Test Equipment Anonymous

FlukeFriday (E18) 867 and 867B Graphical Multimeter :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmq5EBhbmKQ

In the queue for when I'm not up to my wingspurs in "family matters".

Looks like you were able to resurrect both, at least to certain definitions of the word... Bravo!

mnem

It is Friday and Fluke Friday, Episode 19 and we have a look at the 1900A Series Frequency Counter
In that time Fluke still made these in the USA, nowadays the PM66xx series come from Sweden from the old Philips/Pendulum factory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV2PyPuq9gA

I'm assuming the 1912A is an upgrade to the 1911A.



And let's not forget the fugly 7260A

That 7260A has definitely been beaten severely with the "ugly stick"!

Its Friday, not just any, its Fluke Friday
It has been a while, This time a found a Fluke 81438

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz5ynDDLS8M

It's 22:32 local time so if I type quickly, I'll be able to sneak in some Fluke Friday right under the deadline...



The correct carrying case is always a good place to start. Typically, it's a multimeter inside but this Friday, it's actually something else.





I picked this Fluke 52 two channel J/K thermometer up late last night on the way home from work from a gentleman who is downsizing his tools.





I brought it into work this afternoon along with my Agilent U1461 insulation tester since it has a thermocouple kit which would give me a second K type and a second meter to test the Fluke 52 and the thermocouple that was included with it against. They're a bit off, but if you're using an insulation tester to measure temperature, you do have to accept that you're using it for a function well outside of what it was intended for.





Both K types on the Fluke agreed closely with each other. One of the limitations of the Fluke 52 that's mentioned in the manual is that both thermocouples have to be of the same type. You can't use one J and one K at the same time. The manual also says that it doesn't read both thermocouples simultaneously which leads me to suspect that what they've done is time division multiplexed the two inputs into shared measurement circuitry. I'm inclined to believe the temperature on the Fluke a bit more than what the Agilent was showing because this room is quite warm. And that's a very fast, very unexpected Fluke Friday.

I have the 51. (one channel, same PCB as the 52; there are lots of unused pads on it) It is a very nice cooking utensil
I'm constantly trying to find more probes for it, especially food-related ones. I've found you can get good results with Chinesium furnace dip-style elements, just fit the appropriate connector (got a pack of really nice ones from some German industrial surplus house) and push it into the steak.

mansaxel wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2023 8:21 am I have the 51. (one channel, same PCB as the 52; there are lots of unused pads on it) It is a very nice cooking utensil
I'm constantly trying to find more probes for it, especially food-related ones. I've found you can get good results with Chinesium furnace dip-style elements, just fit the appropriate connector (got a pack of really nice ones from some German industrial surplus house) and push it into the steak.

Cool! I was kind of wondering if Fluke used the same board between both models. I was thinking about the possibilities of using it as a cooking tool since it does have the two input channels which is perfect for measuring a food temperature and an oven ambient temperature. I already do this with a Weber iGrill:



In this case, I have an air probe watching the smoker's temperature. If it was a larger piece of meat like a pork shoulder or a beef brisket, I'd have a meat probe logging the internal temperature of the food. I haven't found anything suitable for this with the Fluke 52 yet although I did clear out the last two K type thermocouples at the local electronics brick and mortar store last week. I need to spend some time doing some digging around online for some food and oven safe thermocouples for use with it, along with some other ones suitable for some task specific ideas I've had in mind.

Given the cost of a DECENT probe for any decent meter, and the fact they don't come with the proper armored needle tip to protect from cooking mess, I generally just gave up on this whole venture and use a couple of cheap & cheerful digital thermometers off slAmazon.

You can often find a good, highly rated one with remote sensor and temp alarm for less than $15... and honestly, sub-digit accuracy is not really needed here. Hell, within a percent or two of scale is plenty.

What is important to find is the thinnest probe possible, preferably with a needle tip like these. The extra-thin needle tip limits thermal conduction from the exposed part of the thermometer, and you always want the body of the probe to be as thin as possible, to prevent your meat from oozing blood around the probe and making a nasty congealed-blood mess right in the middle of the yummy browned skin.

I'm just... really leery of having my very expensive meter out anywhere near my plastic-meltingly hot grill or oven... Uncle BumbleButt would much rather risk a single-purpose device he can replace entire for the cost of lunch.

mnem
Dual probe with 150m range-$25 https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Thermom ... 08VH6ZVF5/

Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:24 am Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

I do that when roasting fowl; a crude metal thermometer is sufficient.

I might if barbecuing ground up meat for other people, to reduce the chances of a nice Maillard reaction surrounding undead bacteria.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:24 am Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

Nor me.

I had friends who bought a house with a very expensive oven installed, which included its own temperature probe. They thought it was great for cooking joints of meat, but when it broke they didn't replace it.

As for minced meat, Doner Kebab places are notorious for attracting the interest of public health inspectors. When I've had Doner Kebab, they've usually cut some off the column and cooked it separately for a minute or two. Doner Kebab is not one of my favourites. I've always thought it a bi suspect.

One of the few times I've used the temperature probe which came with a multimeter, was to check whether an oven was getting to the temperature shown by the control. It was, plus or minus a few degrees C.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 11:29 am

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:24 am Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

Nor me.

I had friends who bought a house with a very expensive oven installed, which included its own temperature probe. They thought it was great for cooking joints of meat, but when it broke they didn't replace it.

As for minced meat, Doner Kebab places are notorious for attracting the interest of public health inspectors. When I've had Doner Kebab, they've usually cut some off the column and cooked it separately for a minute or two. Doner Kebab is not one of my favourites. I've always thought it a bi suspect.

One of the few times I've used the temperature probe which came with a multimeter, was to check whether an oven was getting to the temperature shown by the control. It was, plus or minus a few degrees C.

None of that surprises me. Oven temperature varies vertically, but presumably these new-fangled fan ovens reduce that.

My main use for thermometer when cooking fowl is to check the temperature of the ground pork stuffing is OK. (i.e. chipolatas plus chestnuts). I do like a good well-hung pheasant, but blue/green flesh is a bit too much.

I used to like doner kebabs, but that was mainly from a decent local shop 40 years ago. In the nearby city there was, 30 years ago, a price war between Indian takeaways; that put me off for a long time (because 50 years ago an Indian was "done" after people reported a large number of cat food tins in their rubbish bins!).

Nowadays I more or less refuse to eat at places with a food hygiene rating of 3/5 or lower. Daughter knows what's required to get 0,1,2, and knows the amount of paperwork required to get from 4/5 to 5/5 In Wales the rating has to be visibly displayed, but stupidly there is no such requirement in England.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:31 am

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:24 am Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

I do that when roasting fowl; a crude metal thermometer is sufficient.

I might if barbecuing ground up meat for other people, to reduce the chances of a nice Maillard reaction surrounding undead bacteria.

I have never poisoned anyone. The trick is to know what you are doing before doing it. Practical Cookery (I have 10th edition) has a nice table of times for meats and instructions on how to cook them properly with alternative methods of checking if they are done. Usually skewering it and checking the colour of the juice is sufficient to determine the state of it.

Of course you need to know if your oven is relatively accurate or not. I have an oven thermometer for that! I have to take 10oC off the actual temperature.

As for barbecuing, if that was the case, temperature is too high. My father was good at that. Would put sausages on too early and we'd get smoked sausages with liquid insides. Yum.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 11:29 am

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:24 am Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

Nor me.

I had friends who bought a house with a very expensive oven installed, which included its own temperature probe. They thought it was great for cooking joints of meat, but when it broke they didn't replace it.

As for minced meat, Doner Kebab places are notorious for attracting the interest of public health inspectors. When I've had Doner Kebab, they've usually cut some off the column and cooked it separately for a minute or two. Doner Kebab is not one of my favourites. I've always thought it a bi suspect.

One of the few times I've used the temperature probe which came with a multimeter, was to check whether an oven was getting to the temperature shown by the control. It was, plus or minus a few degrees C.

Doner Kebabs are something I stopped eating years ago. Ignoring the risks, they're just too bloody fatty for me.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 3:29 pm Nowadays I more or less refuse to eat at places with a food hygiene rating of 3/5 or lower. Daughter knows what's required to get 0,1,2, and knows the amount of paperwork required to get from 4/5 to 5/5 In Wales the rating has to be visibly displayed, but stupidly there is no such requirement in England.

How easy it is to get a top rating probably depends on what sort of establishment it is. A butchers which draws and dresses poultry (salmonella risk), sells raw meat and sells cooked meat (meat pies, pork pies etc) is going to have to follow a very strict regime with different knives for each product etc. When there was a local butcher here, they were always cleaning and logging when they cleaned.

If you buy a steak in a pub, there's supposed to be an audit trail going back to the slaughterhouse detailing the temperature record, who handled it and so on, every step of the way. So if there was an incident of food poisoning, it should be easy to trace the origin.

A vegetarian restaurant wouldn't have anything like the same problems.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 4:56 pm As for barbecuing, if that was the case, temperature is too high. My father was good at that. Would put sausages on too early and we'd get smoked sausages with liquid insides. Yum.

It reminds me of "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell. He was starving and only had a small coin, probably 3d. There was a hot dog stall and the smell was too much to resist so he spent his coin. When he took a bite of the hotdog, the sausage burst like an abscess in his mouth. It was disgusting and even though he was starving, he couldn't eat it and threw it away.

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 4:56 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:31 am

bd139 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 10:24 am Don't think I've ever measured the internal temperature of any meat I'm cooking.

I do that when roasting fowl; a crude metal thermometer is sufficient.

I might if barbecuing ground up meat for other people, to reduce the chances of a nice Maillard reaction surrounding undead bacteria.

I have never poisoned anyone. The trick is to know what you are doing before doing it. Practical Cookery (I have 10th edition) has a nice table of times for meats and instructions on how to cook them properly with alternative methods of checking if they are done. Usually skewering it and checking the colour of the juice is sufficient to determine the state of it.

Of course you need to know if your oven is relatively accurate or not. I have an oven thermometer for that! I have to take 10oC off the actual temperature.

As for barbecuing, if that was the case, temperature is too high. My father was good at that. Would put sausages on too early and we'd get smoked sausages with liquid insides. Yum.

I've only poisoned myself. Once was with oysters from Harrods food hall. Another was with shaggy parasol at the bottom of my garden. I'd eaten them before without problem, so my best guess is the problem stemmed from the nearby laurel, which is poisonous.

But I know i don't know how to barbecue

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 7:33 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 3:29 pm Nowadays I more or less refuse to eat at places with a food hygiene rating of 3/5 or lower. Daughter knows what's required to get 0,1,2, and knows the amount of paperwork required to get from 4/5 to 5/5 In Wales the rating has to be visibly displayed, but stupidly there is no such requirement in England.

How easy it is to get a top rating probably depends on what sort of establishment it is. A butchers which draws and dresses poultry (salmonella risk), sells raw meat and sells cooked meat (meat pies, pork pies etc) is going to have to follow a very strict regime with different knives for each product etc. When there was a local butcher here, they were always cleaning and logging when they cleaned.

If you buy a steak in a pub, there's supposed to be an audit trail going back to the slaughterhouse detailing the temperature record, who handled it and so on, every step of the way. So if there was an incident of food poisoning, it should be easy to trace the origin.

A vegetarian restaurant wouldn't have anything like the same problems.

Yes and no.

What you are doing does have an impact on the assessment. My daughter would have had a lot deeper scrutiny of she had been using (raw) egg yolks in custard ice cream. OTOH ice cream is a high risk food in the sense that bad ingredients could be frozen and eaten without cooking.

The paperwork for the traceability is the same for all foodstufs.

Vegetarian food can be just as dangerous; consider salads left around too long, or slow cooked kidney beans, or that button amanita phalloides looks like button mushrooms or straw mushrooms, or the preparation required for bitter cassava (to wash out the cyanide), or... Basically fruit and veg can kill you in far more interesting ways than meat and flesh

mnem
no further comment.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 9:33 pm Vegetarian food can be just as dangerous; consider salads left around too long, or slow cooked kidney beans, or that button amanita phalloides looks like button mushrooms or straw mushrooms, or the preparation required for bitter cassava (to wash out the cyanide), or... Basically fruit and veg can kill you in far more interesting ways than meat and flesh

Yes but these are food preparation problems rather than microbial contamination, which is what I'd normally consider hygiene to be about.

In Japan they are very fond of puffer fish, which has to be prepared by licensed cooks trained to remove the poison glands. Even so there are a few fatalities every year. I wouldn't consider being poisoned by a fresh puffer fish, incompetently prepared, to be exactly a hygiene matter.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 9:33 pm

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 7:33 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2024 3:29 pm Nowadays I more or less refuse to eat at places with a food hygiene rating of 3/5 or lower. Daughter knows what's required to get 0,1,2, and knows the amount of paperwork required to get from 4/5 to 5/5 In Wales the rating has to be visibly displayed, but stupidly there is no such requirement in England.

How easy it is to get a top rating probably depends on what sort of establishment it is. A butchers which draws and dresses poultry (salmonella risk), sells raw meat and sells cooked meat (meat pies, pork pies etc) is going to have to follow a very strict regime with different knives for each product etc. When there was a local butcher here, they were always cleaning and logging when they cleaned.

If you buy a steak in a pub, there's supposed to be an audit trail going back to the slaughterhouse detailing the temperature record, who handled it and so on, every step of the way. So if there was an incident of food poisoning, it should be easy to trace the origin.

A vegetarian restaurant wouldn't have anything like the same problems.

Yes and no.

What you are doing does have an impact on the assessment. My daughter would have had a lot deeper scrutiny of she had been using (raw) egg yolks in custard ice cream. OTOH ice cream is a high risk food in the sense that bad ingredients could be frozen and eaten without cooking.

The paperwork for the traceability is the same for all foodstufs.

Vegetarian food can be just as dangerous; consider salads left around too long, or slow cooked kidney beans, or that button amanita phalloides looks like button mushrooms or straw mushrooms, or the preparation required for bitter cassava (to wash out the cyanide), or... Basically fruit and veg can kill you in far more interesting ways than meat and flesh

I seem to remember reading somewhere that vegetables and unwashed or poorly washed salad were bigger causes of food poisoning than anything else.

I consider the Harvester and Pizza Hut sneeze collector salad bars to be abhorrent anyway. Always a bad idea.

bd139 wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2024 2:10 pm I seem to remember reading somewhere that vegetables and unwashed or poorly washed salad were bigger causes of food poisoning than anything else.

I consider the Harvester and Pizza Hut sneeze collector salad bars to be abhorrent anyway. Always a bad idea.

Delete "sneeze collector salad bars"

Standard advice in many parts of the world is “Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it.”.

After backpacking around India 40 years ago and drinking only Thum's Up and stewed sweet tea, a glass of plain cold water was the most memorable drink I've had. (The best hotel in Bombay distilled its own drinking water).