Which Ohm Meter?

[Steve (VapeStorm)]

By using coil building apps like vapers toolbox and comparing with the high end multimeter that one of the lads brought with him

[Greg]

To be honest great accuracy is not that important unless it's for low sub ohms on a mech mod. In light of vw mods its of little consequence.

[thatguy]

To be honest, I just don't trust resistance checkers from most sources. Yes, they are easy to use, but they are, i general, poorly made with components with wide tolerances and poor machining and assembly.

A decent DMM may do more than needed, but it is safer and more reliable.

A basic electricians toolkit was available from argos for £12 a year or two ago, and included a DMM, a slodering iron, pliers, adjustable spanner, a set of electricians screwdricers , jewelers screwdrivers, a crimper and a set of hex keys. The same type of thing can be had today from maplin for under £20 here . And I'm sure could be sourced even cheaper. Not a bad investment since most if not all the tools are great to have around the house for vaping and other uses.

[Greg]

Jan 11, 2015 0:03:08 GMT thatguy said:

To be honest, I just don't trust resistance checkers from most sources. Yes, they are easy to use, but they are, i general, poorly made with components with wide tolerances and poor machining and assembly.

A decent DMM may do more than needed, but it is safer and more reliable.

A basic electricians toolkit was available from argos for £12 a year or two ago, and included a DMM, a slodering iron, pliers, adjustable spanner, a set of electricians screwdricers , jewelers screwdrivers, a crimper and a set of hex keys. The same type of thing can be had today from maplin for under £20 here . And I'm sure could be sourced even cheaper. Not a bad investment since most if not all the tools are great to have around the house for vaping and other uses.

I have two ohm testers and they're very well made. I'd have more concerns about the quality of components within a multimeter in a £12 electricians tool kit. Ivan assure you of one thing, you wouldn't get many professional electricians using £12 Argos meters for their work and I speak as an ex electrician 

The thing you need to recognise thatguy is that all you use a dedicated vapers ohm meter for is passing mA through your coil. With DVM theirs the potential to connect it to test mains voltage and I certainly wouldn't recommend that with a cheapo Argos meter. I confident which would be found out first if components were sub standard.

[thatguy]

As an Electronic Engineer who has tested many of these resistance meters as well as a large number of DMMs from high end to budget models, I can assure you that even the lower priced certified DMMS will be far more accurate. The reason no sparky would use a low cost DMM is the fact they will have dedicated professional equipment supplied by their employer or bought and written off against tax if self employed. The OP wanted a reliable and low cost solution, and sadly, no ohms tester I have tested has been reliable. Many are as bad, if not worse than using a vamo for the job.

From testing a range of ohms meters I've found accuracies ranging from 8%-32%. Not encouraging. Even the cheapest DMM should have a rating of 5% or below.

[Greg]

Jan 11, 2015 0:29:28 GMT thatguy said:

As an Electronic Engineer who has tested many of these resistance meters as well as a large number of DMMs from high end to budget models, I can assure you that even the lower priced certified DMMS will be far more accurate. The reason no sparky would use a low cost DMM is the fact they will have dedicated professional equipment supplied by their employer or bought and written off against tax if self employed. The OP wanted a reliable and low cost solution, and sadly, no ohms tester I have tested has been reliable. Many are as bad, if not worse than using a vamo for the job.

From testing a range of ohms meters I've found accuracies ranging from 8%-32%. Not encouraging. Even the cheapest DMM should have a rating of 5% or below.

You crack on then mate, still poor advice IMO to advise those who don't reallyknow what they are doing to buy a cheap DVM which one day they may decide to connect to a mains supply.

as I said accuracy of a coil is not overly important unless low sub homing in a mech which is the minority of vapers.

quite frankly if your an electronics engineer you should know better and gauge your advice to the audience appropriately. I'll bow out now as the OP has ordered the right thing for his application IMO.

[Deleted]

I've been using cheap basic one from FastTech and my vamo. Both pretty accurate and works for me.

[robby]

Buy both a DMM does have it`s uses, for batteries, fuses and lamps in car electrics, bulbs, lamps and fuses and elements in the house (not plugged in obviously). They really do give you more certainty and save time and faffin about. You can also check your coils when off the atty as well if you are building your own
You can get both for about 12 quid.

[GeRs]

I'm an electronics engineer too, if it's accuracy you want then a DMM is the way to go. However DMM's are only truly accurate if they have been professionally calibrated which is costly.
you can have the best Day in the world but if it ain't calibrated then it could be telling you anything.

No one should be playing about with mains electricity unless they know what there doing, it's easy enough even for the professional's to make mistakes.

Be safe, not Dead.