Hi Today we're going to take a look at the Aning Q1 10,000 count multimeter. It's a $40 class multimeter and we'll get into it. But I Just wanted to mention this is my very first video. I'm doing shooting entirely in 4k with my new camera, the Sony Hxr Nx30, so please forgive any issues or anything like that.

I'm still learning the camera, still getting used to and you were you know, workflow and recording process and stuff like that. Anyway, let me know what you think down below. If you click down here somewhere, you'll be able to get enable the 4k content and supposedly it is supposed to look better even in 1080 then my original camera does when you're uploading 4k. Anyway, let me know what you think.

So let's check out the Aining Q1 for under $40 I think it's 38 US dollars delivered and in a previous video which I'll link in, we took a look at the Aining An8 w8 and this was pretty much a killer meter for $25 it was an absolute winner. Winner chicken dinner. A few limitations with it, but for $25 delivered, it was really hard to beat and it became very popular apparently. after my video, they sold a ton of these things.

Anyway, Um, there's some talk on the forum. they've just released this brand speak and you want the Q1? Let's take a look at it and you can see that the there's two immediate differences. I'll do quite a few comparisons with the A Tablo 8 here as we go on. The media differences are is that it's all push-button A lot of people ask that hey, why don't they make multimeters I'm including my new 121 GW with soft like you know push buttons instead of these dinky range switches that we're so used to.

Well, the reason is is that it's easier to get easier, cheaper, and simpler, more reliable to get isolation on the various ranges. When you use a mechanical, a multi ganged of mechanical switch like this. Yeah, when you have like soft buttons like this, you have to do a bit of you know a lot of around in the circuitry to make it as good and his foolproof and as safe as you would with a mechanical rain switch. Anyway, it's got that and the display is significantly different.

And yes, it is an LCD It is just like an inverse one and it's got the permanent backlight. Presumably, it needs a permanent backlight to make it visible. Now personally, I Am NOT a fan of this display I Do not like it. We're looking down at a reasonable angle as you would on a Er bench here and I Just like no I Just don't like these inverse R displays and I don't like the way it's lit.

You can probably see some like variation in like just the gradient across there of the colors I Hope that's showing up on camera but like if just the like, there's no uniform brightness and you'll see when that. if the negative pops up here, you'll see that it's particularly bright and it's just like a very uneven display. And there it is. I I'm not a fan of that at all.

So yeah, I don't know why they did that. I'm there just to differentiate the thing. and the other standout is that it has bar graph and also jewel display as well which we'll take a look at and it's also got a non-contact detector up here it doesn't actually tell you. But yeah, you can actually detect Maine's warrant and we'll give that a try as well.

But apart from those, I'm like, spec wise and feature wise pretty much bloody. Auto Pair off so that was actually a very short auto power off. But yes, the specs are practically identical in terms of our ranges. all mate practically identical to the A Negs got the same capacitance range.

It does have the same limitation on the current range in that it cannot measure 10 milli amp or it doesn't have 10 milli amp and hundred milliamp current ranges. and for me that was. It's almost a showstopper for both of these meters, but it didn't stop people getting this first. just it.

You know, ever like a beginner meter or a knockabout meter or whatever for 25 bucks, it's still fantastic value. But yeah, it just as your only primary use meter and it lacks 10 milli amp and hundred milliamp ranges and not impressed at all. But it does have the support millivolt art ranges as well which this one had looked 10 millivolt range, full-scale 1 microvolt resolution. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

Screen updating appears to be the same at 3 times per second so it looks it's probably using the same chipset inside this thing. Basically everything is the same except for the soft buttons and and it's got extra display info with the bar graph and things like that. Anyway, the feel: This one was actually pretty solid. This one.

It's it's just a solid. It actually feels like it could survive a few bumps. This is not rubber on the side, it's just plastic. It does have a tilt stem with, but it does fall over when you push the buttons like you have to sort of like deliberately push them down at an angle if you actually push them like that.

Wow But there's actually a lot of functionality in this side. Not only let's go through the modes here as I said dual display with bar graph. Answer: seems to be a really high resolution bar graph too. I Mean if we go over to our Ohms, maybe we can see that.

I Mean look at that. I Mean does that actually have a hundred points? I Think it may. It's very nice so it's still true RMS Like the other one will have to watch. check the bandwidth on that thing.

but if we cycle through here Mille volts AC we get the frequency up there and we can go to Hertz and percent as well. Nice and then electric field testing. So let's give that a ball. Let's have our mains cable there.

It is. Well yeah, it's got yeah and the levels got multi-level Look at that. It's got level display that's about a centimeter out. That's not too shabby.

You put it on the side. it doesn't really doesn't really work. so you've got to put it like right? right? Right at the point there? All right there we go. Yeah, so like the sweet spots up the top there, but that is actually quite loud and that works reasonably well.

But look I mean if you're buying it for that, it's well. ok if you want to build in there. Ok, like the BM 2, 3 5 has the electric field test to build in. but I when I'm doing that sort of stuff, tracing, mains, wires and things I Really want to like a proper voltage detection stick? The discrimination is just much better.

You can get in there with individual wires and stuff like that I hate around with just the end of this, but hey, it's a good feature and does seem to work. And for those who want to see the backlight I don't know which one do you prefer. Okay, I've got to admit, in the dark, the new one is better with the inverse display permanently lit like that. Better than the backlight.

but you know, geez, you'd want to have a specific use for that. Otherwise, it's like it's probably got to be pretty crap outside. Let me go try it. Alright, I'm outdoors and it's not a direct Sun Today it is quite overcast, but it is probably it is as bad as it looks on camera.

This thing is pretty hopeless. Pretty unreadable at many angles. It's kind of Maybe it's okay ish at some angles. Like low like that, but like dead-on like that.

It's it's just. it's not very good. Trust me, it's terrible. There's no contest Now of course, the problem with the display always unlike that, is that it's going to draw a significant current.

So let's measure that. Wow, that's almost 70 milliamps. So for a set of Alka lines like this nominal, you know, 2800 milliamp hour capacity I'm assuming that it can use all the capacity the battery, which it won't then you know you only look at it like a hundred and sixty five hours. Best case may be realistically hundred hours and I Don't know if you heard it, but there's a relay click when you turn this thing on.

Listen, not sure if you heard that or not, but there's a very distinct relay click, which they probably have to do because it doesn't have that range switch. And interestingly, if you try and measure this on micro amps, check it out. Nothing in here, they're going tick tick tick tick tick tick tick it. Just it just oscillates because it can't actually drive that relay on.

Pair up. Whoops! Now let's see what the dropout voltage is. I've got two. Please excuse this.

I've got to hold it steady, the contact and look. It starts. the brightness of that display. Look at three.

Look how that brightness at 3.5 sorry 2.5 it's gone. It's gone. This thing is hopeless. Absolutely ridiculous.

What a joke. Wow It cannot work like that is. that is ridiculous. Like that's 1.25 volts per cell that it should still work out.

You've got to have to. but you know you're going to have 1 point 4 volts per cell to like I Don't even see the battery thing. Come on. But any low battery LED is useless because the bloody display doesn't work.

What a joke. Don't know if you can see it. Just see the battery indicator up there so you can't can't even see the bloody thing turn on what just under. Just let's say it.

Let's call it 2 point 4 volts Bloody useless. So sorry to tell you. but right then and there, this is done and dusted. I Cannot recommend this at all.

There's just no like the display is not good enough to warrant that's sort of battery life and that that dropout voltage at what? 1.25 at least probably 1.3 volts per cell for at least 1/2 readable screen you can like, just forget it. It's just useless. You're wasting half the capacity so that 165 hours sort of best case nominal life. It's if you got probably 50 hours out of this for a reasonably reasonable display.

I'd be surprised the auto-ranging on the Ohms there is pretty slow by the looks of it. or they range in it's pretty slow in it. But the good thing is is it does have 10 million resolution and you can greater than 2 seconds. You can reel that out.

No workers. but your hold function is just that. it's a hold. No, it's not auto hold like it says there.

that's auto-ranging end hold. so no it doesn't have like the fluke auto touch hold. Good thing about the capacitance does go down to one puff. Resolution: very nice and it shows 0 for 0 input.

Use my reference capacitor here which is bang-on smidgen out but well within spec Nice. Now for your 40 bucks you do actually get a pouch with the thing and you get two sets of leads which is so very impressive. I've got a user manual? it's all in English It's me, you know it's okay. Whatever.

it's got the specs at the end. There you go for those playing along at home and you've got any motion type, temperature probe, none of that uh you know, regular like just little pin pointer, thermocouple type rubbish. The emotion ones are actually quite handy. Um, but then sometimes you just want the thermocouple type anyway.

you get to up these removable tip ones. you know you can screw them in. I Don't like these at all I think they're really Dicky But anyway, you do get a bunch of accessories with it, which is quite nice with the Spade lugs and you know, looks like a banana jacks and everything else. so you know that could come in handy.

So I'm not gonna quibble about that. that almost feels like it's silicone leads. They are rated thousand volt rated, but I don't see any like ul marks or anything like that. it's just you know, telling you what they are and your regular probes.

Well, I'm not gonna be writing home to my mum about these one. Strain reliefs: Okay, but they don't like these aren't silicone leaves, but you don't expect it for the price. I Mean this is a forty dollar $38 delivered multimeter. You've got these stupid ridiculous things: Hatem Item invented this crap and they're sharp enough.

They're not gold-plated but they're typical probes. You'd get on it. You know, like a sub $50 meter. Yeah, okay.

Continuity Tester: Wow That takes a while. that's pretty slow, but it is. It is latched. but it's just that's particularly slow.

But it turns out that's more to do with the probes and the meter itself. I'm you can come a gutter on this. so I'll use my gold-plated probe Master Probe: Yeah, it's actually really quite good. It's just the shitty probes it comes with like it's just all the crap on there on the surface of those probes.

See nice good gold-plated probes. Sex on the stick. So I really ate that one? That is actually pretty quick. I like it and it's latched as loud.

Nice. Okay, let's measure the accuracy of the arms on. Not gonna go to town on this. There you go.

It's creeping down, creeping down. Yeah, hang on. Ah, that's undershirt. Oh No The humanity 10k.

Let's give it a bell comes down a bit to have some overshoot on the resistance and then it does come down. Ah, still within spec. not bang on though. Next range, Still not bang on.

Not too shabby. Oh yeah. I'll give it a pass. Oh yeah, Oh yeah.

One volt RMS at one Kilohertz? No worries. let's see where the upper frequency is actually. Coincidentally, it's bang on three Kilohertz. And for current micro amps, that's not too shabby at all.

But here's your problem. If you want to measure nine milli amps, forget it. Put it in the milliamps. Jack up here.

Yeah, but look, you got like one doesn't look art. it's It's crap. measuring. like something that you'd measure in everyday electronics.

You don't get any resolution at all. That's a huge downside to this thing its own. It misses the hundred milli amp and the ten million range is inexcusable. If this is your only meter, do Not get one of the Eva this one or the 808.

If that's your only meter, forget it. One feature: I Do like: if you're in Volts mode, you simply plug it into. there. you're in micro amps.

current mode. You don't have to switch anything. Very nice of course. The downside to that is that if you accidentally plug your probe into there, there's no input warning alert really to beep you that you're in voltage mode.

I Mean that's the advantage of these rain switches. You know you're in voltage mode so you know you want to measure voltage, then you plug it in. This one doesn't have input jack alert by the way. prove that there we go doesn't have it, but you know if it did then it would beep at you.

Um, but here you plug it in there you're on your own sunshine and curiously to uh, switch between AC and DC current. You've got to press the power button up here. DC Amps AC amps. Go figure.

Now, if you look at the graphic for this thing, it does actually show that it's supposed to have like a VA display. Can it measure volts and amps at the same time? like the 121? GW No. Unfortunately, I can't That's just so. I'm not sure what they mean by that.

now. as for this bar graph: I Think it's actually a gimmick. It doesn't appear to be any quicker. It's like usually you get like twenty times per second for a proper analog bar graph, but this thing just seems to mimic the display.

So I think that's a fake bar graph that is useless. You know, a bar graph. Have the bloody thing fast. update in twenty times a second.

It's usually a feature building to the multimeter chipsets, but in this case I Don't think it's it's it doesn't do that. They don't have like a faster lower pressure lower resolution ADC like an 8-bit ADC To get that faster updating like they do in chipsets that have proper bug fast uploading progress support I Think that's fake. You can hear the relay switch if we go between volts and millivolts. Okay, so let's just hook to 40 volt mains up to here.

Of course there there it is. 50. Hertz Yes, it is 248 volts or thereabout Sir Here in the lab it is quite high if we switch millivolts, for example, we don't do any damage there, so no workers whatsoever. And if we switch ions, Is it what's it going to do? No, it's just going to.

It's just going to keep on cycling. We've done any damage. cycle, the power off and on is connected. Yeah, she's sweet.

There it is. I'm not going to go any further. The Aning Q1 that gets a thumbs down from me I Don't know why you would buy this. You know it's not the same price.

It's like, you know, almost $40 compared to 25 for the a table 8 if you're after just a cheap second meter I Wouldn't recommend it as a primary meter even for a beginner because the lack of the current range is there is really quite annoying. But just as a second meter for 25 bucks, this is still the absolute killer This one I Don't know why anyone would buy it I Think they've screwed the pooch on this one in terms of like their power-hungry display which is which dims with voltage which pisses away half the capacity in the batteries and like a non-consistent display the fake Biograph why have it? or okay, they've added the EF electric field detection at the top. That's an OK feature but like like why I kind of like I Much prefer this in terms of having the separate current jacks. I'm not a fan of having the current even though it is micro amps, not a fan of having that combined with the voltage jack like you do on the 8 w8.

But considering that you know, this is otherwise a good meter for the price. I'm willing to overlook that so there's an advantage there. but the soft buttons don't add anything to it apart from the rain switch and not like having to add the relay in there. I Didn't know if you know just 10 bucks more to like the $50 market there's got to be.

You know, countless competition there and this one just doesn't cut the mustard. the display you can't see it outside. It's hopeless. I Don't get it.

Yeah, that gets a thumbs down. Stick with this one. I reckon so. Anyway, if you did like that, please give it a big thumbs up.

So just let me know how the quality is not just on a 4k. I know I'm sure it looks good on a 4k, but like how does it look 1080 compared to my previous videos. As I said over any vblog - I do actually have some comparison footage shot with my various cameras so you might want to check that out and comment anyway. Hope you liked it.

Catch you next time.