A great combination - Extech EX355 multimeter & Flir CM46 clamp meter

Why I chose these two meters...

Recently I was in the market for a new multimeter for home and work use. Why? Well there are two reasons.

The first is that the multimeter I had was lacking a few functions that I wanted. The second reason, and probably the more relevant, is that the one I had just gave up the ghost. It was a fairly cheap clamp meter, as I’d only bought it for home use at the time. And although it was okay initially, it wasn’t long before I outgrew it’s capabilities.

So, I needed a new meter, one which would suit not only my hobbies at home, but also an electrician on the job. I had to find a meter that was suitable for

* Caravanning and camping. This included basic circuit trouble-shooting on anything to do with caravan and camping set-ups, as well as measuring current drawn by appliances on a DC system and generation back into a DC system.

* Electronic testing and troubleshooting. There are two particular hobbies that I have dived into over the years. They are Arduino projects, and 3D printing. With the Arduino Board I not only have general electronic testing to do, but there is a plethora of input and output signals available that can be associated with these devices, thus I wanted as much versatility from a meter as possible. With the 3D printer, I needed the ability to measure heat to confirm printer head and heat bed temperature accuracies. I also needed to measure the pulse width output to the stepper motors.

* General electrical work. This included voltages up to 415V, and circuits from the final equipment, all the way back to the meter on a distribution board. i.e CAT III. Also, general troubleshooting on electrical circuits and appliances.

With this in mind, I knew I required the following functions from a meter...

- AC voltage up to 415V with AC + DC offset capability
- DC voltage up to 325V with AC + DC offset capability
- AC current up to 100A with AC + DC offset capability
- DC current up to 50A with AC + DC offset capability
- DC current to µA resolution
- DC volts to µV resolution
- Frequency
- Duty Cycle
- Resistance
- Continuity
- Capacitance
- Diode
- LoZ Voltage
- Low Pass Filter
- Temperature
- Non Contact Voltage Detection
- CAT III 600V at a minimum.

On top of all this, I did not want to pay very much money, as the meter was only for home use, and as a backup for work.

To save hours of time researching, I used the Delta Pro filtering system to show me the most suitable meters. This was particularly handy when the filters of duty cycle, LoZ and AC+DC offset were used. They narrowed down the search for me pretty quickly!

It turned out, I wasn’t able to find just one meter that would do all of what I wanted, without breaking the budget. But I could buy two meters, that resulted in a low cost but high functionality combination, and which would cover all the bases that I was likely to require.

I chose the Extech EX355 multimeter, and the Flir CM46 clamp meter. Here’s why...

EXTECH EX355 - $198

This is a fantastic meter for the price. It has features and functions which covered most of my bases, including...

* Digital count of 40 000. This gave excellent resolution, and was coupled with basic accuracy of 0.5% on DCV.
* AC/DC voltage, 10µV to 600V
* AC/DC current, 0.1µA to 10A
* Frequency
* Duty Cycle
* Resistance
* Continuity
* Capacitance
* Diode
* LoZ Voltage
* Temperature K-type
* Non Contact Voltage Detector
* CAT III 600V

Missing from this meter however, was the ability to measure the higher currents up to 100A, the AC+DC offset measurements, and a low pass filter.

Now usually the AC+DC offset capabilities for meters comes with a high price. However, I found a clamp meter that not only measured the higher currents that I required, but also came with AC+DC offset for both current and voltage measurement, and a low pass filter.

FLIR CM46 - $405

It has the additional features I needed, that were not provided by the Extech meter, specifically...

* AC/DC current to 400A

* AC+DC offset voltage and current

* Low Pass filter

* CAT IV 300V CAT III 600V

Between the two meters, I now have massive versatility for a total of only $603. To find a quality meter capable of all these functions for less than this value, is nigh on impossible.

So for me now, there’s not much I can’t measure using my new toys! They suit me with both my hobbies and my work, and they didn’t break the bank. I highly recommend them both.