Hi. We're going to do something a bit different today and probably something you wouldn't think you'd see on the EEV log. And that's a review of a cheap-ass multimeter. This is the aiming An8 a double O8 multimeter and it sells for 25 US dollars delivered from the aiming store on Aliexpress which is where I got it from.

It's the official one you can buy from other stores or you can even buy it cheaper, maybe around $20 or maybe even under that delivered. And there was a bit of talk about this on the EEV vlog. it is in you, not a model. Don't confuse it with the In8 Double-o - they've got different models.

This is like the upgrade, the new, upgraded, more expensive version. And why would I take a look at this? Well I Thought it might be interesting because it's got a couple of low-level modes which are useful for electronics. And of course you know let's have a look. Okay, a lot of people say they have a bias against cheapest multimeters.

and yes, I do I don't like cheapest multimeters, but I do know that they have their place. You want to. You know you don't want to work on main stuff, you just want to work on some breadboard stuff. And and you know, buying a twenty twenty five dollar multimeter.

Okay, you know it's probably going to do the job, so let's have a look at see what you get. Now the first thing is that it's actually a 10,000 count meter 9999 which is better than your usual you know five or 6,000 count multimeters on The market. You actually get the extra digit. If you're measuring, say, seven volts for example, then you got to get seven point Zero Zero zero.

Instead of going up a range and getting seven point Zero zero, you're going to get that extra digit of resolution. So right there, it's handy. Now they're going to claim that at 600 volt cap three thousand volt Cat - absolute rubbish. Of course you know, don't like these cheap-ass multimeters not independently tested at all.

You wouldn't trust of any further that you can throw on four main juice. I Don't recommend you. you know, test mains with these or any other high energy high voltage stuff. But the simple, you know, hobbyist breadboard low voltage type work.

It's it. could do the business. Now you actually get a fair few accessories for your twenty. a bus.

To live it, you get your regular our probes with the shrouds on. They're not that you need bloody those things. They're really annoying reasonably well. They're actually quite sharp and they actually got decent finger guards on there.

And they're okay. They're only rated cat to 600-volt 10m If you believe that. you know, take it with a grain of salt. But they do know the actual probe is compact enough.

it's It's reasonably nice. These are not our silicon leads. of course they're just regular. PVCs but they feel and I'm reasonably decent.

Not going to cut one open to see how much coppers in the thing, but you also get these ones as well so you can't look. These little plug in ones which are. You can get all these accessories, spade lugs and things like that, handy probes and in four millimeter banana jacks to go into there and a bunch of alligator clips and a bunch of screw on protip suit quite handy for the money. Little manual and look at the pouch, look at the pouch.

Got to be worth it just for that gorgeous pouch. and out of the box, it doesn't look like there's a better in there or it's completely dead. Well now the first thing you notice about this thing is it's absolutely tiny. It's almost pocket like.

If we compare it to the Be M23 Five, which is already a small compact multimeter, you can see that the physical difference in there. In fact, they obviously design this thing to match the size exactly to the Fluke 101. and there are photos. Oh oh oh, edit in a photo there.

But yeah, they are identical. Sizes are width, height, and thickness apparently to the Fluke 101, but it's open. It's not a direct competitor, but they just copied the form factor and the tilting bail. Well, it's you know, pretty crusty you.

It's like like there's just no heft in this thing. It's so light that you know you really have to sort of put a force down onto that to use it. And if you can't even press the buttons with the dam like forget, we don't turn it off before we take it apart. So do a quick a teardown little self tappers in the thing and it.

You can actually replace the two double A batteries didn't come with it without taking out the screws. but and that does have a metal threaded insert for that which is nice. But if you want to replace the fuses because both ranges are fused apparently, yeah, you got to take up a self-tapping so let's can we open. It's probably got a clip in there somewhere and we're in like Flynn And that's exactly what you expect in a cheap-ass multimeter like this.

where like, the contacts are just yeah, the not even the solid ones. just that, like the pressed spring metal going over and you know, pretty terrible 10 amp con shop. but interestingly, look at the fuses. Yeah, both ages of users fuse and yes, they are HRC high rupture capacity fuses in quote marks, but they're absolutely tiny so that's a 10 amp job at 250 volts and on this high-voltage rubbish and 200 milliamps down here for the combined volts end milliamp micro amp jack down there.

So yeah, so right off the bat I Can't see any protection in here apart from the fuses. Where are the PTC s Where are the mobs? They're just not there. Nice little arm elf resistors there, you know? I'm a MILF resistor fanboy. but unless the protection devices are on the bottom side, what do we have over here? We've got one There it is.

PTC right up there on the other side of the battery contact, right near the chip. so that's a interesting that placement. So yeah, like two bare minimum input protection. there's a fuse.

Where do you even find those? They're 10 millimeters by 3 millimeters by the looks of it. Ah geez like why in 205 at least thank you. So the lack of any input protection like moles and we've got a single PTC but there's no like diet looks like unless it's on the bottom. there's no do protection for the amps.

Important stuff like that like I just this is why I Do not recommend these for anything probing around on the mains or other high energy high voltage circuits just don't And we've just got our chip on board. blob there I believe it's a high contact chipset. Then we've got our A squared prom next to that which holds the calibration and other setup varies. You might actually I think some people on the forum been talking about maybe changing some register settings and stuff like that because it's external.

You could actually modify that and play around with it, but you know, very interesting levers. A PCB context switch here I wonder what that one does? Hmm. and there's a voltage reference there to 92 packages. It looks like a genuine inter-cell genuine in quote marks.

it could be. Anyway, it's an IC L8er 69. It's the DC Zed R which is 100 ppm version. There is a 50 ppm version so you know it didn't add.

Adequate for a 10,000 count multimeter. Interestingly, they got the silkscreen wrong. They say ICL 1896 instead of 1869. Oops and the soldering qualities.

You know, man, it's what you expected. It's window Lomita It's fine. Well, hello solder joints for your 10 mm current shunt. You saw the joints via fuses.

They're all manually done. Of course, they look dry as a bone daily. Wow that. But apart from that and that's exactly what you'd expect on the top.

and then, no. There were no additional wire components underneath for our protection area, you know? I bet. Pretty typical. Why? I Arranged switch implementation.

and as for the contacts down in there? Yep, all pretty standard fare. They switch it on and first thing you notice, it's a nice high contrast large digital. Really like them. You know, like you can compare glare and stuff until the cows come home.

It is a little bit Larry with its a curved top on it and stuff. well I can probably you know, get it to like? yeah. Anyway, it's a pretty good screen. I like it.

and I like the big crisp high contrast digits. They're really quite nice. They're real. It's really good at most angles.

So yeah, big thumbs up for the screen, that's for sure. Now the first thing you should have noticed is that look 10 micro volts a resolution here on the 100 million range because it's a you know, ten thousand count. So you might think that's and that is really good, right? That's better than most meters already. but this thing has another one up its sleeve.

put in manual range. Look, it's got a 10 millivolt mode with one that millivolt resolution. It's overloading because it's you know, just getting noise on the input. Let's give it a bill.

This is awesome. So use my MV 106 our transfer standard here. 10 millivolt range and even my seven-and-a-half digit keysight only gives us one that digit better than this look. and it's bang on.

basically 1 millivolt 1 microvolt resolution. This is great if you measuring our tiny voltage drops across current, shunt, resistors or something like that brilliant whatever meter. let alone a you know, a $25 meter has a 1 microvolt resolution. That's crazy and it's pretty close to being on in the upper range there too.

And that's 90 millivolts and 10 millivolts being on. And it's bang on. It's 10 millivolts on the 1 volt range because it's 9999 count. It's like it's great.

I Love the high account meters. It can be a bit initially confusing if you used to the regular ones, but there you go. It's pretty quite like. plus it's it's bang on.

There's 9 volts, not too far off at all, that's on the 10 volt range. go down to 1 volt bang on Nice 90 volts, there's only a couple of least significant digits off, and well, let's go up Two three four five, Six hundred volts, 700 volts, 800, 900, 988 There you go. So that's yeah, that's pretty close to what a couple of least significant digits there and we'll just flip that voltage around. Negative: There you go.

Don't like the extra rows zero out there on the key side? That's a bit how you doing. Hmm. Anyway, let's bang on to the keysight 7f digit meter and I've checked the inverse on other ranges too. and it's basically like one least significant digit on the negative and on my AC voltage standard.

Here let's have a look at AC because AC can do the 1 microvolt resolution to true RMS in quote marks. It's not going to be high bandwidth, just like one or two kilohertz or something like that. depend on the chipset 1 microvolt Ac True RMS resolution. Look at that.

it matches my seven and a half inch digit keysight. That's just crazy. It's pretty much bang on. Dude, that's it.

One kilohertz. By the way. A true RMS in quote marks These things you know only going to do a couple of kilohertz, but at 1 kilohertz, bang on and a 400 Hertz to the 1 volt range at 1 kilohertz, we're talking 30 counts out. but me? what's that in percentage? and that looks to be a frequency dependent thing because it's only 10.

Nine or 10 counts are different at 400 Hertz so that's on exactly the same voltage. Yes, so it you know it's starting to taper off at a Kilohertz. Well, taper off wasn't the right word if it's starting again, but that's common. They can like have a big lumpy gain at the end and then roll-off No in Volts 400 Hertz 9 volts, 1 Kilohertz is bang-on 90 volts 400 Hertz and 600 volts 400 Hertz 700 volts are the keysight.

Might our poor little keysight's not going to yeah. Overload There you go. way and overload on that Twos: I Can't do a thousand volts I Can't do up to a thousand volts AC but it's 700 volts? No. Are you swimming? Oh I Couldn't off on the resistance, but it's ranged up there.

Yeah, near enough. Oh yeah, it's doing the business good enough. It's hanging in there. not too shabby on the 10 Meg range.

Unfortunately, that is the best it can do. It can only go to 10 Meg it can't go any higher. It might be a little bit annoying, but I'll give it a pass. And if I have a look at the basic specs here.

exactly where you expect from such a meter to your typical half percent in our fuel II Significant division digits one percent on the AC True RMS And stuff like that DC Current point eight You know it's like you're not going to write home about it, but that's what you get for 20 bucks, it's fine, and just for completeness, there's the rest of the specs three times, the second screen updating or the rest of the stuff. As for the manual, man, you know it takes what you expect for a twenty dollar multimeter. it's all in English and I won't get your measure of the accuracy of the capacitance. Ranger Couldn't be bothered.

but the good thing about it is that it's got one tough resolution on the thing and if you disconnect it, it actually gives you a true zero result because there is no relative function. So that's a one disadvantage of this meter, which is I would have been really great if it had that, but yeah, like it zeros out. a lot of meters don't do that. Very nice and I'd use my reference capacitor on this thing.

but I lost it in the middle of a lab cleanup. Dull. You cannot manual range on the capacitance range though, just it's just completely disabled. Why? Continuity tester can get it to occasionally skip, but that's pretty good.

It's latched and it's pretty quick. Let's pass and diode test mode: You are limited by the two double-a battery voltage because I've got brand-new batteries in there. We're getting three point, two eight, but that will change as your battery voltage drops, but that's going to be good enough for a white LED Sweet feel that that can give out our one point six odd milliamps. Yeah, good enough to light the LED And one rather interesting mode is this digital out and look.

you selected 50 Hertz hundred, two hundred. and there it is there. I Mean it's okay. it's our three volts peak-to-peak and obviously they're getting that from the regulator because the battery is like 3.2 but it goes up in light.

Well once he jumps from 101 kilohertz to 2. But before that, there you go. I mean I I Don't know, but you like someone might find a world there we go. but to go up to folk healer, someone might find a use for that.

You know it's got a frequency counter seems to be a bit off I Mean that's supposed to be 10 megahertz, you know, half a volt, but it's not doing it so. but it's but below that, no problems whatsoever. I mean 65 2.6 Meg Here you go. Bang on just it though.

Well, there we go. sorry. at the higher frequencies, it's not terrific, but up to a couple of Meg it's fine and dandy. It seems to need about a hundred and 50 millivolts.

I peak to peak to get anything. Actually, it just seemed to be the lower amplitude. That was a problem there at a higher amplitude. eight point five volts peak-to-peak Yeah, it's bang on it almost the full 10 Meg range.

Not too shabby on the one milliamp range. Look at that. This had me stumped for a few seconds. Look at this generating nine milliamps and I feel like I Just go to the milliamp range.

It's only four, is the voltage jacks under shared with the micro amp range and so it gives you just some crap value there on the input. I There we go. Yeah, we talk and hang on. Oops, There we go.

That's not great is it? Now check it out. on the micro amp range. Okay. hundred micro amp range at 10 nano amp resolution.

Fan-freaking-tastic Once again, a great meter for like, you know, a low value a precision electronics stuff. Well, when I say precision I don't mean accurate. You know, like in any way it can go down to relatively low currents. But look, the ranges that we've got.

Okay, so we've got a hundred micro amps and then we've got one. a thousand micro amps. which is one milliamp. But then if we go over to our milliamp range here.

So our highest was one. so we had a one milliamp range. But where is our 10 milli ampere? Ange We've only got a thousand, so we don't know 10 milliamps or a hundred milliamps. We've only got like a Saturn Now we've only got the one amp or would it like it? No sure enough, if you go to the manual, there's the fine print.

There's the two micro amp ranges, a thousand one hundred micro amps and a thousand migrants. But then it jumps up to one hundred milliamps. So you miss your 10 milli amp and 100 milliamp ranges like their God that's practically a shows and look, it's probably going to be accurate enough, but like I like it's getting to the point where I'm not going to bother to generate the higher currents, have to get other gear and like in, yeah I Don't forget about the backlight. for all you backlight fanboys, there you go.

Not too shabby at all, so it works alright. One thing with this, like auto. if you go into manual range like that, then I'm not sure how you actually get like back to auto without switching on the thing and it like I did like you've got to change ranges or whatever. Now that's fine actually I can't work that back one and I just measured the battery current around about 1.7 million on there so you can do the calculations for two doublea's to get your battery life shouldn't it's going to be okay.

So there you have it. That's the aining. If I'm pronouncing it correctly, let me know if I'm not a N8 a w8 I can go into more detail and measure the true RMS bandwidth and measure all sorts of stuff. But you know, because that's enough for a little more than enough for a little 25.

Or you know, sub $25 meter and well, it's not too bad. It's got some useful ranges on here. it's you know it's going to survive a few knocks and things like that. And for the price I mean you get all the accessories and stuff with it.

The leads may not be the best quality or whatnot and the input protection. Don't go use this on mines or other high energy circuits. But for sub $25 multimeter I Love some of the low ranges on this thing. It really is quite neat.

Seems to you know it astly exceeds its accuracy specs at least the one-off unit I've got here. It could vary, but that you know has got a half reasonable little reference in there. The build quality is okay, but you know I like it's as good as you can expect. If you're after $25 moly meter, you can do worse than this little thing I suspect Anyway, hope you enjoyed that.

Look at a 25 buck multimeter. It is what it is. Okay, you could say that excellent meter for its 25 bucks there. I Said it.

but the lack of the current ranges is terrible those you know Russ You're real sweet spot stuff where you want that that's almost a showstopper. I Love the 10,000 count, but geez, the missing current range is there. What is it? 10 milliamps and 100 milliamps? Oh my goodness, What is the water oversight? What have they done that? Crazy. Anyway, hope you liked that video and you know I'm not necessarily I Think about all 25 dollar multimeters a crap.

It is what it is that you get more than more value than your 25 bucks in this thing. It really is. You know it is serve you quite well. It's rather cute.

Fun little meter anyway. I'm not going to give it like a thumbs up or anything I Can't bring myself to do that for $25 multimeter, but you know for 25 bucks it probably beats probably most other ones on the market I Don't know, especially for instil compact size. It's cute. Anyway, if you liked the video, give the video a big thumbs up.

As always, discuss it. Eevblog forum down below all the comments. Catch you next time you.