Bottlehead Forum
General Category => Tech Tools => Topic started by: Jim R. on May 10, 2011, 03:54:42 AM
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Just wanted to post this here in case anybody is interested. In early June there will be a new digital multimeter box that will communicate via bluetooth with your iDevices:
http://www.redfishinstruments.com/
The comparison with the Fluke is a bit silly since the fluke does a bunch of other things, but that aside, IMO this is just too cool not to give it a try. I'll be reserving mine today.
-- Jim
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Way cool, but $220. I will save my money for a Fluke.
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Yes, and I should have mentioned this, but did you see that it talks right out of the box, whether using VoiceOver or not? $220 seems like a deal compared to my $650 talking DMM from Omega Instruments :-).
-- Jim
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I was thinking to myself, "Why would somebody need a talking DMM?"
I should have realized since you are the one who originally posted the topic. Sorry, wasn't thinking.
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Actually, there are plenty of times when I was a woking engineer that a talking DMM would have been a godsend. That's why Omega Instruments makes one -- definitely not for blind people.
True story, when I told the sales rep I was blind, he resused to sell the meter to me -- said it ws too much of a liaility issue (which is total BS for so many reasons I can't even list them all), so I just had a fiend buy it for me.
I suppose that he didn't realize that his company sold them wholesale to a couple of specialty distributors of assistive technologies for blind and vision impaired people. Didn't buy it from those places as they typically add a healthy margin on.
Well, I've got one, and it is built like a tank, has some nice extras like IR temp sensors, capacitance measurements, and others I'm forgetting.
Funny thing is that Radio Shack used to make a talking DMM that was just part of their normal line, was $40 and was a very nice meter, but they stopped producing that model a long time ago. I also have a little cheapie $50 talking meter that is workable, and also was not meant for blind users. I use this one as my daily meter, especially when measureing high voltages as it would be a lot esier to deal with the loss of a $50 meter than a $650 one.
Point is that there are plenty of field applications where having a talking meter is a very nice thing.
-- Jim
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was a very nice meter, but they stopped producing that model a long time ago.
Ahh, Radio Shack. They get truly innovative stuff every once in a while, and as soon as someone figures out it is cool they sell it out and that's that - the portable CD player with the SPDIF output, the little monitors with Lineaum tweeters, 97/3 tin/copper solder, that little 4" woofer everyone was fooling around with ten years ago, that planar tweeter they sold in the 80s, etc. etc.
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Doc,
Yes, know what you mean. I built a pair of speakers for my pickup back in the late 70s that used a really nice 4" woofer and a fabric dome tweeter they made at the time, and they turned out to be the best car speakers I ever made. I even used them for a while afterwards on my desk and they sounded quite good even in the better listening environment.
BTW, I should point out that the voltage limit on this dmm is 300v, so not practical for some of the measurements in BH gear, though I suppose one could make some 2x probes or such.
-- Jim
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Jim, I can't tell you how many times a talking meter would have come in handy for me, especially in the field where it is often difficult to position the meter in my sight-line. I usually find that I lose my place with one or both probes when I have to look away to the meter.
I don't remember the Radio Shack one; sounds like something I would have bought!