Is it common to hit a run of bad luck?

what does a cheap multimeter display when i measure a Liion cell?

4.2V

4.20V

4.201V

4.2011V

??

The one that i was/am interested in displays 4.2011V. High accuracy. Made in Taiwan :D

You mean high current in flashlight terms? Or household A/C type levels?

@ kreisler: Mine displays voltage to two decimal points, e.g. 4.16, 4.18 etc.

I got this from DD a few days ago:

Used the $5 off $30 coupon and some dirty dino points...

HAHA. I like budgetlightforum way better than candlepower. But I still just order above average torches. Luckily, I haven't been thrown into the sprirals of chinese ordering except for a solarforce host. I just enjoy my lights like the Lumintop td15x, Dereelight DBS aspheric, some nitecores, etc..I enjoy the quality.

i wanted to get the UT61E, which is the flagship model (released 2009 to market) of the famed 61-series. was 56$ until 1.5 days ago.

Nice one you got!!

i dont mind putting the UT61E purchase off until next year hehe. By that time, we wont be interested in my own amperage measurements of the few silly little torches i own anymore. And me either. DD missed out on me doing an impulse purchase ha!

2 decimals are more than enough and even the cheapest MM have 2 digits. I am talking of the 1-5 amps range. The resistance is too high on cheap MMs and especially high quality measuring cables are needed, because there the resistance really adds up per inch length. I have had misleading amp reading difference of over 1 amp on budget vs. high-quality and only seen 0.01 Volt differences yet on the same devices. ate. My measurements were done with a METEX M-3630D (very old , but high quality) and with a sub 15 $ "Voltcraft 91".

wtf. today the price is back!! actually the old price is still there at the bottom of the product webpage but once you click on the item, the price is reverted. so i pulled the trigger. the usual dinopoints, the usual 10$ off coupon code for $50+ orders, and some giftcard, and i my paypal checkout amount was reduced to 31.xx$.

Yesterday 98.99$, and today got it for 31.xx$ (=24.49€). Amazon Germany sells at 75-85€. Not a cheap DMM at all!

I BELIEVE I MADE THE DEAL OF MY CAREER!!! -- THANKS YOU DD, I LOVE DINOS!!

( all i can say is 4Sevens and its new AAA-keychain light has lost. my January money is now already invested in DD stuff, the DMM. )

How did you manage to get $31.xx? You must have loads of gift cards or dino points?

i had collected some dinopoints, yesyes. redeemed giftcards are not accounted for in the official invoice, only in your paypal invoice.

the true price is 208.85$ lmao (What a fake price!)

so who's feeling dirty now??

Wow! That's great! Now the waiting begins and hopefully you don't receive a big red lip phone! Lol!

kreisler,

My open box writeup if you are interested: http://thebrightsideforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1334

yeah, now the waiting begins!!

Nice unboxing, thanks for the link!

Assuming that there are no fake UT's on the market, i am not going to open the product unless i need to exchange the fuses. I think that the UT61E is quite a bit superior to UT61A, so why havent you bought the "E"? It's the same DD paypal price haha :D

Back then I only have the $10 off $50 coupon. You must have a few gift cards to reduce the final price down to 31.xx.

Five different SKU's for the same product. I dont like that about DD! Anyway, the "A" and the "E" are about the same price, near the ~50$ limit.

I hope that you like the product!! i couldnt decide whether A, B, C, D, or E, so i chose the latest model. E was released to the market in 2009.

@Lensman, sorry for hijacking your thread hehe

I chose 61A simply because it is the cheapest of the 61 series and has all the functions I need.

@ Vectrex: Thanks for that. So basically a cheapo MM is safely accurate for voltage readings when charging L-ions, but no good for, say, tailcap measurements (not that I have the first clue what they are, what they signify or how to do them)..

You know, I honestly think someone should suggest a tutorial or library sub-forum for BLF. It's such a great forum, and there's so much knowledge and info within these archives, but it's so scattered and buried. The search engine is very good, but type in any Q containing the words "Tailcap Reading" and you get over 100 hits, and none that I've found so far explain or take you through it. There are so many clever guys here, BLF could become the best flashlight learning facility on the planet.

true, Lensman. i will have that DMM and not know how to do tailcap readings properly. Especially with small lights (AAA keychain lights, ..) i wouldnt know how to do it. Once everything is connected i could do tailcap readings (amperage) over the capacity lifetime of the battery.. but a Ampere-Time-graph isnt very helpful since it's not the current which is stabilized but the brightness (brightness ~ power (watts) = amperage x voltage). When voltage drops, amperage will raise quite a bit in order to maintain constant LED power.

Without proper tutorials how would we know ..etc.. ?

It "can" be accurate and it's less of an issue compared to current readings. HKJ who is also a member here has made a nice DMM tutorial over at CPF and our very own flashlight wiki by brted is also a great start to get a hang on the most basic terms.

There is one EXCELLENT tutorial done by HKJ here on BLF and CPF.

Thanks Vectrex!!!

(or should i say 'thanks HKJ!' ;) )