It seems that some people missed the entire point of this video. It's not really about continuity, it's about showing that gold plated contacts don't really oxidise, and hence stand a better chance of producing a better contact. Either with another gold plated contact (PCB test pad, pin etc), or even with a non-gold possibly oxidised contact (e.g. one non-oxidised and one oxidised contact trumps two oxidised contacts) This is why hard gold contacts are standard practice in all sorts of electronics connectors, PCB edge contacts, signal relay contacts, test pads etc etc. It's basic industry knowledge, yet some people think that it can't apply to multimeter probes as well? Strange.
what i and i think a lot of others are remarking is that if it really was that important as opposed to just helpful, it would be a standard on everything but the cheapest multimeters out there, i don't think the contacts of the 30usd offering you linked to has anything but plating on it, the accessories are nice and the price is about as cheap as one can expect from something that feels nice to use but lets face it, gold plating your contacts wouldn't be the largest expense in building probes. perhaps the companies value the durability of nickel over the better contact/oxidation resistance of gold, or perhaps the difference isn't big enough in 99.9% of use cases to make the trade off worth it, not every multimeter is used in a lab setting. with little to no price difference between either it really shouldn't be much of an issue, i will still look at the general construction, cable quality and accessories before i look at the tip material for any given price range.
You should have tested this with a multimeter that makes a cracling sound when the contact is intermittent (i.e. no pulse extension). Also, a 555 will do nice.
I guess you just showed me why i had so much trouble checking circuits with my Fluke. It's always fine on high energy circuits like checking motors, typical supply voltages, even low voltage PSUs but when i start to measure components or go to a PCB level, i sometimes literally have to make a dent into solder joints to have a contact. Needless to say, putting excessive force on a PCB with a sharp probe can lead to rather annoying slippages ! I need a replacement meter anyway so i'll make sure the new one has gold plated probes, or i'll get them extra ! BTW, if you want to have a go at what is probably the worst meter in terms of battery life, check out mine, the Fluke 233 !! It has a detachable screen, which is very handy when working on hard to access machines, but this thing goes dead mighty fast! I don't even use it that much but it eats me 5 AA every month.. Hopeless !
@Oodain Yes, I'm not saying that every probe should be gold, but I *prefer* gold probes for electronics use, I find them better. Yes, some companies like Fluke don't offer gold probes, and they would have their reasons for that. Others, like probe specialist Probe Master only offer gold probes. Use what one is best for your use and requirements and preference.
Also a reason you should not use power relais for small signals - they might not work. Same for some kind of switches: If you got bad luck, your power switch will not pull down a pin on a µC. Power relais need a wetting current to burn through the oxidized layer. Gold plating is usually used for small signal relais.
Dave, Absolutely right, been doing this 60 years and the nickel plating is horrible even from Fluke and Keysight, constantly pushing the probe to make contact. It does make a difference, thumbs up!
I enjoyed the video and I think Dave brought the point home. I will be doing a bevy of multimeter videos soon myself, and this same topic was similar to a segment I will also be utilizing. My take is slightly different as you will see in my videos. Bottom line, even a few ten dollar meters can perform exceedingly good continuity results with well made probes and these probes don't always have to cost an arm and leg.
anyone saying this is irrelevant haven't really worked with integrated circuits. or any other sensitive electronics. when I first worked with cars, I never understood the expensive multimeters and so on. later as I'm building my own amplifier I want the best and most accurate there is. because you cant even begin to understand how sensitive some circuits are. thank you for this video! will definitely buy these.
What probes you might use depends on what you are working on. If you are working on clean PCBs with gold probe points, gold makes perfect sense. However, for many uses the non-gold ones work just as fine or better. Each metal plating type has a certain pressure that it takes to establish electrical contact, worse when surfaces are oxidized or corroded. When probing onto other objects (not just the probes upon themselves) gold may help, but if you are not probing onto a gold plated surface you still need to press hard enough to establish the pressure necessary for an electrical path. Notice I said pressure not force. When you use sharper tips it takes less force to provide the same pressure. So if you are probing onto solder or other junky surfaces you may want to "save" your gold plated tips from unnecessary wear and use some lesser probes with sharper, harder tips instead. When probing onto non-gold surfaces you may actually get a better result using really sharp steel tips than blunt tipped gold ones. Especially if probing needs to break through flux or other dirt. Just be careful not to damage the components you are probing onto when using really sharp tips.
Just tried this test with my no-name crappy probes that are old as the hills, and they work just as good as your gold ones did in the video. I was using them with a Fluke 179 no problem. Tried the same probes with an Amprobe AM-140-A; still worked fine, but got a buzzing sound at times. I never have understood the value of this test in evaluating meters either. I don't do continuity tests using the sides of my probes. I use the sharp tips!
In meter tests you criticise meters but often it is the probe. Nickel plated probes must be cleaned with metal polish before first use. It makes all the difference.
Dave, I can see that it would really help. I had some issue in the past due to my stupid meter being slow (2 seconds) for continuity test and fast reset (half a second). My probe didn't made a good contact for whatever reason and missed the continuity. I had fun to debug that... To redo the test later on because everything looked fine... And noticing it was indeed fine and noticing the probe issue... I can't say that it will be a mandatory feature for a meter or probe, but it will surelly be a consideration.
Love Probemaster stuff, all over the workbench. Speaking of probes, my EEVBlog HVP70 arrived here in the U.S. today after some kind of delay in New Zealand (DHL has to transit thru NZ from Australia enroute?) where it was considered dangerous and had to be opened for inspection! Nice note apologizing for the delay...weekend project upcoming, thanks Dave!
How about testing cleaning methods? If it's oxidation, then with IPA remove it or what? as received, might have grease to prevent oxidation, so clean that off with IPA. Also, would be nice to show how it makes a real difference in use other than conductivity.
Could you make a video explaining why the gold probes seem to make better contact? Like get into the chemestry of why? The bounce test just makes me wonder what the big difference is
bdot02 gold won't form insulating oxides under normal circumstances. If you keep your probes clean and shiny, gold plating won't make that huge of a difference in normal multimeter use where pressure and constant motion can displace contaminates, allowing for good contact.
Robert Szasz interesting. I guess the oxygen binds to the free electrons making it more difficult for energy to flow through them. Or something like that. I bet you could electroplate some cheap probes for not that much.
Hi Dave I know that gold shouldn't react with anything and shouldn't oxidize. But I had this gold brymen probes for some, and it's not my experience. After some time they become very unreliable, made weak unstable resistance measurements. I fixed that by strongly cleaning tips with paper towel soaked in isopropyl alcohol (it was not dust, it required force when cleaned), they were much better after. They seems to be coated with something over the years, don't know how or why, this is my experience. I don't want to d**k around, so I never used those probes again. I haven't experienced anything like this in my older other good quality multimeter probes. /Darek
Hi Dave, i've never seen you using gold probes in the past - and i've seen a lot of your videos. When there so much better, why the manufactures for high end multimeters don't deliver these type with their meters? And what about effects in measureing of tiny voltages because of galvanic elements? Will you use these probes for the future?
I supply gold probes with my BM235 meter. As for lab use, I use whatever is laying around, probes get swapped and moved around and lost etc all the time. But I do prefer gold, I've found then to generally work better.
They are only about 15 dollars, its new information, i'm glad Dave shared it. Not a necessity for the lab but its still something that can make your work a little easier and more enjoyable. The wonderful thing about buying something really nice is you will be proud using it, you will take care of it, and you'll want to do more projects because you know you have gear you've invested in to do so.
I have come across this problem when I had to check many points on a motherboard and needed quick results, going to order some gold probes, will make fault finding easier as you will know the contact with probes is reliable :) cheers Dave
Orrr just you know wash your probe tips sometimes, like the rest of us. After all, you don't really know whether it's surface oxide or finger oils and other sediment that's preventing your probes from working right.
Dave, I would not believe this phenomenon if I had'nt seen it for myself. Imagine paying $5000 for a meter and low grade probes, just simply defeats the purpose.Congrats on a very practical observation and many an ordinary meter will be thrashed because of it's probes.
This has changed my mind. I have always gone cheap and cheerful with ordinary probes, especially as the wires seem to always break because of badly designed strain relief. Now all those non-responses, and looking for a better spot, turn out not to be an invisible layer of flux or just a quirk, but actually have a reason. Gold plating on probes would cost pennies - look at all the 10 cent RCA plugs - so why aren't they all gold plated? Dave has done us all a service here and we should keep the pressure on.
Thanks, Dave! I've had this old Micronta DMM (22-194 for those of us playing along at home!) at least for 30 years and have always been discouraged by the delay for the continuity bell. I always just assumed it was the meter taking its sweet old time. Based on this review, I ordered me a set of probes from Probe Master. Yes! I know what you're thinking. I just put a $23 shine on a $10 pair of boots. You know? They even have banana plugs for old timey meter jacks that won't take the safety shroud. Saves me the time and effort it takes to cut the damn things off. Anyhoo, when I click the tips together ever so lightly, the continuity bell beeps seemingly in anticipation of contact, it's so quick. I love it! Now I want #GoldEverything!!!
My Fluke 289 didn't come with gold plates probes and it does the continuity testing just as good as the gold plated ones in your test so the multi meter plays a big role in the performance of that test.
Copper being the standard of electrical conductivity at one hundred percent, only silver beats it at one o' five. Gold comes in at seventy percent, 3rd place. The mitigating factor is the speed of oxidation on the surface of the material. Clean your probes and do the test again.
Just tried this with the probes that came with the cheapo Aneng AN8008 and whilst slapping the probes together didn't give good results due to the update rate of the meter it still buzzes with just the weight of the probe. In fact it buzzes no matter how lightly I try and make them touch, even under 40x magnification bringing just the tips together it buzzes as soon as they touch (it doesn't even feel like they're touching and the probe I'm not holding doesn't move at all, only way to tell they are touching is visually). EDIT: Not saying that gold does or doesn't give a better connection, just that this demonstration doesn't seem to be very accurate. Perhaps there are other factors at play.
how so? from that table there is only really copper between gold and nickel that isnt a precious metal, a rare earth, liquid or simply too soft to use as a terminal of any kind. on top of that are you sure that that table actually covers everything? despite copper being lower on the list nickel has been known to dramatically increase the corrosion and oxidation resistance of copper wire, especially at higher temperatures. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000844339900021X
I have several sets of Probe Master leads... and while I can't vouch for them being 'the worlds best', I can say they're excellent, professional quality products... the only ones I've used in a good while now. Even got a 'special' set for my old time Simpson 260 7M with the goofy inverted banana sockets. Leads for it are hard to find, but PM had them!
I don't understand all of the butthurt. It's not like there's a mini Dave on your shoulder judging your selection of probes. For myself this was new information and I'm glad you put the time into making the vid. Thanks!
Shame on those stupid comments. This man has single handedly educated millions of elec engineers and technicians. Dave I will soon visit Sydney just to meet you.
If one moves to gold plated contacts, it would only be logical to have gold plating on the contacts leading into the multimeter, too. Of course if you buy new wires you only swap half of the contact surface right at the base of the multimeter. I've noticed what you describe, it's annoying to see it in a Fluke.
As a model railroader this raises some questions regarding the tracks and wheels my locomotives use. Nickel-silver is the standard metallury used in the tracks, and most of the wheels have high nickel content with some blackening schmoo that wears off in time. And pickup is an ever-present issue, especially if one runs the scale I run(N) and likes steam. Small steam engines are infamously bitchy because they're very light with very few points of pickup. I'm wondering if gold plated wheel treads, tacky as it would look, would help them get better pickup even on nickel-silver rails.
I have always assumed a gold-silver alloy would be even better for applications like this, but it is so rare to see it used, which is strange to me. I do know gold-silver alloys are commonly used in reed switches for exactly this reason.
This is great stuff. 8 dollars on amazon it's almost stupid to not go with gold plated after seeing this. I've never even thought to use gold plated probes. I've been in situations troubleshooting automotive electronics where wires can have corrosion causing intermittent contact with multi-meters and I've always blamed the wires when a good set of gold plated probes probably would have made a big difference!
The difference between gilded and nickeled styli is enormous. This I learned when I bought a multimeter Sanwa 500a - it is completed with gold-plated probes. The resistance of both probes is 0.015Ω. The resistance of "ordinary" probes from cheap multimeters is close to 0.13 Ohm. The difference is 10 times. It's a pity one - that the probes with which Sanwa is made - are thick .. and they are problematic to use on boards with very dense cmd-mounting. We have to use inexpensive thin probes, with Aliexpress .. but they have very soft metal .. quickly break or bend the tips of the needles. Ideally - probes made of durable material .. for example titanium, with gilding .. but the price they will have ... (Translated Ru-En by Google )
When i repaired my projector this week, my probes were touching the solder joints but not making electrical contact. It made me scratch my head for a moment because i was putting considerable force on the probes. Perhaps i can see whether gold plated probes do a better job in this situation.
A set of the gold plated probemaster leads like Dave is showing are only $16.90 with free shipping, I bought a pair and they are amazing - ive have had them transform a so - so meters continuity response to very good and in some cases excellent. The improvement varies from meter to meter they wont transform a shit meter, but theyre the best quality probes ive ever handled, gold plated, sharp as a needle, soft supple silicone wire, integrated pliable strain relieved ends on the probe handles, somewhere around 44 inches long and nice fitting jack plugs. Best $16.90 youll ever spend.
You should have tested the probes with a different multimeter as well. I have an Agilent multimeter with a very cheap silver probe, which came with a £20 multimeter from 15 years ago, and the continuity just works fine even when i just rest the probes on top of each other.
With the small contract patch on test probes it will make a difference because of oxidation, but when it comes to things like headphone jacks it is more the psychological effect that people think gold has to be better because it's gold.
gold makes better contact, so less chance of issues on the probe. you can still have issues on a circuit board solder joint, but you will have less chance of issues using a gold plated probe.
Chiming in as a plater. Gold plating has nickel underneath it. Gold is normally only .00005 inch (half a tenth). Gold plating is extremely thin and easy to wear through. Keep your nickel probes clean and they should serve you fine for a long time.
NeuronalAxon it depends. But I would say on average .002 to .005. At work for jet turbine repairs we will routinely go .020 to .030 to repair worn holes. (That is an extreme situation though)
I've never had any issues using standard steel probes. They always chirp on the continuity setting very easily. I've never had to force the probes together.
You were lucky. I have to clean TL175 Twistguard before every use. I clean them, take measurements, 15 minutes later I have to clean them again. On the other hand, cheapest chinese probes that came with cheapest chinese multimeter don't have that issue. They've been around for several years, never cleaned them, never had issues. Go figure.
I'd like to see Dave test $5 gold-plated probes vs $20 stainless steel vs $20 gold-plated ones. Is there still an advantage to getting gold-plated if you get the bargain-basement cheapo ones, or do you have to shell out for (reasonably) expensive ones to get a benefit?
Dave, touching two probes is not what maters for continuity testing. Most of the time we will probe on copper, solder alloy surfaces or other metals. Gold probes will probably still perform better in such situations, but only tests will tell!
I work on buses, ie, hostile greasy conditions so gold plated probes definitely do make a difference. I've actually been caught out a couple of times as well with normal probes.
Take any cheap/crappy non-gold leads and give them a good rub down with an ink eraser (those blue or grey ones). Then finish it off with an alcohol wipe. Guaranteed they'll now perform just as well as any gold-tipped leads on continuity.
My concern with the gold-plated probes would be the gold wearing off the tip. If you are always pushing the tip into solder joints to break through the oxide layer of the solder, wouldn't the gold plating wear off pretty quickly?
Do you have gold plated cable connectors? I do, and the only ones that wear through the gold are those that have seen many thousands of mating cycles. If you are making many thousands of measurements with your probes, why wouldn't you have good quality probes? Clearly, at that point you are either a professional or are passionate about electronics. MSRP for the basic Probe Master probes is less than 17 US dollars. And for the price, you get better construction, better shielding, more comfortable grips, and less stiff cables.
I see in the background you have a black and decka shop box. I got 1 about 25 years ago and it was a mission, "they only released them as a 1 off promotion " (supposedly) Your 1 looks quite new. Where did you get it? I'm in NZ so I should be able to get it from your source if it's current and in AUS. Thanks Russ
I never thought much about probes over the years until I got a high priced dmm that had very bad probes. I bought Fluke TL 175 probes for about 35 EURO and it worked much better with them. Because I was curious when I first heard about probemaster probes I bought a set and was really surprised about how much better they are than the more expensive Fluke TL 175. With the EEVBlog Brymen 235 I got the gold plated Brymen probes and could compare these with the gold plated probemaster and several other non gold plated probes I have after about 35 years of electronic work. I will never ever buy non gold plated probes and I always replace non gold plated probes. It's a big difference in daily work and I especially love the probemaster probes. Quality compared they are really cheap.
at work (im an electrician) i use the brymen included ones for troubleshooting machines and at home for my small electrical stuff/tinkering with electronics i got myself a pair of probemasters
I agree when the probes are new. But what counts is the extremity of the tip. What thickness of gold there is here. The gold is very fragile and in my opinion, after a month, it's over. Is this investment really necessary?
The main lesson I take from this is that it is really easy to get hung up on stuff that just doesn't matter and won't ever be a problem. Still, gotta push those Davemeters. (Amazingly, I can't duplicate this issue on my Fluke, even with probes that haven't been used for a couple of years) To people buying cheap Chinese probes: I'm sure the nice soft and thin gold plating won't wear off the pointy tips in the first few dozen tests or anything... Any chance you could use one of those nice microscopes you have and do some wear tests Dave? Depending on the plating substrate, it is possible that after the plating has worn from the tip, gold plated probes could make worse contact than "ordinary" ones.
I've got probes that work exactly like Dave's and aren't gold plated. They aren't even branded. Their tips are thinner though, they're advertised as 'needle probes' suitable for micro components (which is what I use them for). I also have the less sensitive probes, same brand as Dave's it apparently. Looking at both under the microscope I assumed that what made the needle probes better is how smoother and more regular their surface is when compared with the regular ones (at the microscopic level).
Its also true for audio jack. Practically every single professional audio jack is golden, the so-so are silver, and the mediocre ones are with a plastic ring.
not only is a good contact and a sharp, clean probe far more important then any thin oxide layer -also realistically in a circuit you will be measuring a surface that has oxide or maybe some dirt on it very often, so you need pressure regardless.
I've done some brush plating with both silver and gold. I realize that this method results in a plating that is only a few atoms thick but it would be interesting if Dave can compare the usefulness of this thin plating relative to nothing or a thicker plating.
Oskar Skog They would also have greater resistance per foot of test lead unless you also increased the cross section of the test lead wires to compensate, thus making the leads even heavier still. Gold's great strength is its resistance to surface oxidation (mercury also fits this bill) versus most other metal choices thus greatly reducing contact resistances, but gold itself has more resistance than a copper or silver conductor so it is not the best choice for a wire conductor of any significant length, even if costs are not a concern.
Fake News, mercury tends to amalgamate (form a solid solution with) with noble metals like gold and silver but it won't do that with iron or nickel or aluminum. So saying mercury dissolves most metals is far from accurate. Aqua Regia (nitric and hydrochloric acid mixed together) will corrode most metals but not all. It doesn't really dissolves them because if you evaporate the liquid you have metals salts, like gold nitrate and gold chloride left not metallic gold.
I love Probe Master test probes. Tried their oscilloscope leads and they are great as well. One of the products were "Made in America" really means something...
Just tried laying the probes on my meters down barely touching and the continuity buzzer went off and they showed zero on all ten that I tried with not one gold plated probe among them. what I have done in the past is when I got them I cleaned the probe with scotchbrite pad and IPA to remove any traces of die lube that will be left on them.
Funnily enough, I have one of those cheap $10 meters and a more expensive holdpeak, the probes that came with the $10 meter are kinda crap but they make good contact kinda like the third set that was shown in the video, while probes from the HP are slightly better made they make about as good of contact as those fluke probes, so I was rather surprised by how much better the continuity was with the cheaper probes.
This is hardly a fair demonstration, because in the real world I'm not often measuring two probes together. And the stuff I'm contacting with my probes is seldom gold plated.
Dave, when do you ever in a real test scenario do probe to probe continuity test? As long as the board one is working on isn't gold plated, you are going to have the same problems as non gold probes.
The gravity test does not seem fair for me because the probemaster has a little more weight and has more flexible cable than flukes tl75, so they will press harder against the lower probe, right?
I wonder if a gold plated probes make a real difference, then why reputable manufacturers like Fluke does not provide such probes (even as an option) with their high-end Multimeters like the Fluke 289/287 series? Thanks
Because they do? Fluke TL910 probes are gold tipped. Fluke seems to divide the world between electricians and electronics. And probes for electronics are gold tipped. Electricians get nickel alloy. And I guess once the nickel is heavily oxidized, and you don't think to use sandpaper to remove the outer layer, you should just buy new ones.
Only 24K gold will not tarnish and won't react with anything. The coating on the probes would be at best 14K, and they will tarnish and react with stuff in time because of the impurities.
sometimes probes are not gold plated, rather a gold alloy. saw it by an accidental short between two meters measuring Hz on mains voltage. Melted the whole tip of my probes
Likely so. It's a bit harder to control the thickness of the gold plating, though. You want to balance between a thick but durable plating (expensive) and a thin but inexpensive plating (easily wears off).
Clean the old fluke probes with fine sand paper (2000 grit) then wipe with kitchen roll soaked in isopropyl alcohol. They will probably work just as well as the gold plated ones.
seems to me that your plating will wear off in NO TIME ... given that we tend to keep these in firm contact with other metals and move them around... effectively grinding off the coating...
Gold has been used for electrical contacts for decades. A hard gold alloy is used. It doesn't have to be pure gold to reduce the impact of oxidization.
electronicsNmore Not a good long term solution though as you will only wear away the nickel plating over time and you will eventually be left with the steel core (far worse conductivity and much greater corrosion tendency). That and the steel wool will leave behind a lot of very fine scratches that only help to further accelerate the collection of dirt and debris (not to mention the fine bits of steel swarf left behind to corrode within the scratches). So while it may help with a single measurement instance, in time one will soon need to replace their probes to maintain the result since you can't indefinitely clean them with steel wool since each cleaning further degrades the condition of the probes.
I guess you don't realize the grade of steel wool I'm talking about. 000 or 0000 is extremely fine. You would have to use it daily in order to wear away the plating, and if you wipe the probe with a rag after using the steel wool, you won't leave any behind to rust. You're not creating any deep scratches. I've done this on and off for years and never had any issues. I'd rather have the higher conductivity brass under the nickel anyway.
B careful with steel wool use on various metals. Sometimes little bits of steel wool get embedded and rust, which can cause more trouble than original dirty leads. But regardless of cleaning method, it would be interesting to see if probe age and surface finish has much to do with it.
for 20% price you can get 80% usability. always. second gold probes proved it. question: with limited budget - is better to get gold plater probes with cheaper multimeter or regular probes with better multimeter?
So this means we should only buy audio cables with gold plating too? 😉 Yeah, already answered in EEVblog #29. Heh, you still look about the same, maybe happier, but your workspaces are _much_ neater now; better camera gear makes a huge difference too. Thanks, Dave.
Hmmzz.. interesting point. Firstly, no it doesn't make that much of a difference in multi-meter probes, but there certainly is a bit of a benefit there. Secondly, gold plating is dirt cheap and no it doesn't wear off in any reasonable time frame like some here suggest, industrial test contacts will last for hundreds of thousands of mating cycles and almost all are gold plated. For RF probing virtually all contacts are gold plated. Gold plating is pretty much the go-to plating for most contact surfaces, its cheap and works really well. So yeah, that does raise a question, why are multi-meter probes an exception?
Fluke probably don't use gold probes because gold is not the best choice for high power high current electrical use. That's why you don't find gold contacts on high power switches or relays for example, only signal level relays use gold plating.
Good point, give it a bit of a spark and gold plating vaporizes. That's a solid reason not to use it for generic probes. Not that steel doesn't vaporize just the same, but if you have solid contact with same material all the way through then it doesn't leave same kind of mark as on a plated contact.
i have a question was this a sponsored video you did not mention?? i have used Keystone great bench meters, i am concerned about the non proprietary OS, windows, and i OWN a fluke Scope meter 123/c and a 192-204, the 123 is 5 years old, the 192 is a year old, they are a non issue with the original probes, nor the 26 year old Fluke 11 with original probes, none of which are gold plated in the field ill stake my life on Fluke, but Keystone i have yet to see one on a transmitter site and contrary to your words, which i really enjoy your videos, but under the right circumstances Gold can catalyze
Yeah I totally get the difference with the old ones, but this wasn't a good test by any means. In theory it's better, in practice this doesn't show it would be. The very expensive gold plated ones at the end seemed to be almost as "problematic" as the newer non-gold plated ones. You need proper measurements I guess.
intermittent lead contact can really hamper troubleshooting an intermittent problem. False non-continuity can mislead you too. If you can afford them they are strongly advised. If you cannot then you must use repetitive testing for assurance or take the hit on troubleshooting time. And relax...
Hmm. Not entirely persuaded that the testing methodology is sound here. When you know which probes you are testing and that you have a point to make, well, even the most honest experimenter is capable of deceiving themselves with slight subconscious differences in muscle movements, swiping strategies etc.. You really need to do this double-blind, so you can't see what you're banging together. Not that I'm claiming there would be no difference in the results (I am pretty sure there would be) but only that it would be a more convincing test.
Nothing against gold plating, but I gotta say that the AU plating is so THIN that it won't be on there for long. And especially on the probe tip where it gets most use.
One thing you didn't account for was the probe weight itself, but the results were still pretty clearly in favor of gold. I like firmer numbers than this but that's me.
The weight doesn't really matter much, the point is it's clear that the gold has zero contact issues, and the silver can be pretty horrible. They are all quite similar.
I wouldn't say it's clear the gold had 0 contact issues, on the last pair it quite clearly missed a few. There was also a large difference between the old fluke probes and the agilent.
animefreak5757 no one said there were no issues, gold is however definitely better. Contact bounce and resistance is a fact of life there is no avoiding it completely.
It seems that some people missed the entire point of this video. It's not really about continuity, it's about showing that gold plated contacts don't really oxidise, and hence stand a better chance of producing a better contact. Either with another gold plated contact (PCB test pad, pin etc), or even with a non-gold possibly oxidised contact (e.g. one non-oxidised and one oxidised contact trumps two oxidised contacts)
This is why hard gold contacts are standard practice in all sorts of electronics connectors, PCB edge contacts, signal relay contacts, test pads etc etc. It's basic industry knowledge, yet some people think that it can't apply to multimeter probes as well? Strange.
I would have never guess there was a differences. However, for the home gamer, either would probably be good enough.
what i and i think a lot of others are remarking is that if it really was that important as opposed to just helpful, it would be a standard on everything but the cheapest multimeters out there, i don't think the contacts of the 30usd offering you linked to has anything but plating on it, the accessories are nice and the price is about as cheap as one can expect from something that feels nice to use but lets face it, gold plating your contacts wouldn't be the largest expense in building probes.
perhaps the companies value the durability of nickel over the better contact/oxidation resistance of gold, or perhaps the difference isn't big enough in 99.9% of use cases to make the trade off worth it, not every multimeter is used in a lab setting.
with little to no price difference between either it really shouldn't be much of an issue, i will still look at the general construction, cable quality and accessories before i look at the tip material for any given price range.
You should have tested this with a multimeter that makes a cracling sound when the contact is intermittent (i.e. no pulse extension). Also, a 555 will do nice.
I guess you just showed me why i had so much trouble checking circuits with my Fluke. It's always fine on high energy circuits like checking motors, typical supply voltages, even low voltage PSUs but when i start to measure components or go to a PCB level, i sometimes literally have to make a dent into solder joints to have a contact. Needless to say, putting excessive force on a PCB with a sharp probe can lead to rather annoying slippages !
I need a replacement meter anyway so i'll make sure the new one has gold plated probes, or i'll get them extra !
BTW, if you want to have a go at what is probably the worst meter in terms of battery life, check out mine, the Fluke 233 !!
It has a detachable screen, which is very handy when working on hard to access machines, but this thing goes dead mighty fast! I don't even use it that much but it eats me 5 AA every month.. Hopeless !
@Oodain Yes, I'm not saying that every probe should be gold, but I *prefer* gold probes for electronics use, I find them better. Yes, some companies like Fluke don't offer gold probes, and they would have their reasons for that. Others, like probe specialist Probe Master only offer gold probes.
Use what one is best for your use and requirements and preference.
Also a reason you should not use power relais for small signals - they might not work.
Same for some kind of switches: If you got bad luck, your power switch will not pull down a pin on a µC.
Power relais need a wetting current to burn through the oxidized layer. Gold plating is usually used for small signal relais.
Never too late for some EEVblog! Thanks Dave
Dave,
Absolutely right, been doing this 60 years and the nickel plating is horrible even from Fluke and Keysight, constantly pushing the probe to make contact. It does make a difference, thumbs up!
I enjoyed the video and I think Dave brought the point home. I will be doing a bevy of multimeter videos soon myself, and this same topic was similar to a segment I will also be utilizing. My take is slightly different as you will see in my videos. Bottom line, even a few ten dollar meters can perform exceedingly good continuity results with well made probes and these probes don't always have to cost an arm and leg.
anyone saying this is irrelevant haven't really worked with integrated circuits. or any other sensitive electronics. when I first worked with cars, I never understood the expensive multimeters and so on. later as I'm building my own amplifier I want the best and most accurate there is. because you cant even begin to understand how sensitive some circuits are. thank you for this video! will definitely buy these.
What probes you might use depends on what you are working on. If you are working on clean PCBs with gold probe points, gold makes perfect sense. However, for many uses the non-gold ones work just as fine or better.
Each metal plating type has a certain pressure that it takes to establish electrical contact, worse when surfaces are oxidized or corroded. When probing onto other objects (not just the probes upon themselves) gold may help, but if you are not probing onto a gold plated surface you still need to press hard enough to establish the pressure necessary for an electrical path. Notice I said pressure not force. When you use sharper tips it takes less force to provide the same pressure.
So if you are probing onto solder or other junky surfaces you may want to "save" your gold plated tips from unnecessary wear and use some lesser probes with sharper, harder tips instead. When probing onto non-gold surfaces you may actually get a better result using really sharp steel tips than blunt tipped gold ones. Especially if probing needs to break through flux or other dirt. Just be careful not to damage the components you are probing onto when using really sharp tips.
Just tried this test with my no-name crappy probes that are old as the hills, and they work just as good as your gold ones did in the video. I was using them with a Fluke 179 no problem. Tried the same probes with an Amprobe AM-140-A; still worked fine, but got a buzzing sound at times. I never have understood the value of this test in evaluating meters either. I don't do continuity tests using the sides of my probes. I use the sharp tips!
In meter tests you criticise meters but often it is the probe. Nickel plated probes must be cleaned with metal polish before first use. It makes all the difference.
Dave, I can see that it would really help. I had some issue in the past due to my stupid meter being slow (2 seconds) for continuity test and fast reset (half a second). My probe didn't made a good contact for whatever reason and missed the continuity. I had fun to debug that... To redo the test later on because everything looked fine... And noticing it was indeed fine and noticing the probe issue...
I can't say that it will be a mandatory feature for a meter or probe, but it will surelly be a consideration.
Love Probemaster stuff, all over the workbench. Speaking of probes, my EEVBlog HVP70 arrived here in the U.S. today after some kind of delay in New Zealand (DHL has to transit thru NZ from Australia enroute?) where it was considered dangerous and had to be opened for inspection! Nice note apologizing for the delay...weekend project upcoming, thanks Dave!
Sweet, enjoy.
That is very interesting and practical! I love codes and examples that will take something and do a real world test of them. Thanks Dave!
I think codes was was auto corrected from videos.... sorry about that
How about testing cleaning methods? If it's oxidation, then with IPA remove it or what? as received, might have grease to prevent oxidation, so clean that off with IPA. Also, would be nice to show how it makes a real difference in use other than conductivity.
Could you make a video explaining why the gold probes seem to make better contact? Like get into the chemestry of why? The bounce test just makes me wonder what the big difference is
bdot02 gold won't form insulating oxides under normal circumstances. If you keep your probes clean and shiny, gold plating won't make that huge of a difference in normal multimeter use where pressure and constant motion can displace contaminates, allowing for good contact.
Robert Szasz interesting. I guess the oxygen binds to the free electrons making it more difficult for energy to flow through them. Or something like that. I bet you could electroplate some cheap probes for not that much.
Just checked my 25 year old Fluke probes, no problem the weight of the probe does the job every time ??? Maybe keep probes 'clean' I.E. no grease etc.
The grease is not the problem, actually grease helps to prevent rust formation. Once in a while is good to use a steel wool pad, thats it.
Hi Dave
I know that gold shouldn't react with anything and shouldn't oxidize.
But I had this gold brymen probes for some, and it's not my experience.
After some time they become very unreliable, made weak unstable resistance measurements.
I fixed that by strongly cleaning tips with paper towel soaked in isopropyl alcohol (it was not dust, it required force when cleaned), they were much better after.
They seems to be coated with something over the years, don't know how or why, this is my experience.
I don't want to d**k around, so I never used those probes again.
I haven't experienced anything like this in my older other good quality multimeter probes.
/Darek
Hi Dave, i've never seen you using gold probes in the past - and i've seen a lot of your videos.
When there so much better, why the manufactures for high end multimeters don't deliver these type with their meters? And what about effects in measureing of tiny voltages because of galvanic elements?
Will you use these probes for the future?
I supply gold probes with my BM235 meter. As for lab use, I use whatever is laying around, probes get swapped and moved around and lost etc all the time. But I do prefer gold, I've found then to generally work better.
They are only about 15 dollars, its new information, i'm glad Dave shared it. Not a necessity for the lab but its still something that can make your work a little easier and more enjoyable. The wonderful thing about buying something really nice is you will be proud using it, you will take care of it, and you'll want to do more projects because you know you have gear you've invested in to do so.
I have come across this problem when I had to check many points on a motherboard and needed quick results, going to order some gold probes, will make fault finding easier as you will know the contact with probes is reliable :) cheers Dave
Orrr just you know wash your probe tips sometimes, like the rest of us. After all, you don't really know whether it's surface oxide or finger oils and other sediment that's preventing your probes from working right.
new probes from a new meter, i'm using now, use to wipe probes with an isopropanol wipe.
Dave, I would not believe this phenomenon if I had'nt seen it for myself. Imagine paying $5000 for a meter and low grade probes, just simply defeats the purpose.Congrats on a very practical observation and many an ordinary meter will be thrashed because of it's probes.
Interesting video Dave. After I viewed it I ordered a set of gold plated probes from Probe Master for use with my ESR meter.
This has changed my mind. I have always gone cheap and cheerful with ordinary probes, especially as the wires seem to always break because of badly designed strain relief. Now all those non-responses, and looking for a better spot, turn out not to be an invisible layer of flux or just a quirk, but actually have a reason.
Gold plating on probes would cost pennies - look at all the 10 cent RCA plugs - so why aren't they all gold plated? Dave has done us all a service here and we should keep the pressure on.
Connectors are self-cleaning. When you insert them, there's enough pressure to scrape the metal slightly and clean it up a bit
Yes, we know that. And what is the bearing on this topic?
Those probemaster probes are really nice and surprisingly inexpensive. I need to get me some.
Thanks, Dave! I've had this old Micronta DMM (22-194 for those of us playing along at home!) at least for 30 years and have always been discouraged by the delay for the continuity bell. I always just assumed it was the meter taking its sweet old time.
Based on this review, I ordered me a set of probes from Probe Master.
Yes! I know what you're thinking. I just put a $23 shine on a $10 pair of boots.
You know? They even have banana plugs for old timey meter jacks that won't take the safety shroud. Saves me the time and effort it takes to cut the damn things off.
Anyhoo, when I click the tips together ever so lightly, the continuity bell beeps seemingly in anticipation of contact, it's so quick. I love it! Now I want #GoldEverything!!!
Can you make a video on how you organize and store your probes? I’m dealing with a tangled mess right now
My Fluke 289 didn't come with gold plates probes and it does the continuity testing just as good as the gold plated ones in your test so the multi meter plays a big role in the performance of that test.
Copper being the standard of electrical conductivity at one hundred percent, only silver beats it at one o' five.
Gold comes in at seventy percent, 3rd place.
The mitigating factor is the speed of oxidation on the surface of the material.
Clean your probes and do the test again.
Just tried this with the probes that came with the cheapo Aneng AN8008 and whilst slapping the probes together didn't give good results due to the update rate of the meter it still buzzes with just the weight of the probe. In fact it buzzes no matter how lightly I try and make them touch, even under 40x magnification bringing just the tips together it buzzes as soon as they touch (it doesn't even feel like they're touching and the probe I'm not holding doesn't move at all, only way to tell they are touching is visually).
EDIT: Not saying that gold does or doesn't give a better connection, just that this demonstration doesn't seem to be very accurate. Perhaps there are other factors at play.
Of course there are other factors at play. The gold contacts don't tarish or oxidise, other probes can.
Kieran Check them again one year later and see how much contact is left on the surface. They always work better fresh.
nickel is almost as corrosion resistant as gold, the oxide is also bright green...
Oodain you are talking out of your hat:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactivity_series
how so?
from that table there is only really copper between gold and nickel that isnt a precious metal, a rare earth, liquid or simply too soft to use as a terminal of any kind.
on top of that are you sure that that table actually covers everything?
despite copper being lower on the list nickel has been known to dramatically increase the corrosion and oxidation resistance of copper wire, especially at higher temperatures.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000844339900021X
I have several sets of Probe Master leads... and while I can't vouch for them being 'the worlds best', I can say they're excellent, professional quality products... the only ones I've used in a good while now. Even got a 'special' set for my old time Simpson 260 7M with the goofy inverted banana sockets. Leads for it are hard to find, but PM had them!
I don't understand all of the butthurt. It's not like there's a mini Dave on your shoulder judging your selection of probes.
For myself this was new information and I'm glad you put the time into making the vid. Thanks!
Yeah I could have explained and demoed it better, but I don't understand the butthurt either.
EEVblog Dave, next time lube the probes, guranteed less butthurt.
Shame on those stupid comments. This man has single handedly educated millions of elec engineers and technicians. Dave I will soon visit Sydney just to meet you.
If one moves to gold plated contacts, it would only be logical to have gold plating on the contacts leading into the multimeter, too. Of course if you buy new wires you only swap half of the contact surface right at the base of the multimeter. I've noticed what you describe, it's annoying to see it in a Fluke.
As a model railroader this raises some questions regarding the tracks and wheels my locomotives use. Nickel-silver is the standard metallury used in the tracks, and most of the wheels have high nickel content with some blackening schmoo that wears off in time.
And pickup is an ever-present issue, especially if one runs the scale I run(N) and likes steam. Small steam engines are infamously bitchy because they're very light with very few points of pickup.
I'm wondering if gold plated wheel treads, tacky as it would look, would help them get better pickup even on nickel-silver rails.
I love my gold ProMaster probes! I don't think $17.00 U.S.D. is really all that much. And the accessories that you can buy for them are off the hook!
I have always assumed a gold-silver alloy would be even better for applications like this, but it is so rare to see it used, which is strange to me. I do know gold-silver alloys are commonly used in reed switches for exactly this reason.
Probe master -- superb products and great service.
I'm sure but I don't think it's legal to pay for that here
Is this just due to corrosion? If there's more to it than that, I'd love to know more!
i think your right ! It has to be a metal-oxide layer on those non gold ones
No, that's basically it. Oxidisation.
This is great stuff. 8 dollars on amazon it's almost stupid to not go with gold plated after seeing this. I've never even thought to use gold plated probes. I've been in situations troubleshooting automotive electronics where wires can have corrosion causing intermittent contact with multi-meters and I've always blamed the wires when a good set of gold plated probes probably would have made a big difference!
The difference between gilded and nickeled styli is enormous. This I learned when I bought a multimeter Sanwa 500a - it is completed with gold-plated probes. The resistance of both probes is 0.015Ω. The resistance of "ordinary" probes from cheap multimeters is close to 0.13 Ohm. The difference is 10 times. It's a pity one - that the probes with which Sanwa is made - are thick .. and they are problematic to use on boards with very dense cmd-mounting. We have to use inexpensive thin probes, with Aliexpress .. but they have very soft metal .. quickly break or bend the tips of the needles.
Ideally - probes made of durable material .. for example titanium, with gilding .. but the price they will have ...
(Translated Ru-En by Google )
When i repaired my projector this week, my probes were touching the solder joints but not making electrical contact.
It made me scratch my head for a moment because i was putting considerable force on the probes.
Perhaps i can see whether gold plated probes do a better job in this situation.
Having sharp probes helps a lot here. That pierces the oxide layer. Dull v. sharp makes a bigger difference than gold v. non-gold.
A set of the gold plated probemaster leads like Dave is showing are only $16.90 with free shipping, I bought a pair and they are amazing - ive have had them transform a so - so meters continuity response to very good and in some cases excellent. The improvement varies from meter to meter they wont transform a shit meter, but theyre the best quality probes ive ever handled, gold plated, sharp as a needle, soft supple silicone wire, integrated pliable strain relieved ends on the probe handles, somewhere around 44 inches long and nice fitting jack plugs. Best $16.90 youll ever spend.
You should have tested the probes with a different multimeter as well. I have an Agilent multimeter with a very cheap silver probe, which came with a £20 multimeter from 15 years ago, and the continuity just works fine even when i just rest the probes on top of each other.
With the small contract patch on test probes it will make a difference because of oxidation, but when it comes to things like headphone jacks it is more the psychological effect that people think gold has to be better because it's gold.
Wouldn't the thing your probing still have the same problem? Gold to lead or whatever is being probbed. Wouldn't that cancel it out?
gold makes better contact, so less chance of issues on the probe. you can still have issues on a circuit board solder joint, but you will have less chance of issues using a gold plated probe.
Chiming in as a plater. Gold plating has nickel underneath it. Gold is normally only .00005 inch (half a tenth). Gold plating is extremely thin and easy to wear through. Keep your nickel probes clean and they should serve you fine for a long time.
How thick, om average, is Nickel plate?
NeuronalAxon it depends. But I would say on average .002 to .005. At work for jet turbine repairs we will routinely go .020 to .030 to repair worn holes. (That is an extreme situation though)
I've never had any issues using standard steel probes. They always chirp on the continuity setting very easily. I've never had to force the probes together.
You were lucky. I have to clean TL175 Twistguard before every use. I clean them, take measurements, 15 minutes later I have to clean them again. On the other hand, cheapest chinese probes that came with cheapest chinese multimeter don't have that issue. They've been around for several years, never cleaned them, never had issues. Go figure.
I'd like to see Dave test $5 gold-plated probes vs $20 stainless steel vs $20 gold-plated ones. Is there still an advantage to getting gold-plated if you get the bargain-basement cheapo ones, or do you have to shell out for (reasonably) expensive ones to get a benefit?
Dave, touching two probes is not what maters for continuity testing. Most of the time we will probe on copper, solder alloy surfaces or other metals. Gold probes will probably still perform better in such situations, but only tests will tell!
...and results might be different according to polarity ?
I work on buses, ie, hostile greasy conditions so gold plated probes definitely do make a difference. I've actually been caught out a couple of times as well with normal probes.
Great point I wonder how much difference it would show on a scope with signals if so?
Take any cheap/crappy non-gold leads and give them a good rub down with an ink eraser (those blue or grey ones). Then finish it off with an alcohol wipe.
Guaranteed they'll now perform just as well as any gold-tipped leads on continuity.
My concern with the gold-plated probes would be the gold wearing off the tip. If you are always pushing the tip into solder joints to break through the oxide layer of the solder, wouldn't the gold plating wear off pretty quickly?
Do you have gold plated cable connectors? I do, and the only ones that wear through the gold are those that have seen many thousands of mating cycles. If you are making many thousands of measurements with your probes, why wouldn't you have good quality probes? Clearly, at that point you are either a professional or are passionate about electronics. MSRP for the basic Probe Master probes is less than 17 US dollars. And for the price, you get better construction, better shielding, more comfortable grips, and less stiff cables.
I didn't realise those Probe Master probes were so cheap! I can't seem to find them in the UK but I might try to get a few sets from the US.
What is the 'thermocouple' difference when measuring very small voltages?
I see in the background you have a black and decka shop box. I got 1 about 25 years ago and it was a mission, "they only released them as a 1 off promotion " (supposedly)
Your 1 looks quite new.
Where did you get it?
I'm in NZ so I should be able to get it from your source if it's current and in AUS.
Thanks
Russ
I never thought much about probes over the years until I got a high priced dmm that had very bad probes. I bought Fluke TL 175 probes for about 35 EURO and it worked much better with them. Because I was curious when I first heard about probemaster probes I bought a set and was really surprised about how much better they are than the more expensive Fluke TL 175. With the EEVBlog Brymen 235 I got the gold plated Brymen probes and could compare these with the gold plated probemaster and several other non gold plated probes I have after about 35 years of electronic work. I will never ever buy non gold plated probes and I always replace non gold plated probes. It's a big difference in daily work and I especially love the probemaster probes. Quality compared they are really cheap.
at work (im an electrician) i use the brymen included ones for troubleshooting machines and at home for my small electrical stuff/tinkering with electronics i got myself a pair of probemasters
I agree when the probes are new. But what counts is the extremity of the tip. What thickness of gold there is here. The gold is very fragile and in my opinion, after a month, it's over. Is this investment really necessary?
Is this the new EEVBlog multimeter? Really curious. When will there be a video about it?
The main lesson I take from this is that it is really easy to get hung up on stuff that just doesn't matter and won't ever be a problem. Still, gotta push those Davemeters. (Amazingly, I can't duplicate this issue on my Fluke, even with probes that haven't been used for a couple of years)
To people buying cheap Chinese probes: I'm sure the nice soft and thin gold plating won't wear off the pointy tips in the first few dozen tests or anything... Any chance you could use one of those nice microscopes you have and do some wear tests Dave? Depending on the plating substrate, it is possible that after the plating has worn from the tip, gold plated probes could make worse contact than "ordinary" ones.
Well, I might have done more testing, but by saying I'm just pushing meters, why should I bother?, I'll just move on.
I've got probes that work exactly like Dave's and aren't gold plated. They aren't even branded.
Their tips are thinner though, they're advertised as 'needle probes' suitable for micro components (which is what I use them for).
I also have the less sensitive probes, same brand as Dave's it apparently. Looking at both under the microscope I assumed that what made the needle probes better is how smoother and more regular their surface is when compared with the regular ones (at the microscopic level).
Its also true for audio jack. Practically every single professional audio jack is golden, the so-so are silver, and the mediocre ones are with a plastic ring.
not only is a good contact and a sharp, clean probe far more important then any thin oxide layer -also realistically in a circuit you will be measuring a surface that has oxide or maybe some dirt on it very often, so you need pressure regardless.
Gold also makes the continuity beep sound warmer and richer.
What's the point of a gold plated probe when most of the time checking soldering covered with dirt?
I've done some brush plating with both silver and gold. I realize that this method results in a plating that is only a few atoms thick but it would be interesting if Dave can compare the usefulness of this thin plating relative to nothing or a thicker plating.
What about 24 k solid wire probes ?
They'd be expensive, heavy and would bend or compress easily when you use them. But at least they don't react with normal substances.
Oskar Skog They would also have greater resistance per foot of test lead unless you also increased the cross section of the test lead wires to compensate, thus making the leads even heavier still. Gold's great strength is its resistance to surface oxidation (mercury also fits this bill) versus most other metal choices thus greatly reducing contact resistances, but gold itself has more resistance than a copper or silver conductor so it is not the best choice for a wire conductor of any significant length, even if costs are not a concern.
Why are you talking to me?
Mercury would dissolve most metals it came into contact with , I have Gold and silver wire laying around and was just wondering
Fake News, mercury tends to amalgamate (form a solid solution with) with noble metals like gold and silver but it won't do that with iron or nickel or aluminum. So saying mercury dissolves most metals is far from accurate. Aqua Regia (nitric and hydrochloric acid mixed together) will corrode most metals but not all. It doesn't really dissolves them because if you evaporate the liquid you have metals salts, like gold nitrate and gold chloride left not metallic gold.
I love Probe Master test probes. Tried their oscilloscope leads and they are great as well. One of the products were "Made in America" really means something...
Just tried laying the probes on my meters down barely touching and the continuity buzzer went off and they showed zero on all ten that I tried with not one gold plated probe among them. what I have done in the past is when I got them I cleaned the probe with scotchbrite pad and IPA to remove any traces of die lube that will be left on them.
I have this BM235. Such a nice meter and the probes... don't get me started ;)
Hope I can add the 121GW to my gear soon ^^
Funnily enough, I have one of those cheap $10 meters and a more expensive holdpeak, the probes that came with the $10 meter are kinda crap but they make good contact kinda like the third set that was shown in the video, while probes from the HP are slightly better made they make about as good of contact as those fluke probes, so I was rather surprised by how much better the continuity was with the cheaper probes.
This is hardly a fair demonstration, because in the real world I'm not often measuring two probes together. And the stuff I'm contacting with my probes is seldom gold plated.
Dave, when do you ever in a real test scenario do probe to probe continuity test?
As long as the board one is working on isn't gold plated, you are going to have the same problems as non gold probes.
Thanks for the info man! This is the first time I've learned the difference between the two. Thanks again, great video.
The gravity test does not seem fair for me because the probemaster has a little more weight and has more flexible cable than flukes tl75, so they will press harder against the lower probe, right?
I wonder if a gold plated probes make a real difference, then why reputable manufacturers like Fluke does not provide such probes (even as an option) with their high-end Multimeters like the Fluke 289/287 series?
Thanks
Probably to save money $$$
Because they do? Fluke TL910 probes are gold tipped.
Fluke seems to divide the world between electricians and electronics. And probes for electronics are gold tipped. Electricians get nickel alloy. And I guess once the nickel is heavily oxidized, and you don't think to use sandpaper to remove the outer layer, you should just buy new ones.
Sex on a stick? Never heard of that before, but damn did I laugh at it! XD
Only 24K gold will not tarnish and won't react with anything. The coating on the probes would be at best 14K, and they will tarnish and react with stuff in time because of the impurities.
sometimes probes are not gold plated, rather a gold alloy. saw it by an accidental short between two meters measuring Hz on mains voltage. Melted the whole tip of my probes
Suggestion for next eevblog: How to DIY gold plate your probes.
What about gold plating regular ones? Will that make them just as good?
Likely so. It's a bit harder to control the thickness of the gold plating, though. You want to balance between a thick but durable plating (expensive) and a thin but inexpensive plating (easily wears off).
Clean the old fluke probes with fine sand paper (2000 grit) then wipe with kitchen roll soaked in isopropyl alcohol. They will probably work just as well as the gold plated ones.
seems to me that your plating will wear off in NO TIME ... given that we tend to keep these in firm contact with other metals and move them around... effectively grinding off the coating...
Gold has been used for electrical contacts for decades. A hard gold alloy is used. It doesn't have to be pure gold to reduce the impact of oxidization.
Clean those probes with some 000 steel wool. :-)
electronicsNmore Not a good long term solution though as you will only wear away the nickel plating over time and you will eventually be left with the steel core (far worse conductivity and much greater corrosion tendency). That and the steel wool will leave behind a lot of very fine scratches that only help to further accelerate the collection of dirt and debris (not to mention the fine bits of steel swarf left behind to corrode within the scratches). So while it may help with a single measurement instance, in time one will soon need to replace their probes to maintain the result since you can't indefinitely clean them with steel wool since each cleaning further degrades the condition of the probes.
I guess you don't realize the grade of steel wool I'm talking about. 000 or 0000 is extremely fine. You would have to use it daily in order to wear away the plating, and if you wipe the probe with a rag after using the steel wool, you won't leave any behind to rust. You're not creating any deep scratches. I've done this on and off for years and never had any issues. I'd rather have the higher conductivity brass under the nickel anyway.
B careful with steel wool use on various metals. Sometimes little bits of steel wool get embedded and rust, which can cause more trouble than original dirty leads. But regardless of cleaning method, it would be interesting to see if probe age and surface finish has much to do with it.
I would rather use toothpaste and a soft sponge
+ everyone has toothpaste at home
Can you buy fluke probes and gold plate them yourself and get same results?
thing is, you need gold plating on both sides of probes plus on the multimeter too to see the benefits.
for 20% price you can get 80% usability. always.
second gold probes proved it.
question: with limited budget - is better to get gold plater probes with cheaper multimeter or regular probes with better multimeter?
So this means we should only buy audio cables with gold plating too? 😉 Yeah, already answered in EEVblog #29. Heh, you still look about the same, maybe happier, but your workspaces are _much_ neater now; better camera gear makes a huge difference too.
Thanks, Dave.
Hmmzz.. interesting point.
Firstly, no it doesn't make that much of a difference in multi-meter probes, but there certainly is a bit of a benefit there. Secondly, gold plating is dirt cheap and no it doesn't wear off in any reasonable time frame like some here suggest, industrial test contacts will last for hundreds of thousands of mating cycles and almost all are gold plated. For RF probing virtually all contacts are gold plated.
Gold plating is pretty much the go-to plating for most contact surfaces, its cheap and works really well. So yeah, that does raise a question, why are multi-meter probes an exception?
Fluke probably don't use gold probes because gold is not the best choice for high power high current electrical use.
That's why you don't find gold contacts on high power switches or relays for example, only signal level relays use gold plating.
Good point, give it a bit of a spark and gold plating vaporizes. That's a solid reason not to use it for generic probes. Not that steel doesn't vaporize just the same, but if you have solid contact with same material all the way through then it doesn't leave same kind of mark as on a plated contact.
i have a question was this a sponsored video you did not mention??
i have used Keystone great bench meters, i am concerned about the non proprietary OS, windows, and i OWN a fluke Scope meter 123/c and a 192-204, the 123 is 5 years old, the 192 is a year old, they are a non issue with the original probes, nor the 26 year old Fluke 11 with original probes, none of which are gold plated
in the field ill stake my life on Fluke, but Keystone i have yet to see one on a transmitter site and contrary to your words, which i really enjoy your videos, but under the right circumstances Gold can catalyze
No this video was not sponsored. I have never done a sponsored video ever.
EEVblog thank you for your honesty
Yeah I totally get the difference with the old ones, but this wasn't a good test by any means. In theory it's better, in practice this doesn't show it would be. The very expensive gold plated ones at the end seemed to be almost as "problematic" as the newer non-gold plated ones. You need proper measurements I guess.
intermittent lead contact can really hamper troubleshooting an intermittent problem. False non-continuity can mislead you too. If you can afford them they are strongly advised. If you cannot then you must use repetitive testing for assurance or take the hit on troubleshooting time. And relax...
Dave, did you clean the Fluke probes before this video?
My probe is now gold plated, due to an unfortunate smelting indecent.
how often do you use the stems and not just the sharp tips where you wouldn't use clips or hooks?
Hmm. Not entirely persuaded that the testing methodology is sound here. When you know which probes you are testing and that you have a point to make, well, even the most honest experimenter is capable of deceiving themselves with slight subconscious differences in muscle movements, swiping strategies etc.. You really need to do this double-blind, so you can't see what you're banging together. Not that I'm claiming there would be no difference in the results (I am pretty sure there would be) but only that it would be a more convincing test.
What brand of multimeter do you have in this video? Looks like a quality meter.
Nothing against gold plating, but I gotta say that the AU plating is so THIN that it won't be on there for long. And especially on the probe tip where it gets most use.
One thing you didn't account for was the probe weight itself, but the results were still pretty clearly in favor of gold. I like firmer numbers than this but that's me.
The weight doesn't really matter much, the point is it's clear that the gold has zero contact issues, and the silver can be pretty horrible. They are all quite similar.
I wouldn't say it's clear the gold had 0 contact issues, on the last pair it quite clearly missed a few. There was also a large difference between the old fluke probes and the agilent.
animefreak5757 no one said there were no issues, gold is however definitely better. Contact bounce and resistance is a fact of life there is no avoiding it completely.
I quote " it's clear that the gold has ZERO contact issues, and the silver can be pretty horrible. They are all quite similar."
How about some tungsten carbide tipped probes plated with platinum.
Staying with the analogy, should I use gold plated audio connects?
Definitely. Also use gold plated USB connectors. They really do make superior contact.
Gold is so soft, the tips will wear quickly removing the thin plating. But still way better than nickel plated probes