Ben Everard @ben_everard

Left

Much as we love the look of analogue meters, they’re just not as

easy to use as their digital counterparts

REGULAR

Direct From Shenzhen