Fluke for electrical engineers students(5 key tips)
Using Fluke for electrical engineers students reflects many questions around.
So many students are hesitating between using fluke and other options. Fluke is known for its high quality but the price is not encouraging.
So does Fulke is worth investing in electrical engineers classes or investing in less expensive tools is enough to cover needs?
what are the advantages of using fluke and others multimeters?
So in this article, we’re going to know what is the best choice for electrical engineer students. Also warning you to avoid some harmful tools.
Is worth buying Fluk as an electrical engineer?
Having a multimeter-like flux is a great choice for electrical engineering students who seek high-quality work. Is a tool that will last for students during their formation phase. Even more many electrical graduates students use it after graduation in their personal projects or activities.
For this reason, Fluk is widely used by many people who are interesting in quality and life span.
Why multimeter is important for students
In their first years of engineering studies, students will evaluate their basics in electronics and electricity. As a result, they will create electrical and electronics circuits in which multimeters are needed for use.
Students will use multimeters to check voltages, currents, test the continuity of circuits, measure the resistor values, and so on.
Fluke is differentiated by
This characteristic is not available in cheap multimeters. Even is it so, the measured values are not exact and could be misleading in some activities.
What is great about fluke and high-range multimeters is the ability to measure capacitance. In other words, reading the values of the capacitors and checking them if they are good or broken.
It is necessary to buy Fluk as an electrical engineer
It doesn’t mean that students should look for expensive multimeters like Fulke or anything else. There are plenty of multimeters in the market that are enough for electrical engineering students. They are good and meet the needs.
But for people who seek exactitudes like high-quality reading and resistance Fluke is a good example.
So investing in Fluke is worth it. But for a limited budget, many alternatives in the market are doing good jobs that students could invest and use in their classes.
The need of using multimiters in EE classes
Multimeters are so important and primordial for engineering students. Having fluke or any other useful multimeter is indispensable and you can work without it.
But many electrical engineering students don’t know where they will use multimeters. So, we will list the 4 essential activities that require multimeter and beginners start from.
Measure current and voltage
Measuring current and voltage are the first basics that students learn. So, for new students or freshmen, this is the first step for electrical engineering. In other words, first of all, you need to understand how to use a multimeter to measure voltage and current.
Using fluke for electrical engineer students or a $10 multimeter, in this case, will not create any difference. all multimeters for cheapest till expensive could do the job.
The only thing to notice is cheaper multimeters clips get consumed quickly than high-quality multimeters like Fluk. But engineer students would not use massively multimeter to have this problem.
Check continuity of circuits
The second thing that electrical engineer students learn is to check continuity. To clarify, checking continuity is finding the connection between two points. Electrical engineers do that to check if wires are broken.
Measuring continuity is famous by electrical engineers, in the majority time they use it to detect and troubleshoot electrical and electronics issues.
Using Fluke to detect or verify continuity is like using a cheap multimeter in different situations. Fluke doesn’t create any difference between others multimeters to measure continuity.
Therefore electrical engineers students could use any range of multimeters to measure continuity and check their electrical or electronics circuits.
Measure resistances and capacitances
Measuring resistance and capacitance, this part is more focused on the electronics field. So to build a circuit, an electrical engineer student must be aware of the right values to use in his circuits.
Normally, resistors and capacitors have indicated codes that allow users to read their values.
resistors have color codes.
capacitor have number values and sometimes codes.
In this video, you could see how resistors and capacitors are read without any multimeter.
But the majority of students suck at this code and prefer sometimes to use multimeters to detect their value.
Using Flux in this case creates a difference in reading qualities. For instance, if the resistor value is 480ohm, With Fluk you will get 482ohm Whereas 490ohm with a cheap multimeter and the same thing for capacitors.
10hom range is not that much important in doing electronics or electricity in college. So it is not worth investing a $150 to 250$ dollar multimeter for this task.
Checking semiconductors
Checking semiconductors is verifying the state of diodes, transistors, and other components based on this technology.
Basically, for an electrical engineer student, using multimeters like Fluk or any else model is to measure diodes and LEDs to detect if they are good or broken. This step doesn’t require something special to use expensive models.
Electrical engineers could use any model to measure semiconductor objects and evaluate their state. You could watch this video below explaining to measure transistors.
What are the difference that fluke could create for EE student?
Fluke doesn’t create a big difference in electrical engineer students. But if we talk about electrical engineer employees that make big differences.
For students who don’t matter to spend money for high-quality multimeter such as a Fluke we can note some 3 little differences that Fulke could add:
Durable multimeter
Fluke for electrical engineers students could be used as a multimeter for its durability and resistance. So many people change many times their multimeter. But Fluke users don’t do that. You can have one and could last for the next 20 years without making any problem.
Some people affirm that Fluke lasted with them for more than 20 years and 30 as adam savage said.
Accurate measurements
If you are a guy who loves having accurate measurements regarding its necessity or not, Fluke is known by that. So you could confidently get accurate like a resistor, voltage, and currents measurements.
Many electronics applications need accuracy where Fluke can excel. But in these cases, engineers are using oscilloscopes that have better characteristics than multimeters.
Protection aspect
This is the most useful part to using Fluke for electrical engineers students that might be beneficial. As a beginner, you might make the mistake of choosing the wrong measuring positioning. In other words, instated of putting a multimeter in Mesure of 230V you put it for continuity test.
This action blows up the all multimeters that don’t have the protection feature. So the Fluke does. Thus electrical engineers students will be comfortable with Fluke. Therefore not worry anymore to make calibration mistakes that could damage his multimeter.
Fluke 177 for electrical engineer students
For an electrical engineer student spending $200 on a multimeter, using the 177 Fluke version for electrical engineers students doesn’t have any need or sense. Except for people who are planning to use for next personal projects or doing parallel business like home installations, etc
For these kinds of students, it could be reasonable. But measuring resistance and 110v or 12 voltage doesn’t need that much.
Many people say that fluke 177 doesn’t support mA and µA Measurement, which are used in electronics. Fluke 177 could measure up to 1mA current intensity which is more than enough for electronics except in some rare cases.
for electrical engineer students, Fluke will be more of a brand that adds significant value to education environments.
Fluk is worth paying for electricity jobs due to his ability to deal in noisy environments like manufacturing. Also, it is known for its low impedance capacity to measure or check long cables such as in-home installations or big surfaces.
Conclusion
For electrical engineers who have the budget and are ready to invest in these components. Is wise to opt for oscilloscopes and other electronics useful devices like frequency generators and so many other stuff than investing $200 in one single device.
But luckily Fluk has made a 50$ version which is the cheapest one. But personally, I don’t recommend it because it doesn’t allow you to measure current. you could watch this video below.
This device is made for users who love to check circuits. In other words superficial projects that don’t need specific details. So to sum up is too basic for an electrical engineer student to use.
whereas a group of various products is available in the market with the same price.
The second thing that I would recommend for electrical engineer students is to have an oscilloscope for only and under $200. which is a more efficient investment.
Also investing in other kits that help them to learn such as electrical engineering kits that help learn programming and electronics.
