Multi-Meter advice...

CA Traveler wrote:

BFL13 wrote:
Rather than the $10 type, which fry if you go over the 10amp limit, I now like the more expensive version that has a fuse in it. I am now ahead on the money buying fuses instead of new meters. :)

And that is exactly my point! With the low cost of DC clampon meters why would you even consider cutting or opening wires for a serial connected meter versa a clampon???

And here's my trick - Opening a circuit can and sometimes does change the conditions that you were trying to measure and hence the measurements isn't related to the original cause.

I mostly use the meter to take Voc and Isc from a solar panel where the clamp on wouldn't work AFAIK. Then I forget to swap the wire over between V and A and blow a fuse. Fuses are a spaz's best friend.

Where I did want a clamp on was one time with my Y split on the solar panel wire pair to two controllers on the same bank. I was afraid the current would be over the limit for one controller, so I used two to divide the current. It worked but I could not measure how much current each branch of the Y took.

As you said, the meter wires were skinny and the Y wires fat, so it just showed all the current went the fat way no matter which branch was replaced by the meter. A clamp on would have told the current on each side I expect.

OTOH, at school in Lab, they told us it is a basic fact that you can't measure anything without changing it, so you can't ever get a proper measurement. Like sticking a thermometer in the water, the temp of the thermometer changes the temp of the water.