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Spent $250 on a fancy multimeter before I finally figured out the cheap one was giving me false readings on compressor windings
Been chasing a no-start on a fridge for two days, swapped the relay and capacitor twice, then borrowed a Fluke from a buddy and saw the real resistance numbers - has anyone else had a cheap meter straight up lie to them?
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the_harper1mo ago
Yeah that cheap meter got me good on a walk-in freezer once. Showed 3 ohms across the start winding when it was really open. Wasted a whole afternoon swapping a perfectly good start relay before I borrowed a buddy's Fluke and saw the truth. You don't need to drop $250 but stay away from the $15 Amazon specials. A decent $50-$60 meter from Klein or an older used Fluke off eBay will save you way more in headache than it costs.
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bennett.evan1mo ago
Same exact thing tripped me up on a compressor last year - thought I had a bad run cap but the cheap meter was just giving me random numbers. You really feel like an idiot after swapping parts that were fine the whole time. Point is, a twenty dollar meter is fine for checking if a wall outlet is live, but for this kind of troubleshooting you need something that reads consistent.
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