I’m on the hunt for a new multi-meter. I’ve got several already, ranging from cheap and cheerful that I leave in the boot of the car for emergencies, to small, portable with additional features for environment monitoring like temperature and sound levels that I carry around in my rucksack, and some more typical larger units for workshop use. The other day on a whim, I got them all together and decided to see how accurate they were. I set my PSU to 12v DC, and one by one used each one to measure the measure the output voltage. I started with my Thurlby Tandor bench multi-meter and left that one connected thought the test to monitor the output of the PSU in case it started to drift.
Every meter gave slightly different reading. They weren’t out by much, but it did get my thinking that it was time I invested in a reasonable quality one that was calibrated for bench use.
So, I went to EBay initially to have a hunt around to see what new equipment was available. I stumbled across a make I’m not familiar with, Uni-Trend. I’ve been seeing a lot of their equipment around recently and I found a rather nice unit – UT803 available in the UK for 104.95 GBP including VAT and delivery. On further inspection I found that it’s actually being sold by Rapid Electronics; this is why the make seemed familiar as I’d probably seen it on their site previously.
Annoyingly, the UT803 is listed on the Rapid main site, but it costs 114.07 GPB including VAT and you’d get free delivery on that order as it’s over £30.
The Fluke 5211 from Rapid’s site is £246, but their Ebay shop sells it for £279.
I was displeased to see many other differing prices for Rapids offerings.
They have some 3.3v MES bulbs that are 100% more expensive on Ebay, but some hand tools that are cheaper, and the discrepancies go on and on.
MPLAB ICD2 Ebay - £154.95, Main shop - £150.50
Pack of 100 resistors - Ebay £0.99 - Mian shop - £0.62
The ST Mems Sensor Evaluation Kit (82-1004) which is 79.50 on Rapid’s site, is only £38.99 from their Ebay shop.
You’ve really got to check both places now if your after the best prices from them. Also, delivery charges for orders under £30 from their main site attract a £5 + VAT delivery charge. The charges from their Ebay shops are much more reasonable.
If you find an item in their Ebay shop your intersted in, at the end of the product description is a numeric code. Just enter this code into the search on their main site and it will find the same product for you making it faster to do the price comparisons.
Every meter gave slightly different reading. They weren’t out by much, but it did get my thinking that it was time I invested in a reasonable quality one that was calibrated for bench use.
So, I went to EBay initially to have a hunt around to see what new equipment was available. I stumbled across a make I’m not familiar with, Uni-Trend. I’ve been seeing a lot of their equipment around recently and I found a rather nice unit – UT803 available in the UK for 104.95 GBP including VAT and delivery. On further inspection I found that it’s actually being sold by Rapid Electronics; this is why the make seemed familiar as I’d probably seen it on their site previously.
Annoyingly, the UT803 is listed on the Rapid main site, but it costs 114.07 GPB including VAT and you’d get free delivery on that order as it’s over £30.
The Fluke 5211 from Rapid’s site is £246, but their Ebay shop sells it for £279.
I was displeased to see many other differing prices for Rapids offerings.
They have some 3.3v MES bulbs that are 100% more expensive on Ebay, but some hand tools that are cheaper, and the discrepancies go on and on.
MPLAB ICD2 Ebay - £154.95, Main shop - £150.50
Pack of 100 resistors - Ebay £0.99 - Mian shop - £0.62
The ST Mems Sensor Evaluation Kit (82-1004) which is 79.50 on Rapid’s site, is only £38.99 from their Ebay shop.
You’ve really got to check both places now if your after the best prices from them. Also, delivery charges for orders under £30 from their main site attract a £5 + VAT delivery charge. The charges from their Ebay shops are much more reasonable.
If you find an item in their Ebay shop your intersted in, at the end of the product description is a numeric code. Just enter this code into the search on their main site and it will find the same product for you making it faster to do the price comparisons.
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