Thread: for those of us who use multimeters (we all should) ...

I've been reading a multi-page article in my IAEI News about multimeter accidents, injuries, and deaths from multimeter misuse (or using the wrong multimeter in the wrong location).

This is the gist of the warnings: If the multimeter you are holding fails for any reason (could be operator caused, could be age, deterioration, moisture, etc.) there is a good probability that the multimeter failure acts as a short across whatever you were measuring - with one lead connected to one side, the other lead connected to the other side, the meter fail and shorts out ... you might as well be holding a piece of copper wire between the two things you were measuring.

That short can lead to an arc or arc flash, burning your hands, clothes, etc., not trying to be scary of anything, but there have been many, many, many cases of such happening.

The meter you use needs to have the correct CAT I, CAT II, CAT III, or CAT IV rating for the area (not just what you are measuring, but what is around that area and what is supplying that area).

Here is some good information, descriptive drawings, and examples of the different CAT areas in which different CAT rating meters should be used.

http://www-group.slac.stanford.edu/e...ter_Safety.pdf

and

Anatomy of a high quality meter

Most of what we would normally check would be CAT II or CAT III, however, many of us stray into CAT IV (basically when you use your meter outdoors to measure the things we might measure)

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Jerry, good info. I guess this means I should replace my 30+ year old Radio Shack analog meter with the taped up leads. But it has been such a good meter

We had an electricain very badly burned because he had replaced the special fuse in his meter with a normal fuse. Set the meter to amps when it should have been volts and it blew up.

He was off work for about 6 months.

Always be very careful around electricity.

Originally Posted by David Wood

Set the meter to amps when it should have been volts and it blew up.

David,

The two most common causes of meter failure are:

- using the wrong scale (such as amps or ohms instead of volts)

- switching scales while energized

He was off work for about 6 months.

He was one of the lucky ones - he got to go back to work ... he got better.