EX330 Autoranging Mini Multimeter, 12-Function, NCV, Type K

Update August 1st 2014: After Jamie at Extech reached out to me, he is sending out a replacement. I have changed my rating back to 5 stars purely because in the end Extech made it right, the meter fundamentally works well and I'm a happy customer once again! Other manufacturers take note... THIS is how you do it!! Thanks Jamie. Much appreciate your good service. ----------------- This was great to begin with. Then the selector switch started doing odd things. You have to wind it back and forth to get it to register voltage. My original review waxed lyrical about how awesome it was(see below)... but this is now ready for the trash after only 15 months light hobby use. Also, the end of the temperature probe fell off and "browned" during the testing of an oven.... I was no where near the maximum temperature range of the probe. The Amazon returns window is only 1 month. Back to fluke for me!! My original review: ----------------- I have always had Fluke multi meters but decided I'd see what I could get at the lower end of the market. This little meter works perfectly and I particularly like the bang you get for your buck. From the non contact voltage detector to temperature probe to the capacitance and frequency meters. It all works well enough for you to figure things out and that's what it is all about! An excellent hobby level multimeter. 5 stars!

Excellent little multimeter for the house and hobby digital electronics work. This multimeter is a serious step up from the cheap auto parts meters but much cheaper then a comparable Fluke. I personally prefer Fluke but couldn't justify spending two or three times as much money for what I needed it for. Speaking of, I have used it for home wiring projects, electronics repair, testing batteries, temperature readings, and resistance/capacitance testing. All readings were within expected ranges however I don't have more precise reference equipment required to check ranges/tolerances. It's certainly accurate enough for my purposes. Pros: - Price - Stock leads are quite nice and ~4' long plus a temperature probe was included - Auto ranging works very well - A lot of useful functions (described nicely in the product description) including auto off - Kick stand is very convenient for bench top testing Cons: - None really, it does exactly what I expected it to. Features like True RMS reading would be nice however it's hard to expect features like that for the price of this multimeter. I would strongly suggest getting Extech TL809 Lead Kit just for the alligator clips. When you are on the top of a ladder being able to clip one or both wires may save your life!

I do a fair amount of electrical work for my job so I have experience with electrical equipment. Needed a cheap meter that I could keep at home and had enough features to cover a wide array of home and vehicle projects. At a cheap price, this fills the role nicely. Works as advertised and shipping was fast. The only reason I give this 4 out of 5 stars is due to the battery harness which does not appear to hold the batteries as well as one would hope. Impacts to the meter, (In this case dropping the meter face up from about a foot or two off the ground) can cause one or more of the batteries to come dislodged. A swift hit in the opposite direction is enough to jostle the batteries back into position. While not a deal breaker, this can be annoying. A simple fix, I have found, is to simply place a nylon washer or plastic spacer between the battery cover and the batteries. I find it strange a problem this noticeable and easy to remedy made it past quality control. Also its worth noting the leads for this are simple touch probes. I have seen other, similarly priced, DMMs that come with interchangeable probes and alligator clips. For whatever reason I thought this meter was going to come similarly equipped with both test lead and alligator clips. This is not a fault with the meter or seller, just something I thought I would point out.

I love this little multimeter! I never realized how much life could improve just by switching to a real instrument over the $10 analog model I bought from Home Depot. I've had it for something like a year now, and it's pretty amazing. I can't say enough good things about it, but I'll try to focus on the highest of the highlights: the NCV button! It's so nice to be able to diagnose so many electrical problems just by holding down a button and gently moving the device along a cable or a wall, listening for the spot where the current stops. And it's a great relief to be able to flip an unlabeled (of course) breaker, press the NCV button, and know if that was the switch for the circuit I'm about to work on. Say I'm on the outside of a trailer, working on the water heater that's only accessible by removing an exterior wall panel. As described above, I've found the breaker that goes to this circuit. But that was yesterday; did my father-in-law flip it back on in the meantime? I'd better get down off of the ladder, walk around the house, and have the lady who lives here walk me back to the bedroom (awkward) where the breaker box is so I can check it, right? No way! I can just hit the NCV button and find out. (And then, just because I've been stung too many times by "disconnected" electric fences back on the farm, I go ahead and test it with the probes to confirm. But it's good.) I've also used the NCV function to find faults in power cords on sump pumps, among other things. One little nick in the insulation, it turns out, can corrode an entire length of wire... But I digress. Another great feature is the... What is it called? The one where you switch it to measure resistance and then toggle the mode a couple of times. Then you touch points with the probes and if they're connected (i.e., sufficiently low resistance), it makes a noise. You don't even have to look at the meter! It's great. I use that all the time to see which points in one place match up to which points in another place. Handy for when wires change colors on the other side of something that would be a pain to move, and the audible signal means I can focus on touching the right points instead of trying to watch the display. I've used most of the functions at one time or another, but those are the most common ones for me. At work yesterday, I fixed a multi-thousand-dollar refrigerated centrifuge with it by using a combination of the DC voltmeter, ohmmeter, and frequency functions. I've fixed a lot of other things with it, too, but that was all for yesterday. I'm not an electrician or anything, just a guy who likes to tinker with stuff and works in a laboratory. I really ought to have my boss invest in one of these for the lab so that I won't have to keep carrying mine back and forth from home. I've gotten to the point where I look at it and think, "If I don't take it with me, I'm sure to need it." And it's true. Despite my enthusiasm for it, there are a few things I would change about it if I could: 1. I would include some leads with alligator clips with it. Come on, those are just too handy not to have. I suppose I can buy them separately, but it would have been nice to include them. 2. I really wish it had some little clips on the side to hold the probes. I have to wrap the wires around it or let them dangle; neither is satisfactory, and both leave you with surprisingly sharp points sticking out. I guess I should invest in a nice rubber band, and maybe something to cap the points. I don't know, like I said, I'm not a professional or anything. 3. The temperature probe is a separate attachment that I almost never have with me, because who wants to carry that, too? I don't know how to fix this, but it would be nice if it could be improved somehow. Also, the cable for the temp probe is really stiff. I don't know how necessary that is for the functionality of it, but if it could be as pliable as the two contact probes (or leads, whatever; I'm an amateur), that would be a step in the right direction. I'm kind of worried about it snapping due to metal fatigue, honestly. It's that stiff.

The non-contact voltage on this Extech is really sensitive compared to other meters I have tried. The non-contact voltage has an audible tone and a light that goes off, and the tone and light increase with intensity the closer it gets to the voltage. Had no problem detecting AC voltage through a light switch plate from at least a couple inches away. Did not get to test all the functions, but the functions like AC and DC volts, AC and DC amps, and resistance, continuity, and temperature all worked just fine. Those are the functions I use the most. Here are some things I like: Big screen that is easy to see for my old eyes even though it does not have a back light. The rubber holster that surrounds the meter seems like it would protect the meter pretty good. The battery door has a machine screw, and it is not a self tapper, so I don't have to worry about stripping out plastic because it has a threaded metal insert. When you take the battery door off, the batteries can be easily changed, and the fuses are below the battery, so they are easily changed too by the removal of one machine screw which is brilliant. The probe tip covers come off very easy to expose more probe length, and are very easy to put back on. The poly leads are marked appropriately with voltage rating and gauge. The Extech 330 is UL listed. Some things I don't like: I have old eyes, and the selections(voltage etc.) around the selector switch are hard to see unless I am in bright light. Nit picking here, but to open the case to have a look inside, I have to remove three self tapper screws, and they could have used machine screws that threaded into metal inserts. The kick stand is not the best design, but it does work. The Extech temperature selection is rated to measure -4 to 1382 F, but the included K probe is only rated at -22 to 572 F. The fuses voltage and amp range are in the manual, but the manual does not say what size(length x width) they are, or what type of fuse it is like a 3AB or 3AG. Information on fuses can be confusing, so it would help the end user if this type of information is included in the manual. After I removed the probe cover tips, the probe is not threaded to accept screw on alligator clips, so I either have to buy new probes that are threaded, or use push on alligator clips. Nice to see that Extech/Flir has a product support manager commenting, and trying to help buyers resolve problems. Seems like very good customer service to me, and customer support was one of the points I considered before buying the 330.

Edit: This is a total rewrite! Extech shipped me this meter with leads that had some non-conductive junk on them and this severely limited its operation, especially when measuring resistance and capacitance. But once I washed the probes with dish soap and a scrubber, everything changed! This is a great buy at a price below $100. Purchase this product, if you want a ~$50 meter that works well! Just be forewarned that it won't measure capacitance above 220 uF. Regarding the probe issue: I e-mailed tech support and got a response (from a human) within a day. This is absolutely phenomenal. I routinely deal with support for >$100,000 instruments and their tech support is garbage (cough cough Agilent and Waters). Extech offered me a new set of probes, but since I'd already solved the issue, I declined this, but they won a customer for life with their generosity. Long story short, this is a great meter for someone who needs to measure voltage, resistance, and lower range capacitance. I highly recommend, but they do need to modify their manufacturing process to properly clean probes before shipping them to customers. It shouldn't be my job to clean off the oil from the forging/casting process, but since they immediately offered to rectify it, 5 stars.

Reliable meter

The meter is nice and compact with decent build quality for the price. Voltage, current, resistance and temp were spot on in my tests. NVC worked ok. Capacitance was unusable though. Not sure if it's a luck of the draw with this meter, but I need capacitance to work so it's a deal breaker for me. The protective sleeve on the temp probe that came with mine was frayed right out of the box. It's a shame as I had high hopes for this lil meter...

Funktioniert gut, für den Preis wertige Verarbeitung,

Very reasonably priced quality product. One of the best Multimeter second to Fluke.

Piccolo e leggero, ha i caratteri grandi . Si spegne opportunamente dopo 15 minuti di no utilizzo. Preciso e veloce. Non ho mai provato uno strumento migliore in questa fascia di prezzo. Il Fluke 187 va meglio, ma costa un ordine di grandezza di più . Lo consiglio, anche perché rileva la presenza di AC in una presa, senza contatto con i cavi, misura i microamperes, le capacità, le temperature a la frequenza...

I wanted an inexpensive autoranging multi-meter to replace my aging Beckman that I bought when I was still in collage. Have done some basic tests with the meter and it seems to be fairly accurate and fully functional. This unit (EX330) does just about everything my older meter did at less than half the price (actually much less than half if you adjust the dollar value). The unit is easy to read. The supplied probes seem adequate but, I have also ordered the Extech TL809 Electronic Test Lead Kit ( https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0012VWUI6/ ) This also comes with a temperature probe, but it seems a little bit on the fragile side so it should probably be used with care in order not to break it. The meter feels fairly solid and well built, though I wouldn't advise just tossing it around. The non-contact high voltage dectector is a nice touch. This was one of the 5 inexpensive meters that Dave L. Jones @ EEVblog reviewed on YouTube and for its price range faired quite well. Now, don't expect this to replace an upper end meter like a Fluke as it is not in the same class. For general or hobby usage this should be fine as, according to the EEVblog, it should be fairly safe to use.

Satisfied so far