This light looks like it would be very useful. It has a magnet and a hook.
This light looks like it is very hackable. I had an idea to use these as under cabinet lights or flood lights. You can mount them to something and wire a power supply to them.
I got one of those multimeters for free.
After you take it out of the package you will immediately notice that it is lightweight and feels like a freebie (which is what it is). The test leads are really cheap-feeling.
Here’s something interesting: I was at Walamart and I saw a similar multimeter branded under GE (most or all of the GE stuff at Walmart is just chinese stuff branded).
The multimeter was similar but it had less functions. I think it’s a different model but from the same manufacturer.
Guess how much that multimeter cost?
$17! 
Bloody rip-off! What a markup! It’s outrageous! |( I got a better meter for $10 at the Home Depot.
It’s like that crappy non-contact voltage tester branded under GE and priced $10! And it didn’t look like a proper tester, it looked like a freebie kind of thing (just like the meter). It looked like a plastic stick with an LED sticking out, IIRC.
On the other hand, some of the stuff branded GE at Warmart is actually a good price. They sell nylon blank cover plates for 47¢ each, which was the cheapest I could find until I discovered Cooper blank cover plates at Lowe’s for 39¢ each or something like that (unfortunately lowe’s is not close by).
As I have been saying, that “Harbor Freight” meter is everywhere. Based on the “830” Chip On Board” digital to analog converter.
Here is the “Harbor Freight” meter with a black case in kit form from BangGood.
You can either get this meter for free, with coupon, at HF. Or you can try to save some money and buy it in kit form at BG for $6.61 :Sp
The black dot is the chip on board (COB)
The parts to be soldered onto the circuit board. Notice the current shunt.
^
Very interesting. Kind of cool to see the circuit board traces and components like that. Thanks for sharing.
Sorry for the off-topic, anyone aware of a cheap, reliable device for calibrating our DMM's for DC voltage?
I test mine in a few ways. A new primary cell should be close to 1.5V, a fully charged NiMh should be at 1.2V after a days rest from charging. A good car battery should show 12.6-12.7V after an hour’s rest after driving long enough to get a full charge. This will eliminate most ‘dud’ meters.
For real testing I wait till the electrician is on the job with me then I borrow his Fluke meter to co-test with mine on whatever DC sources I can scrounge and on the AC house current too. I also have one DMM which has been historically quite accurate tested against several different Fluke and Simpson meters. Not a guaranteed calibration but Fluke and Simpson make very good meters so I feel safe enough doing it this way since I’ll be close enough for what I do.
Phil
^
Nice suggestions for at least sanity testing. In combination, it would seem a decent way to get a DMM back in the ballpark. Thanks. I'll give that a shot for the time being.
I vaguely remember someone here recommending an ebay option. I think it was just for voltage and maybe was budget friendly. This $44 unit is just more than I want to spend. I will just use SawMaster's approach if I have to spend that much.
Remember, this is rough testing and not true calibration. If I had a meter to recalibrate I’d either toss it, send it back for recalibration, or go to one of my fellow Ham’s shops to use something more toward “Lab Grade” to recalibrate it myself.
With free or cheap meters it’s not worth doing- just toss them and try again.
Phil
Check out voltagestandard.com They have several nice fixed voltage standards and a multi-function meter standard.
The way I remember it, a brand new Zinc-Carbon cell should be exactly 1.65V
I remember calibrating my EICO VTVM that way.
After lots of Googling and youtube videos I purchased this to check voltages on my DMM. There are quite a few different ones on the market with different chips.
I’ll second that I picked up half a dozen of these at .99 cents each during a sale and have them stuck around the house (On the fridge, the electrical panel and on the oil burner and in the garage) and one in each car and they perform very well. having either the magnet or the hook available makes them very useful actually a lot more useful them a handheld flashlight.
^
I agree. I keep several of them in the trunks of my cars. The shape with the swivel hook and magnet make them very handy when you need to get under a car. One of my cars didn't have a trunk light. So in that car, it seconds as a hands-free trunk light. The magnets needed to be reglued eventually on all mine.
Thank you SawMaster, texaspyro, dchomak, and MRsDNF for your suggestions. Good stuff all. MRsDNF, that is the unit I was looking for. Muchas Gracias! :)
Today I got my first Harbor Freight flyer in the mail and it came with a coupon for a free tape measure! :bigsmile:
I just had an idea… the Harbor Freight fliers & catalogs would make good gift-wrapping paper!! :bigsmile:
Fixed that for ya! ;)
Please don't tell me you got all those tape measures for less than 60 cents. If you do, I gotta hear the how you rang all those puppies up without getting stopped or picked up by the HD Loss Prevention Police.
ImA4, I know it’s late on the East Coast and you must be tired.
But this is the Harbor Freight Deal Alert Thread. Not the Home Depot Deal Alert Thread :bigsmile:
IF this was the HD thread, I would have paid a penny a piece but this being the HF thread I got them for FREE. 
Yeah, THANKS
That Simple Test Editor always gets me.
^
I was just signing back in to fix that mistake. Wow, that is crazy. All for free. So that would be almost 60 stories?