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c/appliance-repairers•emerym36emerym36•1mo ago

Found out my multimeter was lying to me for 6 months

I was chasing a weird voltage reading on a washing machine drain pump last week. Kept getting 90 volts when I expected 120. Swapped the pump, same thing. I ran through my checks three times before I got frustrated and tested my multimeter on a known outlet. Turns out my leads had a cracked insulation near the probe that was causing intermittent resistance. The meter was showing 30 volts low because of it. I found the crack by accident when I flexed the wire while testing. That little detail cost me half a day and an unnecessary part. Has anyone else had a tool fail on them in a way that wasted serious time?
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3 Comments
quinna89
quinna891mo ago
Did you at least save the old pump or was it already in the trash? I once spent three hours trying to figure out why my drill wouldn't reverse, only to realize it was user error because I'm an idiot who can't read a switch label.
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hall.joel
hall.joel1mo ago
Yeah but an old pump is an old pump, not exactly something to lose sleep over...
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spencer981
spencer9811mo ago
Cracked insulation? On both leads? That's brutal, man.
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