I picked up one of these on eBay for $60 a few months back. It does a pretty good job, for what it claims. The build quality is about what you would expect for something from Radio Shack. Accuracy is better than I expected. Frequency response is just OK. But, for $60 for an AC/DC probe, that will resolve mA, you just cant complain.
The bandwidth spec from their site: 1kHz, 10kHz (-3dB). The tek current probes you are referring to are really impressive: bandwidth is DC to 50MHz or more (TCPA300). There are also some hall effect transducers on digikey good for DC-200kHz which look interesting. They are not split core though.
I got a fluke 87V used on ebay. It's the same on God uses. I had a craftsman that had the 2nd hookup for 20A. Screw that noise! Other things I love are it will measure forward voltage on LEDs, even blue ones; its continuity beep is fast as lightning, fast enough to beep on smd ceramic capacitors as they charge; the backlight is amazing; it will measure nanosiemens. Don't even pretend you don't want to measure those. It's generally just a joy to use.
I was going to buy exactly the same probe a few weeks ago, thanks for the review ! Too bad there is nothing in between these cheap probes and the really pricy tek or agilent current probes... at least it does DC..., can you open it up to see the guts of this product ?
I picked up one of these on eBay for $60 a few months back. It does a pretty good job, for what it claims. The build quality is about what you would expect for something from Radio Shack. Accuracy is better than I expected. Frequency response is just OK. But, for $60 for an AC/DC probe, that will resolve mA, you just cant complain.
The bandwidth spec from their site: 1kHz, 10kHz (-3dB).
The tek current probes you are referring to are really impressive: bandwidth is DC to 50MHz or more (TCPA300). There are also some hall effect transducers on digikey good for DC-200kHz which look interesting. They are not split core though.
current probes are very useful but very expensive!.. that one is a good alternative, as you said "good enough for many different applications"
Thanks! Very informative. Maybe could do test for accuracy in the range 20 to 40 Amperes DC.
I got a fluke 87V used on ebay. It's the same on God uses. I had a craftsman that had the 2nd hookup for 20A. Screw that noise! Other things I love are it will measure forward voltage on LEDs, even blue ones; its continuity beep is fast as lightning, fast enough to beep on smd ceramic capacitors as they charge; the backlight is amazing; it will measure nanosiemens. Don't even pretend you don't want to measure those. It's generally just a joy to use.
no, but you can get an old fluke 20A/200A clamp on probe for that for $50 or so from ebay. even cheaper.
Can you use it to measure leakage current in the order of milli-amps ?
I was going to buy exactly the same probe a few weeks ago, thanks for the review !
Too bad there is nothing in between these cheap probes and the really pricy tek or agilent current probes... at least it does DC..., can you open it up to see the guts of this product ?
Hi. Do you think it would be safe to use this probe to measure car's starter current thats around 150-200a?
Thanks.
pst...there is an eev blog branded multi meter on amazon and its supposed to be the best thing around for the price.
Fluke 87 is good meter