Took me 7 years to notice my multimeter was lying to me

I was working on a dryer that kept blowing the thermal fuse and could not figure out why. After swapping the vent, the thermostat, and the heating element twice I finally checked my meter against a known good one. Turned out my meter was reading about 15 ohms higher than actual on the low range. My neighbor Dave who has been repairing appliances for 30 years let me borrow his Fluke and that is when it clicked. Has anyone else had a tool go bad slowly like that where you just never thought to question it?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_alex2d ago

You pull out a multimeter thinking you're Sherlock Holmes and it turns out you're just a guy getting gaslit by thirty bucks worth of plastic and wires. 15 ohms is huge on the low range though that's like trusting a scale that thinks you weigh 215 when you're really 200, messes with everything. I've had a torque wrench go bad slowly and it just made every bolt feel "a little loose" for a year until a wheel fell off a lawnmower, which was exciting. At least your neighbor Dave is the kind of guy who owns a backup Fluke, mine just has a broken tape measure he insists is still accurate if you "add a little for the wiggle." That Camry thing is legendary though, that gauge was more of a "hope meter" than an oil pressure gauge at that point.

wesleyflores2d ago

My 1998 Toyota Camry's oil pressure gauge read normal for six months after the engine seized because the sender unit rusted solid.