Just a pointer, to help remind people of what to expect. If your light is pulling low amperage the clamp meter and any old DMM are going to be quite similar on the reading. The higher the amperage, the more difference there will be. If you have a seriously high amp light like a triple or quad, the DMM will be WAY below correct, might even be damaged. The clamp meter keeps on ticking, mine (Mastech MS2108A) reads up to 40A. I’ve seen low 30’s, but not quite high enough to start worrying about the 40A limit… yet.
5-6A lights will commonly have a .5-.7A difference with the DMM being the lower, possibly even 2A or more lower if you’re using stock leads. Lights of 8-9A are pushing the envelope on most DMMs as 10A is generally the top end, although there are those out there that claim to read 20A they typically don’t show an accurate reading with the small long stock leads.
I bent the bare ends of 12 ga household Romex over to fit in the meter and found my old cheap Velleman to read pretty close to accurate (with these 12ga solid copper “leads” about 6” long), but the clamp meter still shows a little higher. This Velleman is nowhere close with stock leads, and this is around 5A I’m talking about.
The clamp meter comes with normal leads for reading voltage and testing continuity, that kind of thing, so the clamp meter still has normal DMM capabilities. Those leads will plug in to the bottom of this meter, I generally remove em when using the clamp, seems I read somewhere that they shouldn’t be left plugged in to the meter when using the clamp but I could be wrong about that.
Those high amp readings are exactly why I wanted this meter. I have totally fried one DMM with too high of current, and at least blown the fuse on a second.
Question: with a clamp meter, will going over the “range” rating actually damage the meter, or will it just give an inaccurate reading? For instance if I accidentally measure 12amps with the “2amp” range setting, will I damage anything, or just have a wrong reading?
That, I cannot say as mine only has the 40A setting. You’ll have to try it with your new meter and see what happens… be sure to let us all know so if it’s a bad thing we don’t mess up OUR new meters! lol
i don’t know what you are asking here, but mine keeps recording if you are holding data.
so if let’s say you are whatching MAX 5.35V and then go to MIN and see 2.10V then back to high while meter still attached to the thing it is measuring and value of max goes to 6.44 (for example) when you come back from min 2.10V and you go to max you’ll see 6.44V.
I have a UT216C but i guess 210E does the same.
Regarding the out ranging mine does autoranging till 600A but i don’t think anything will blow up in 210E’s fixed range, since current does not really pass thru the meter is just an induced effect so i think the worst could happen is the normal “out of Range” indication.
I have hold on a few units also, but they just freeze the numbers when you push the buttom, no automatic max/min readings.
So if I put the DMM on a charger and leave it then I can see the max voltage readings when I´m back instead of baby sitting the charger to see the max voltage, thats what I´m looking for I think?
Maybe Tom E can confirm?