You have sort of confirmed this meter is pretty accurate on Amps. I remember when I still had mine, that when I had the back cover off to change the battery, I could see a heavy gauge wire soldiered across the 10a jack and common. That was the shunt to pass the current. If you look at that wire you will see notches squeezed into the wire from a pair of diagonal cutters, probably with a stop so that they wouldn’t cut through. They were put there presumably during the calibration process that each of these meters go through. The notches increase the resistance ever so slightly of that shunt wire because it decreases the cross sectional area of thie wire at that point. This meter after all is measuring the very slight voltage drop across the very low resistance of the shunt wire. Good electronics are easy and cheap to make, the switches, jacks and leads are the difference between expensive meters and cheap ones. Of course the calibration process is important on any meter, and at least this meter has been calibrated on the 10a scale, as evidenced by those notches
Received mine today.
Compared it during voltage reading on NiMh and it showed 1.38V while UT33C showed 1.39V, swapped their stock leads, still the same values remained on both.
Is there a way to calibrate these things or you simply have to take some error margin into account when dealin with non-pro meters?
For most modding that ill do, I was about to pull them trigger but I did that on cheap harbor freight one that won't work for checking tail current so I'd like to make sure before I pay the 9.44 $ usd thanks
If the one I got is any indication, the answer is ‘no’. With stock leads it measures a 2.8A Nanjg driver at .8A, with thicker gauge leads it measures it at 3.39A. There’s no way that I know, to calibrate the current measurements.
Got this one coming tomorrow, I’ll let you know how it does.
Please do I have it set in the cart on pay pal if it's decent ill order it if not let me know thank you tallbassboy
Try this thread for voltage calibration.
Thanks, moderator007, will do my research!
bucket
Just got the MS8268 in from Amazon. So far you can color me impressed. It reads a 2.8A Nanjg @ ~2.77A, that sounds about right, and that’s with the stock leads. For $24 I can’t imagine getting a better meter!
After reading the post i ordered and after reading 007 calibration link I think that it's a heck of a lot better than my harbor freight model now the trick ia finding a fluke or another high calibrated multi meter , I just wish I was still working in Aviation where i could have guys in Avionics calibrate it for me again tall bassyboy you have bailed me out last week it was a vendor for 3400mAH Panasonic 18650's and now a good multi meter thanks again.
Glad I could be of some help, LJ!
9/29/03 and today I finally had time to try and get readings And again I am having no luck6 I have it set @20 mAH any suggestions oh this is embarrassing!thanks
You should have it set on 10a if your trying to read tail cap current. And you have to move the red lead to the far left hole that says 10a max. You are still talking about the XL830L, correct?
Yes sir thanks I am going to try now brb I had bassakwards thanks okay on my kdc8xml2-u2 and lightmalls c8xmlu3 and I am only vetting 1.12 on high with freshly charged Panasonic 3400's and on my lightmalls c12 modded with illumination supply 8 chipped 7135's with xml2t5 on copper pad iam hitting 4.56 amps all on high can this be right?Also iam not getting anything otf on.c12 thanks for any input and the help on meter.!
Stock leads are worthless for current measurement.
i still haven’t received mine 
ordered 27/8, shipped 28/8, and then nothing…
i got the $0.01 ultrafire battery from tmart a couple of weeks ago, and that order was made 2 weeks after the DMM. sigh…
other than ordering some do you all think some new heavier leads from say Radio Shack would those leads suffice?I would just hate to wait ordering and I would like to get to see why my modded c12 is not working.
I use dedicated DMM for my current measurements now. It’s a cheap 830 clone DMM around $6 at the time (many years ago), but now giving very accurate and replicable result every time.
How, you say?
20AWG copper wire *soldered *straight to the internal board. Huge difference.
Yes, I used to use 14/16 AWG thinking that’s the bottleneck, but they’re really stiff, and it turns out the connection/banana jack plays a much bigger part. I love the extra mobility and limpness from smaller wires, and since the measurement does not seem to suffer now, I think it’s an easy choice.
Heh, good idea, thanks, Pulsar13!
The radio shack (in the store leads) are decent leads but still not what you need for measuring current. My fluke leads will not even measure current correctly after about 4 amps. Just use what ever you have, thick speaker wire, a household lamp wire, old drill (that doesn’t work) wire, computer power supply wire that’s not needed. Just shove the end of the wire down in the DMM lead hole. You can double the wire over if it needs to be bigger to fit the hole. Make it as short as possible around 8 to 10 inches or so. This should get you a close reading. In the meantime you could order you some 14awg silicone wire and some banana clips to make a nicer set.