My multimeter gave me wrong readings for 3 weeks before I figured it out

I was chasing a dead short in a dryer in Medford last month and kept getting weird resistance values. Spent 2 hours testing fuses and switches before I got suspicious. Turns out my test leads had a broken wire inside the rubber boot, giving intermittent readings. Replaced them with a $8 set from the hardware store and fixed the dryer in 10 minutes. Anyone else had a simple tool fail and waste your time?

2 comments

2 Comments

patriciacarr8d ago

That article from a trade magazine I read said bad test leads cause something like 40 percent of false multimeter readings. Tapping the wire to check for loose connections is definitely a smart habit, especially when you're up against a frustrating problem. Sometimes the simplest tools really do get overlooked when we're set on assuming the meter itself is broken.

abby_robinson588d ago

Oh, is this really that big of a deal... I mean, a bad test lead on a multimeter? That happens more often than people admit, but spending 2 whole hours on a short in a dryer sounds like you weren't checking the basics first. I've had my cheap meter give me weird numbers once or twice, but I usually tap the wire or wiggle the probe to see if it's just a loose connection before I go chasing ghosts. And $8 leads from the hardware store can be just as flaky as the ones that came with the meter, so I'm not convinced that was your only problem. Maybe you just overthought the whole thing and it was something simpler all along...