Recommend to a Friend
The best most of us can get
5.0
You can’t go wrong with a Fluke. Within the brand, you can’t go wrong with 87V, Fluke’s bestseller. It’s safe, rugged, accurate and the calibration seems to last forever. I’m using it for electronics projects.
Things I like:
1. Wide AC bandwith - up to 20,000 Hz (this makes it usable for audio projects). Most other multimeters (including most other Flukes) are capped at 1000 Hz, at best.
2. “Smart” precision: 6000 counts for regular measurements, switchable to 20,000 counts, with a (loong…) push of a button, when higher precision is needed. When powered on, it defaults to 6000 counts, hiding the extra-digit that only creates confusion when not need it (which is most of the times for the most of us) – brilliant!
3. Fast. When it displays a measurement, that’s the final value. You don’t have to wait while watching changing numbers on the display, wondering if it “stabilized” or not. Gorgeous!
4. Full current range - it measures uA, mA and A (AC and DC). Most other Flukes (targeted to electricians) don’t cover all these ranges.
5. Brilliant auto-hold mode: can’t probe and watch the display in the same time? No problem. In “auto-hold” mode, focus on placing the probes where they should be, wait until you hear a beep (about a second or less), remove the probes then check the display – your measurement is there! Most other multimeters (including some cheaper Flukes) only have a useless “hold” function, which requires you to press the “hold” button while holding the probes in place, to keep the value on the display. Why would you need that for?!
6. Great ergonomics – big rotary switch, with wide spaces between positions, clearly labeled, with markings easy to read (and hard to confuse). You only realize how important this is when you try to use a “feature rich” competitor with lots of not-really-necessary stops on the rotary dial and good looking curved surfaces that make you move your head trying to avoid odd reflections that prevent you from reading the dial. The digits on the display are easy to read, have a good height/width proportion and spacing.
7. Great resell value. The only reason I bought a new Fluke 87V from Tequipment is that it doesn’t sell for that much more than a 10 year old one. Based on the number of second hand units on the market, they seem to work forever.
Things I don’t like: probes. I have never been a fan of TL75, the standard (i.e. cheapest) Fluke probes. They are a bit rigid and the tips are not that sharp (for electronics work). Other than that, OK – they do the job.
Sure, there are other meters better for particular jobs (including other Flukes). If you need one of those, you already know it. If you are just wondering which Fluke meter you should buy, this is the one. It does it all.
Also, if you wonder whether you really need a Fluke (yes, they are pricey for the features they offer) – well, you can definitely buy cheaper from other brands (like I did before, too). Just keep in mind that you might get a less accurate one (with possibly more useless digits on the display) that might get even worse in time (drift…) and one day will either simply stop working or (worse) display wrong measurements (get two of them, to check them periodically against each other). Be careful when using them with high voltages. Or just buy this Fluke, like I did.
Verified Purchase
Gabriel H on
Jan 25, 2021
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