Got a UT210E today from Tomtop - wow, excellent! I thought my DMM setup was pretty tweaked, but did a couple of quick comparisons, measuring at the tail. I got 14 AWG leads on my DMM, and used a short 16 AWG wire looped thru the clamp meter wit wire from the cell minus to the battery tube edge:
new Nitefighter F30B stock: 2.31A on the DMM, 2.41A on the UT210E
fully modded Convoy L2 (dedomed U4 1C, FET+1 driver): 5.09A on the DMM, 5.43A on the UT210E
This is sort of what I might expect - low amps close, high amps the clamp meter shows higher. Still I was thinking in the 3A and below range, my DM tail readings were pretty good, matching well with the # of 7135's I'm using in the drivers.
UT210E readings are with ZERO'ing before taking readings, and using the 20A scale.
For the group buy, freeme has been OD'ed on GB's, so he's catch'n up now - should happen real soon (hoping...), along with the BOSS1. I think GB's out of the norm are probably more involved, norm being stock Olight, SWM, NiteCore, etc...
Tom, do you have any Triple’s you could measure? On that theme of more is more, it’d be interesting to see what would happen at the top end of your DMM.
I have single cell lights pulling 17-21Amps. One is even a single emitter light! This alone is worth getting the clamp meter for, as the DMM would surely fry up there.
What happens if you turn the cable the other way around in the clamp?
I got a UNI-T UT203 that I useally use for higher amp readings and when I messure it with the cables the other way I got higher readings.
My DMM is rated up to 20A (UT50B here at FT), so don't think it's a problem, maybe?? I do have a couple triples - one S2, one X6, one quad X6, one quad SupFire.
Mine has a black button labeled: ZERO, press it, and the reading zeroes ?? Yes - I do always press hard, but also found a little NO-OX-ID treatment helps bump up the readings by improving connectivity at the contact points.
Again over the years, very consistent 2.9A to 3.0A readings with my DMM on 2.8A Nanjg 350 7135 drivers, so always thought my DMM setup was dead-on accurate for these relatively low amp readings. Again, drivers with 350 7135's always read high, 380 7135's always read low. Others have commented on the same thing.
I really need to do more head-to-head testing though, plus I didn't do it today, but plan on bringing my lights/meters into work and compare against the o-scopes with clamp meter attachments we have here. We got Tektronix, Fluke, and I was told the clamp meter attachments were pretty expensive, but I'll get more info on the equipment first. Don't think we do much here with this level of DC voltage at amps this high, but not sure.
One thing to consider is that the meter type has a much bigger impact on DD lights than current-regulated lights.
You can use a multi-meter with a relatively high burden voltage (shunt + fuse + leads resistance) and it will give good results with a regulated light. The driver will simply compensate to get to the correct output current, as long as the cell voltage is high enough.
But that high burden voltage will make a significant difference when measuring a DD light.