Hi, We haven't had a multimeter teardown for quite some time, so let's get into it. I Just got this site unity UT 71 E multimeter and what interests me about this one is it's one of the very few meters on the market that has power measurement capability. What here we go or ie. it's able to read voltage and current at the same time and display your value in what's there.

In this case, it's got the triple display it displays VA up there with your arm, phase, angle of your current. So let's switch that over and it can display voltage and current and your frequency as well. Unfortunately, it's not I Just got it. like not knowing much about it.

Unfortunately, it's not at all on par with the absolute benchmark instrument, the Gossan Metro Heat Energy Multimeter and I've done a review and teardown on this and this is an absolutely fantastic multimeter. But this thing cost like four digits. this one it costs a hundred and eighty Australian dollars delivered and it's like a point O2 five percent our class instruments so they claim and it's got measurement capability, power measurement capability as well and it comes with this. Unfortunately, it's one of these weird our overseas adapters, but it does come with the voltage and current probe as well.

I Even like power measurement and that's the problem with this thing. God I'm getting into a review. This is um, I am very disappointed that only seems to have watts and that's more. There's two things.

One is it's only what's whereas the Metra hid energy here right down to micro Watts It'll go right down so it looks like it's only designed for using you know, like four mains measuring mains applications from like a resolution of 0.1 watts and upwards. So ah, fail right there. Really very unhappy with that and it doesn't actually do energy. it only does power in watts whereas the Metra head energy hence the name actually does energy measures it over the time look and this is amount of time spent running and it can calculate the energy of your or circuit over time.

So that's you know. It's absolutely brilliant. He goes from biker Watts all the way up to you know, tens of watts. No problem whatsoever.

but this thing can't do it anyway. Alright, let's take it apart. Eight these little gold QC stickers here makes my skin crawl. really does.

Doesn't instill a lot of confidence that's got a machined metal insert in there anyway. I don't think I have to actually take that out. And by the way, the battery compartment is garbage. Yeah, they've used a metal threaded insert here.

great, but they've only got the one screw and then it. You can even screw this in without even getting these little plastic piece ant plastic clips to clip in. so they're just like any shock or something. You drop this thing at that hole, get like I better.

There's a little weight in that nine volt battery. it's just. ah, it's just garbage. It's just a tiny little amount of force clipping that in and one screw are poor design.

So let's whip this sucker open. What do we got here? We'll have self tappers of course. I Don't expect our metal threaded inserts on a unity meter yet. Here we go.

It straight into the plastic, no fuse holder on the bottom. Another complete fail right there, especially for something that's designed to measure power like this. So anyway, that's I think that's on. Oh, there we go.

might not have had to take. Oh yeah, I think I did have to take that top one off. Anyway, let's now crack it open. twang I Heard the spring.

Yep, so we've got some shield in in there. As you'd expect with the transmit and receive. Well note: doesn't have transmit and receive lead. it's only got to transmit so I can't actually receive anything and lots of springy action.

Wow Right off the bat, what a heap of junk. Look at this. It's got the footprints in there for big HRC fuses. Wah no thank you % M 205 glass fuses.

What a heap of garbage. Oh that is just awful and it's got these crappy jacks in here as well. Look at those Oh might look I can wiggle that with my plastic. Oh no, that's just oh.

that is disgusting and looks like they've got a they've put a board up here. these are going to be split Jackson - look, they've got the four points there and they're taking a measurement off there. so they've got input alert on those jacks presumably I haven't tried it so they've got those going down to a header. No, it's not a head.

it's soldered directly onto the board down in there. But our, that's just pathetic. It really is like an incorrect footprint here. Look at these two resistors here.

It looks like those are designed to be a much bigger footprint in there. but no, they've used those. Interestingly there's you've milf packages here. look Oh all out of alignment bit how you doing.

Don't like that at all. Oh, and I'm actually stunned that they've gone to the effort to put a I since. not there. She's why bother and that's one pathetic looking PTC on the input there.

and it's not like they got. you know, big carbon composite input resistors either. Just regular Joe Bloggs metal films. and look, there's no moves.

There's no mods what was designed to go across there I Don't know, but it's bloody well missing and it's we got nothing. Geez, give me a break. No mobs at all. just a single PTC in pissant M2o.

Five fuses are complete fail right there. Oh my God. Hey! I Am standard package 10 tone trimmer there I Don't know what that thing's adjusting. We got ourselves a little jumper link there.

The jumpers, Is that actually? Oh yeah, Look, it's going between those two pins. there. have no idea what that's for. But oh goodness yeah.

input protection really sucks ass. It really does. This is supposed to be Cat 4 600 volts category. For folks, you're supposed to be able to use this on, you know, a big industrial mains lines.

You're gonna be me. No way in the world that is going to meet Cat 4, let alone Cat 3. I'd be surprised if it even met Cat 3. There's just not enough clearance there.

There's not enough mobsters. don't know anything. it's just garbage. And these fuses are just a joke.

Oh my goodness. Check this out, right? This is the comm jack and it's supposed to be going right up here, of course, carries a full 10 amp current through the current shunt here. Look, this is the bloody screw hole. Look at how much trace width is left on either side there.

Oh, and they've done exactly the same thing on the bottom of the board. -. Oh and I'm stunned that they actually went to the effort to put holes in there for the 9-volt battery clip. so they put some strain relief on that.

That's the only half-decent thing I've seen so far. and this is supposed to be 0.025 percent. DC class instrument. And you've got Bloody Regular Joe Bloggs 10 tonne trimmers and these little pissant surface mount trimmers on the board.

What are they doing? But it just doesn't instill any confidence whatsoever. Look at this. this. is.

this is the ground jack and this is the positive input jack, right? This comes through the resistor over here. Look, look at the gap in there. What is that? One bloody millimeter? You've got to be me. That is ridiculous.

Like a 1 millimetre clearance between you positive and yet negative. Jack's Ah, and that bodged in cap is almost making contact with the case of the bloody crystal. They're unbelievable. Looks like this thing dates from March 2012.

Got ourselves a tail Oh 7, 2 there and check out the package that was supposed to be there. but they're put in like a dual footprint. and yep, no surprises. They couldn't afford a real analog devices 86 Thirty-six true Rms converter, so they've got someone hung low.

Shenzhen Market ripoff that they could get this week. Unbelievable. I really enjoy their J Fat Op Amp's. They're with us until oh Six.

- so are they genuine St? I don't know. Looks like we might have some voltage regulators in there for the main chipset, so there I'm and I slightly overkill I suspect. But anyway, there's a lot of a lot of passive action going on around here, that's for sure. But I don't see any precision resistor hybrid and this is supposed to be 0.025 percent class instrument.

Got ourselves something under that shielded can I Can see some trimmers down in there. They would be there trimmer cap so that's probably for the AC trimming. We have ourselves a two headers here. Probably JTAG headers would be my guess.

Let's look at that. that's just dodgy as unbelievable. Let's pop the skirt up on that and get the macro lens out. What do we got that's rather unusual.

Look at the silkscreen on that that even looks dodgy. It's a TI 24 A V Oh or is it Ql w G4 I'm guessing that some sort of Msp430 variant I Just haven't seen that sort of numbering scheme before. There's a 24 LC Series E squared pran that looks like Bhaji hand soldered in there. That's not terrific, but generally the soldering qualities okay on this thing.

I'm not going to complain about that. I'm thirty two, point, Seven, Six, Eight, Kilohertz Er watch crystal there. but yeah, it must have a real time clock in it. obviously.

Otherwise, they wouldn't bother with that. They're obviously using it for everything else here, using the internal clock of that micro. No doubt we've got ourselves another trimmer here. Whatever the hell that is doing, but doesn't instill a lot of confidence.

We found our voltage reference. It's a maxim if it's genuine I'm sure it is Max 61 98 Si. The A ESA is important because it's the A1, which is the higher R 5 ppm voltage reference. So it is the highest grade one in that particular part.

So 5 ppm Temko 2 millivolts initial accuracy on that puppy. and then we've got a Opw on Double 7 Precision Op-amp next to it. There's our the Three Point Nine Nine Nine why could it be four? did they get it special but the Shenzhen Market on Three Point Nine Nine megahertz crystals this week goodness. Anyway so that could be running the microwatts all the way bloody over here.

I've got no idea is there something on the bottom because at the moment I'm not seeing any ADC on this suckers might have to flip the board over. Oh look, look, they're getting fancy pantsy putting some isolation slots down in there and there's the contacts on our range switch and nothing to write home about there. The actual quality of the range switch feels ok and then we can go in here and have a look at our nickel presumably nickel plated contact pads on there and well nothing to write in there about either. And I did wonder why this Ac/dc switch on the front which is just falling out felt different to all the others because it look they've gone for a proper like latching switch.

They're like unbelievable which of course goes down into the analog to digital. sorry the true RMS converter down there because that's what it's designed. The Ac/dc AC plus DC mode on there but all your other ones are just your regular membrane but and rubber backed conductive contacts on this. Let's lift off this LCD Shall we lift it off the board? Careful of those zebra strips, you're probably going to come out.

Yeah, No. There we go. That's right. Alright, that's high.

Now we're talking. Here's our chipset. It's like it's barely gold. It's like that's not gold.

don't even know what that is. Unbelievers contacts. just I Have no idea. and I ha.

That explains everything. That's what we expected to find. Cirrus tickets. One of you know, there's only a handful of barely a handful of manufacturers of these chipsets.

So that's the Es 51 9 Double 6p I'll link in the datasheet down below. Now interestingly, this is supposed to be a 20 mm count chipset, but this is a 40,000 count meter. So how the hell are they doing that? We have ourselves a whole tech HT 6121 B that's an LCD driver. You can see all the traces going over to the LCD I Guess they didn't have enough lines on their micro.

What's that? We've got a 400. We're going to have a 4000 series CMOS in here. Yes, 401 One Beautiful St Brand and Tada. What do we have here that looks there's our Msp430 so I don't know what the other tell everyone on the other side is doing so.

this Ti part on the top here, look at all these traces. They're running down here all the way down here so it looks like down to these so it looks like it's doing some sort of rain switching and even oh no I thought they were going down here, but anyway, it looks like it's doing possibly some sort of rain switching max type function or something like that, perhaps. So it's you know, like usually the main chipset would handle all that jazz that handles all of your input goes to you. hybrid divider resistors and everything like that.

As I said, no hybrid divider resistor on here. No high quality stuff. so it's a bugger. all chance of meeting its point O2 5% If it does, it's just, you know, a fluke.

It's not well engineered. This is. well, it's not a fluke, it's you know what I mean. So yeah, that's interesting that that TOA part.

if I can get more info on that, I'll post it. But of course we have our main Msp430 processor down here. That'd be the JTAG associated with that and that's it. That's all she wrote on the bottom there.

So Cirrus Ticker Chipset: As you'd expect, they're common in the other seven. I Think they use exactly the same chipset in the all the other Unity 70 models like the Ute 71 and they've got like four of them or something like that, Unity and they're bloody weird us apart numbers if you're curious to know what's under that shield. Well, they're actually, um, it looks like wet through-hole ceramic caps and like just a bunch of art fret like a vertical through-hole parts. and Evan I isolated that from the LCD here.

Okay, well, that's that's fine. But ah. Jesus Just yeah. it's just don't slap together this thing using whatever parts they could find.

It is not the least bit well engineered. It's just awful. For those playing along at home. there's the quality of your input jacks.

Hmm, yeah, they're all split nos. Just awful. Well, that folks, right there is a classic example of a piece port design and engineered multimeter. I Know, obviously it's not.

Well, there's five dollar jobs. but jeez, it's not a huge amount better. Just the the fuses, the input Jack's the lack of any bloody mobs. It's not, doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of meat in any of its ratings.

There's no precision. a thin film resistor networking there for stability. Supposed to be 0.05 percent class instrument. Yeah, they've whacked in a decent mile half.

Decent maximum reference in there. but I Geez. I Don't know how they're getting their forty thousand counts out of the twenty two thousand count series tech chipset there. and it's just awful.

Their budged inner and like a not even a genuine true RMS converter. and they've got little trimmer pots everywhere on a you got to be kidding me. It's just awful. Like God 180 bucks down the drain and that spring there is dangerously close to touching the hot metal shield there.

they've got like a shaft inside there, like a big stiff pin going up inside there if you can see that. Bajaj and I Know this wasn't supposed to be a review, but I'll do a few token things I'm sure the fanboys will want to see me hook the thing up and do a couple basic tests. Anyway, here we go. It's supposed to be a on millivolts are supposed to be a point O2 a five percent class instrument I'm not going to count the counts I'm just gonna, you know, go ballpark here and we're already a point 0.04 percent out.

So yeah, doesn't mean it spec according to that. Agilent But okay, if you do go in there and count the counts, it's actually our 0.025 percent +5 accounts. So yeah, okay, when you include the counts, it's within spec and it looks like it's just going to squeeze within the point. Oh, five percent spec there on the four volt range.

And yes, it is a forty thousand count and current wise. there There we go. That's one milliamp test current. Yeah, it's well within its rated spec of let's have a look for DC current point Tada Here's the manual: 0.1% plus fifteen count or there abouts anyway, well within spec there.

But yeah, I mean it's not rocket science to calibrate ammeter to tweak a meter to be within specs. A lot of the fanboys play more the unities. They're so accurate. they're so super duper well.

It's beside the point. There's no precision thin film resistor network in there. There's no quality precision engineering in this thing. So oh, and the trim parts in that? Who knows what they've done to these things.

Who knows what you'll get. It could just be potluck and expect it to have good, you know, drift performance over time. Yeah, and the resistance spec on these things? Pretty ordinary actually. The best is 0.3 percent plus eight counts, which is certainly nothing to write home about in an otherwise point Claimed 0.025 percent class instrument and as you know, you go up to the 400 like a range there and it's like half a percent a percent up on one.

Meg Pretty ordinary and yeah, it is within spec. I Have measured this. of course we verified its bang on 1k with my Agilent bench meter and yeah, it's within spec. The spec is out 99 seven there so it does meet it.

but the it's certainly not bang on and I couldn't be bothered measuring it. But the Diode range their maximum output voltage 2.8 volts so you're not going to be able to get a white LED lit or maybe just. And the good thing about the capacitance range? yes, it does have one: Pico Farad Resolution: They're claimed that spec is pretty good I'm not going to bother measuring it. So yeah, at least you get the resolution.

I like me, does that have the resolution, but you'd expect it on a forty thousand count instrument. And yeah, there you go. I Mean you could have seen that this thing was hopeless at power measurement before you even got there. Yes, it's maximum resolution is 0.1 watts as we saw with a 2% +10 count accuracy which is okay ish if you want to measure mains power stuff.

But and what's the point? you can buy better mains power things to do it. so you wouldn't buy this meter just for its power measurement capability because it's it's just useless feel like you know. precision DC to DC converters for example stuff like that. It's just now.

it's almost a bit of a gimmick and it comes in a little carry case like this and you get all you do get all the accessories. You do get the power thing as we saw before, but you know, not for your particular country obviously. I Bought this one from a dealer here in Australia so it didn't come with the Australian plug. apparently an authorized dealer of Unity products.

Anyway, you do get the USB interface a serial lead, which is that fantastic. We get ourselves a dodgy looking temperature probe I that Now yeah, that just doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me. really. I Just wouldn't trust that as far as I could throw it.

I Don't think yeah, 25 in here is it? Well, yeah, kinda that's good enough. Ross Trailer I Do like the fact that you get the short LCR meter type I alligator clip leads like that and all. so you get too big looks like alligator clips that just plug into your probes down in there, so that's alright. bonus.

And as for the probes here, well I'm not going to write home about these. It's got a bit of stress relief on the back. They don't feel like good quality art silicone leads at all. These feel like your usual cheap ones that come with your usual cheap meters are nominal 600 volt cap for 10 amp rated.

They do have some sort of rating on them on the actual cable itself. Would you trust it? I Don't know because it's never going to meet as we saw the cat. 4 rating of the meter, let alone probably Cat 3. So yeah, it's just all it really is.

They're not very sharp at all. don't like those that do it finger guards. but yeah, they're pretty ordinary probes. Hmm.

And the continuity buzzer. Well, that is quite possibly that's quite possibly the world's worst, slowest continuity buzzer. At least it's latched hopeless. Oh, by the way I Completely forgot.

No, this isn't the same instrument, it's a different one I actually have here in the ladder UT 71 a I had it sitting up on the shelf. It's only a 20,000 count meter, but it's the same 71 but it's the A series instead of the D of the E series. sorry and there's multiple ones. Let's have a quick squeeze inside this.

I'm not going to do anything else. I've already wasted nothing. Your time and tada look very similar. All the same peaceful stuff we saw before with the M 205 fuses and the lack of any moths and the crappy input jacks and and everything else that you are must convert.

It's all the same. It's not quite. It's not the same. It's not quite the same board, Is it? Maybe we've got a shield there? Yep.

Sorry. excuse the crew dia that that's got to be the same. It's got to be an almost identical design I Think it is. If you actually compare it, they've got a slightly different look cap there to what they had before.

But yeah, it's basically I'm not going to bother taking out the ball because I'm sure it's going have exactly the same chipset on the other side. In fact, I think I have read that it does actually have that chip set and that exact same chipset. So there you go in this case, unlike like I believe the 61 series is different. the 61 like.

There's big difference between the E and all the other little ones apparently. So hey, I've got one of those I can open it - let's have a unity field day and here we go. Another bonus here's the rather highly regarded at UT 61 E ie. like highly regarded for the price.

It's actually A at 22,000 Count one as well. Pretty darn good for The price. can't remember offhand, but it is like like a hundred bucks or something or so. no sub hundred dollars.

I Think it's like sixty bucks or something like that. Anyway, let me double check. Um yeah, let's have a look: Oh Bare Feet. sorry bare feet again.

Oh, this is a really professional video blogging here. Bloody Tripod cameras. Too heavy. Its I need new tripods anyway? Um, this one does actually have looks like some hey chassis fuses in there.

not the not. the Big Daddies but you know, quite reasonably. Still got the same crappy split jacks in there by the looks of it. but well, where we got two PTC's no mobs.

Is it highly regarded? No. I wouldn't if it doesn't have more protection. jeez. I Mean you know this is supposed to be once again supposed to be cat for 600 volts.

But of course they can just slap that on and they've got a stupid C II symbol which means jackal. They're not like properly ul listed like this one. I Just happen to have here. For example, there's Broman here.

Now you can be pretty darn sure it's going to meet its specs. It's a nice little meat of the Bremen beam. Two, five seven or rather like this. you've probably seen it lately, but look, look here we go.

This one's only 300 volts cat for 600 volts cat 3. So not as good as what this puppy claims to be. but it's properly ul listed and you will test it. That's the Underwriters laboratory.

They independently test and certify these things that it meets these requirements. The unities don't have that, hence why they just slept those things on and they can get away with whatever. And here you go. Here's just a quick comparison.

This is inside the Bremen here. Look, they've got the massive big HRC fuse in there. for the ten amps, they've got the proper rated. Like you know, these are like these just look like they're who the hell manufactured that right? I don't know it.

does that have? Oh you know Asia Fuse Asia Fuse right? Never bloody heard of them right? But this one will have look a proper it looks like yeah, it look proper Sieber fuses right. Proper quality brand-name fuses in there. They've got the much larger ones and this is a lower rating than this one. It's this one.

Give up. Past is crap. Unity, right? Oh, if you sent this to Underwriters laboratory, they just laugh at you and you guys watch the magic smoke escape when they blow the thing up. So this one interesting that second ball construction.

I've shown this before so I won't go into details, but look, you've got some mobs under there, all on a separate isolated board. You've got your isolation slot down in there and it's properly designed. It has to be to meet the proper testing requirements for the underwriters laboratory. And Unity don't do any of that.

That's why they're just, you know, cheap Unity. And that's why they have such a bad reputation. Even though I haven't done a full review of this, I can pretty much give you my verdict for a teardown. Thumbs down.

And as a meter in general, thumbs down. It is a complete loser. Don't waste your money. The power measurement thing is an absolute gimmick.

Yeah, it's the build. quality is bloody awful. It's not going to meet its spec ratings and this is the problem with Unity. This is why they have such a bad rep.

So okay, I'll grant it. Some of their meters aren't bad, but it's potluck and like they've got like five different meters in this range. They've got the UT, 71, ABCD, and E or whatever. and like the same thing with the 61 and like the 61 series is, is quite well regarded.

If you get the right letter after at at the end of it, it's just I'm so confused so he don't miss these unities. This one is absolute garbage. Some of the others are decent, but this is why they has such a shitty rep. You just don't know what you're going to get in this one.

180 bucks? God Forget it. Anyway, Sorry to all you Unity fanboys out there, but this one is a heap of garbage. Don't touch it. So if you want to discuss it, jump on the E V log forum down below.

If you want to flame me that you know who is a good value meet all I think they're pretty good and well the UT 61 E that's pretty good meter. Alright go on, jump on the forum. have a go your mug catch you next time you you.