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PSA: I tried using a $15 multimeter from Harbor Freight on a tricky fridge compressor and got a false reading
The compressor on a 5-year-old Whirlpool was short cycling, and my usual Fluke was in the truck, so I grabbed the cheap meter from my bag to check the windings. It showed an open circuit, but when I swapped to the good meter, it read a solid 12 ohms, meaning the compressor was actually fine and the problem was the overload. Has anyone else had a specific job where a budget tool gave you bad data that almost sent you down the wrong path?
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wyattrobinson1d ago
Harbor Freight meters are basically fancy placebo devices. They give you the confidence to be completely wrong. You almost condemned a good compressor because a toy told you to. That's the tax for not walking back to the truck.
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sageross1d ago
Fancy placebo devices" is a perfect way to put it. I heard a guy call them "confidence meters" once, which seems about right.
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