Test Equipment Anonymous

There is an urgent recall been issued for some Fluke meters, go to this site for details, this affects the 83V, 87V and the 88V models.

https://www.fluke.com/en-us/support/saf ... ety-notice

The UK government have published a document regarding this problem.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ll-dmm.pdf

Eeeeeeeee. I don't think this sort of thing was what Tony had in mind for "Fluke Friday."

Thanks for posting it. I sent it off to three of my friends who are heavy users of Fluke meters in industrial and railway museum environments where contacting something that's thought to be de-energized but still live could be extremely dangerous.

This one of those occasions when having an industry accepted "yellow meter" in your toolbox could backfire and put you in a very dangerous predicament. I wonder just how many people out there will be using one of the affected meters and are not aware of the potential hazard in their hands.

Just shows you that it is folly to blindly put your faith in a product / brand just because of past history / reputation. It might now be that a red Brymen meter could take away some of their market share. It also shows that Flukes attention to detail and final product testing is not where their extra cost is being spent.

Specmaster wrote: ↑Fri Feb 17, 2023 5:21 pm This one of those occasions when having an industry accepted "yellow meter" in your toolbox could backfire and put you in a very dangerous predicament. I wonder just how many people out there will be using one of the affected meters and are not aware of the potential hazard in their hands.

Just shows you that it is folly to blindly put your faith in a product / brand just because of past history / reputation. It might now be that a red Brymen meter could take away some of their market share. It also shows that Flukes attention to detail and final product testing is not where their extra cost is being spent.

I was going to try to say something to that effect but I wasn't able to put the words together well, that it's possible for any manufacturer to have a problem slip by quality control, even Fluke.

One of the friends I sent a text message to about this recall sent this back to me:

"We give out 87V DMMs like water. They’re in stock at ..."

This is in a maintenance shop at a public transportation agency with 600V traction power. High voltage with enough current capability to move several subway trains at once is not an environment where the company supplied Fluke meters might have a safety defect is going to be a non-issue for technicians.

Oh Fuck Friday delivers!

Two generic points...

The mistake is important, but the response will dictate the future.

"Trust, but verify". Every time, with every thing and every body.

As that connector bridge is a service part, I expect they'll either replace the bridge or just exchange the meter. Unless somebody has oodles of logs stored in the meter and forgot to save them I cannot see the user caring which they do.

It looks like that part is the same going back to the original 87. So yeah, I'd guess enough units that the molds have worn out and been remade many times already; time for another run.

No, you can't have the NOS one I've got in the back of my parts drawer.

mnem
tzzzzzzzzt.

Compared to the frequency of open circuit test leads I'd say this is down in the noise as a risk. Reflects well on Fluke to address it though.
A lead continuity test would pick it up and should be essential before any critical use. When I use any meter to verify a dead circuit I check it on a known voltage first.
Electricians use test lamps and have "proving Unit" test sources to test them before use.

Robert G8RPI.

When the Electrical licensing body in West Oz belatedly realised that such things as Electronics Techs existed, they got a lot of us to do a "Restricted" ("R") license, preceded, of course, by a short Tech School Course.

The standard method we were taught to see if your DMM was reading AC volts correctly was to check it on a known good source of Mains voltage.
This normally consisted of sticking the probes into (shock!, horror! ) a standard power point (GPO in Oz speak).
It was a pretty good test, though, as if you had just been using the GPO to power stuff, it was fairly certain to be OK.