Topic: Good meter?

[travelinbeat]

Amazingly enough, I searched for "meter" in the remote power section and found nothing that addressed my question--

I've just constructed a 9.6V battery for my PS2 using an RC battery and some Tamiya > 1/8" cable, now I am looking for a good meter I can use to test this (and other) batteries.  I have this battery as well as Sanyo 2700mah's and some rechargeable 9.6V's.  Right now I am looking at this radioshack one:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103176&clickid=prod_cs#

Truth be told, the whole wonderful world of power and solder and electricity is still pretty scarey and new to me, so whatever you folks know of that's most "idiot proof" would be great.  At the same time though, I'd love to keep it cheap.  Thanks for any thoughts!

[flipp]

Searching with "multimeter" returns 6 pages of results. Perhaps one of them will answer your question.

If all you need to do is check battery voltage the one you linked to is overkill. Unfortunately RS seems to be sold out of their cheap analog meter which would be sufficient for checking voltage, continuity, ohms, etc. Don't limit yourself to just Radio Shack, Sears has some good multimeters and places like PartsExpress, Markertek, Harbor Freight and several other online supply houses will have multimeters. Digitals are nice but I find myself reaching for a small analog meter as often as I reach for the big digital meter.

<  http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=51842.0  has some suggestions of what to look for in a meter and why some folks like analog meters better than digital  >

[MULETAPER]

theres any type of multi-meter you want... just a cheap radio shack volt/ohm meter will get ya by. you can even buy a cheaper Fluke meter at home-depot or Lowes. I use Fluke and love it.(cause it does it all)

+2 cents... its ALL I have to offer.

hope that helps.

[travelinbeat]

Thanks for all the help so far!

I'm definitely going to read through all relevant posts-- I didn't know to search for "multimeter" and not just "meter--" sorry for the confusion there!

From what you two have said, it looks like I may end up picking up an analogue multimeter, but again, I'll look around and read the posts to see which device will best suit both my budget and my needs.