Hi My previous video on why flukes are so expensive linked up here and down below if you haven't seen it. although I'm pretty much everyone has cause it was surprisingly popular. I can't believe how many people thought that was an interesting enough topic. I was just going to throw that video on my second channel, actually.

But anyway, I got comments from people that they were surprised that I didn't actually, uh, take the fluke apart and actually show you inside any potential quality differences between the A Fluke and a like a really good quality, uh, competing product in this case, this Eev blog Brian Bm786. So that's what I'm going to do in this video. It's not going to be a shootout between these two. I'm actually going to take them both apart in 4k resolution for those playing along at home on their large screen tellys.

Um, we can have a look at. Is there any like, you know, a tangible quality difference between these two competing products and just remember, this fluke is two and a half to three times the price of the basically the best quality art competing meter on the market. There's one thing I forgot to mention in my previous video and that's sort of the i guess peer pressure of like owning a fluke, especially if you're a contractor and you're turning up the site. You know, some companies paying you to turn up and do something and you turn up and you usually crappy little harbor freight two dollar joby like they're not going to be that impressed.

But if you turn up with your fluke, if you pull the yellow out of your tool bag and you start measuring, people aren't going to question you. Um, it's that. Sort of like, you know that warm fuzzy of owning the fluke. Now, whether or not you agree with this or not, it, it doesn't matter.

This actually does happen in the industry and that's another reason. um, why fluke meters I guess have a better reputation. They're like and they can charge more for them. Now this is basically a direct, uh competitor.

You can see that they're basically the same, uh, size shape. They've got the over uh rubber around the outside. They're both sort of like, you know, slim and like, well, not quite identical in looks and feels, but like as close as you're going to get without being a complete copy. They both have the same safety rating 600 volt uh Cat 4, 000 Volt Cat 3 and they're both Ul tested and listed.

And as mentioned, the 786 beats uh, the Fluke 70 series and the 170 series in practically every error in specifications and features. The 786 beats it in terms of our counts and accuracy. and it's got a bigger screen here. although I do prefer the uh reflective backing on the Uh fluke meter.

I think that's better than sort of like the greenish tinge over here. But anyway, this is not a review. As you can see, they're very similar in construction as well. They've both got the over molded uh, rubber on the outside.

They're both got the split down the middle. They've both got a self-tapping screws to hold uh, the cases together and uh, both of them have a battery compartment that doesn't have fuse access. You take this off, you can't get access to the fuses. Same thing here.

This has got the battery up the top three Triple A's instead of a uh Nine Volt. that's neither here nor there, but basically in both of them. if you want to change your fuses, you have to take out the self-tapping screws inside these things. And that's really annoying in both designs.

Now in terms of ruggedness and feel, they're both like a really twist in that sucker. They're both got a very similar feel, although I probably got to admit, the Fluke 70 series is sexier. I just like it how it's uh, you know, the rotary switch is curved in like that so it's got more protection if you, uh, drop it, um, face down then the Breyman one, but I I just think it. It's yeah.

the Fluke wins in sort of like the sexiness factor I guess you could call it. I know it's a very personal preference thing, but I gotta say that the Fluke does slightly look and feel like a higher quality uh product that would cost more and I prefer the over-moldedness on the fluke. Here You can see how it sort of like over molds the screen a bit. So once again, if it gets dropped and things like that, whereas the plastic actually, uh, protrudes on the brimen here.

So yeah, I flicked it. I think the Fluke has the edge in the ruggedness regard. I think. you know if you just toss this around in your tool bag and you know, falling around on the floor and everything the flukes? I'm probably going to last a bit longer.

But yeah, it's never here. No there. That being said, the Brahman has a better protected screen. If I bang on this, you can't see any segments change at all.

like you can't see any of the liquid crystal getting disturbed. but on the fluke you can. You can see on the fluke at some of the segments on the top there. Hopefully you've seen that are coming on when I tap that so Brian better protected.

Now in terms of the quality of the plastics and the quality of the finish. Ah, look, I'm no plastics expert, but my spidey sense the warm fuzzy in me tells me that the Fluke uses probably better quality plastics. The Brimen just it seems a bit cheaper. It seems like you're getting more of your money's worth with the plastics and just the nicer, smoother feel on it.

I know that's you know, manufacturing, process differences, and everything else and this could be better quality plastic than this one. I I just don't know. Um, but I I, don't know. Just from a warm fuzzy feeling, this feels like it's going to cost more as far as the tilting bales go on these.

Let's say the fluke is probably slightly better. It's got like a better design, wider at the base, and stuff like that. But uh yeah. once again, neither here nor there.

This is a bit more flimsy because they've removed the plastic from that, so that's going to be a bit cheaper. I guess even though we're only talking. you know sense here, probably. But um, yeah, the flute just feels a little bit better.

So let's take both of these apart. And as I said, both of them use self tappers into plastic. Yeah, like I would prefer to see metal threaded inserts. But of course, Fluke are famous for their um, self tappers into plastic and they've been that way, um, since day dot and they're still using it.

And of course, our pro tip: When you're changing the fuses in there, um, when you put the screw back in, don't just whack it in and screw it in, wind it back until you feel it dip into the thread and then put it in Because then you're not cutting a new thread and you'll eventually wear out the uh plastic. That's a tip for any, um, self-tapping screw into plastic. Now, in terms of the quality of the uh silk screening on the front, I don't know. Sorry, I don't have any methanol to uh, test this.

I think Joe Smith might have, um, done some testing of these. I don't know if he's done a 70 series fluke, but uh, like you know, whether or not the quality of the lettering is different between them, I couldn't tell you. And the same would go for the quality of the silk screen on the Uh rubber as well. They are significantly different when you take them apart.

Uh, and we'll go into all the details. Um, the fluke. The screws actually come out, whereas in the 786, they're actually designed to be captive and stay in there. And there's six of them.

And they're all designed uh to be captive so they don't fall out. That's a nicer touch in terms of that. Now, the two top halves of the cases here. the fluke does give me a bit of a more warm fuzzy Once again, the plastics just seem a better quality.

but I am not a plastics expert. I have to get out my book. Know your plastics? Yes, I do actually have it somewhere on my Um shelf. There's no markings um, as such on the fluke one.

Um, but there is. I don't know what Pc is down here is that you know polycarbonate? something? uh, like that, but uh yeah, I don't know. The fluke just seems more polished no pun intended, mirror weak, and both of them have the polycarbonate window that's integral uh with the plastic there? I guess it's uh, I don't know. is that like snapped in the fluke? almost looks glued in Now these really long and gangly um, plastic studs here for the screws.

They don't give me the same warm fuzzy I get with the shorter and sort of like more robust and integral ones on the fluke here and in other meters. Over the years I have actually seen posts like this break but not in uh Brian's in different uh brands. I'm just saying. you know, the longer and thinner it is, um like that.

I guess the more chance of potentially breaking so there's a bit more spit and polish in that. But once again, I am not a mechanical and manufacturing and plastics and molding um expert. far from it. So uh, please.

If you're experiencing this sort of stuff, please, um, leave your comments down below. But yeah, like it's got to cost more surely to mold the plastic like this. And and like those smooth curves and stuff like that. and to get that nicely done.

whereas you know the bromine's all sort of like you know, 90 degrees sharp, sort of. you know, cheaper kind of looking plastic I guess. Oh, I completely forgot the uh, Philo vision uh which will be the rain switches And one big difference here is that the fluke actually has the plastic integral with that that like this and a lot of manufacturers have copied. uh, the Flute design, including Uh Breiman in terms of uh, these, and there's never been any that I'm aware of any like where issues with these.

It has more to do with, uh, the Pcb contacts, but this is integral uh with the case. I actually prefer that, whereas the Bromine I've had to put this back on to get the feel in there. and um, yeah, trust me, the Fluke just feels much better quality in terms of it snapping into place like that. To me, it's just a higher quality mechanical uh design than the Brimon, even though they use a very similar concept essentially.

Now inside, they are, quite, uh, different. Substantial plastic differences inside. And of course, the fluke. Um, yet they still use the nine volt battery snap with the wires.

I don't like that at all. Um, that's just. nah. I don't know why they still do that.

It just bugs me that's not going to be nearly as reliable as Um. Brymen Have actually, uh, put some thought into this design, which, actually, you know it's really nice. There's a lot of, you know, complicated plastic in that as well. so they've got more cost in that sort of plastic.

and they've got contacts on there like that. That contact with the Pcb when you actually slot this in. This is quite a novel design in the multimeter market. You can see that The Fluke has this extra plastic molding in here, and once again, that's got to cost more that looks, you know, like quite complicated to mold.

Both of them use the same 10 amp range fuse, but the 400 milliamp range fuse is actually are smaller. They've got a bigger capacity uh, one on the fluke here. So yeah, that's better now. The fluke uses a solid barrel jack design, which is, um, soldered down to the Pcb, whereas the Brimen actually uses a split jack.

It's hard to see down in there, but it is actually split. but you do actually get the feature of your input jack alert on it, whereas you don't get that on the flute. So that's going to be a trade-off of robustness. So the fluke's going to be more robust in that respect over the Uh split jack design here, just from a mechanical point of view.

But of course you trade off that feature and down here, it does look like the Brimen uses, perhaps a thicker case than the fluke over here, but uh, yeah, there's not much in it Now in terms of getting, uh, the board out, I much prefer the fluke. they've only got a single screw under this fuse, whereas the Bromine has four little piddly um, self tappers here that hold it, uh, in place. And you can see that the brim is significantly more complex beast, but it's got more features now. There's an interesting difference in how the 10 amp current path actually goes on both of these.

You might think that the Brymen is, uh, beefier in that the look you know, like the traces just look huge. Look at the number of vias down there. Absolutely enormous, right? Um, and it's like more a direct path, uh, between these. But of course, you've got to include, uh, the current shunt.

The current shunt is beefier in, uh, the brime and we'll show you this in a minute. But you can see that the brimen here, of course, um, has to. It's got the split jack there, so of course only one side of that goes down to the fuse here. and then it goes across and it doesn't go directly to the ground jack.

Of course, it's got to go through the current shunt here. so there it is going over. That's all. nice big and beefy look at all those vias.

Oh yeah, thank you very much. and then it jumps over here. Okay, and then it goes back to ground via. It goes over to this little bead which then goes over to the uh, negative jack there once again and they're both soldered in place.

So that's a bit different to what happens here. on the fluke, you'll notice 10 amp straight in here goes through the fuse and you can just see the shunt in there. perhaps? So it goes over here. so it goes directly through it through the fuse.

and then the 10 amp jack goes over there and then it goes. You might think it goes over here. This is a nothing burger. This just goes off to the Um shielding on the bottom.

But then what this does is it actually runs on the inner layer around like this. Whether or not it's one or two in layers, I hope it's two because I don't think that's enough copper there to you know, have a big surge current flow through that thing. So I'd like to think that's both inner layers like that. Would have been nice if they had it on the top as well.

Oh, they had built-in braces or three layers or something like that to go around here. Um, but anyway, yeah, that's got to take a much longer path. And like the big cut out of the battery here. and it's like the Pcb designer didn't talk to the mechanical designer and they, ah, come on, you want this huge cutout for your battery? where the hell am I going to run my tray? So I'm going to run it right around here through this thin part and it's like yeah, nah, that would be one annoyed Pcb layout engineer.

Let me tell you from experience now in terms of the Lcd connection here. both of them are reliant upon small four um, self tapping screws here into a plastic molding which then contains the zebra elastomeric strip which goes down to contacts on the Pcb. Now in terms of the Pcb material, I don't know how I can show this, but just the warm fuzzy, spidey sense in me tells me that the Fluke uses better quality, higher rated fiberglass than the Brimen does. Just yeah, just the shiny look.

Just no. I can't tell you anything more unless we actually know the differences. I just think the Fluke is a higher quality Pcb material. That's that's my gut.

So in terms of the plastic, as you can see, much more, uh, extensive here in the Fluke: Dual elastomeric, uh, zebra connectors? Uh, here with a wider pitch on there, um, than on the single one on the Uh. Braymond over here. So in theory, the Fluke's gonna be better with the larger pad size and the larger pitch than the more fiddly Brimen design. Now, as far as the gold plating goes on, this thing for the contact, the flute just looks like a better quality gold plating than the Brimen over here.

So yeah, I think they've just they've spent more on the quality of their Pcb. Now, I don't think this is a hard gold plating process like you get on a card edge connector or anything like that, but I just thought, once again, the warm fuzzy in me tells me that the Fluke is better quality plated than the brim. On the other note, leave it in the comments or there's gold plating experts, please. And by the way, there was no nickel screen in um, inside the fluke plastic case like this.

But the fluke actually has this um, conductive plastic case surrounding the ceramic hybrid module in here. And that's a nice touch. This is actually conductive. That's why they have that ring there.

There you go. A couple of hundred ohms conductive. Now let's look at the input protection differences between these two meters. Remember, they're both Ul listed and tested.

They're both exactly the same. Cat rating: Cat 3 000 volts Cat 4 600 volts so there should be equivalent. But yeah, they're not. Look at this.

the Fluke over here. Actually, there's the 1k input fusible resistor and for the other path it actually uses little surface mount job is in series to get the voltage up there, whereas the Briarman actually uses two 1k fusible axial resistors like this instead of one so that's more better. And the Bromine here uses two Ptc poly switches here. the Fluke only has one, it doesn't have one in this path here, whereas the Brimen has one in both paths.

So once again, more better. Both of them have three mobs, but as you can see, um, the bromine uses physically bigger moths and once again, more better. The larger the mob, the more energy it's going to be able to um, absorb before releasing the magic smoke. So yeah, I think, um, the Brimen has the edge there, not talking about any you know, additional diode clamping and the robustness of the clamping for the silicon and everything else.

but in terms of like, a transient energy absorption. Yeah, the Briment actually has better input protection than the fluke on the voltage range, but as I said, on the current range, the Fluke wins out. Both of them use thousand volt rated fuses, but the Fluke uses a larger braking capacity on the Uh for 400 600 milliamp range. And once again, you can see the differences in the current shunt on the brimen there versus the more piddly one on the fluke over here.

So yeah, it's just a larger capacity, but that's neither here nor there. You don't ever see uh, your 10 amp, um, shunt blowing up. It's you know something else is going to blow first. That being said, the Fluke does have a beefier diode protection on the current ranges than the Briment over here, and I've done a video on input protection on multimeters that talks about that sort of stuff.

I'll link that in up here. and the Fluke does have a very nice, uh, high voltage axial one meg input resistor here. Uh, for the measurement tapping off. Uh, the current shunt.

So yeah, the bromine doesn't have that, and the Fluke does have bigger and expensive caps here. These won't be cheap. uh for your Ac uh, component of those. So yeah, they're just bigger and better and more expensive than you get on the Brineman now.

of course. a lot of the stability and accuracy in a meter comes down. uh, to the input divider network, the resistive divider network, and both of them. I'm happy to say, um, use a ceramic hybrid network of course, Fluker famous for using.

you know, look. they deliver this old style, big, beefy, laser trimmed ceramic hybrid divider. Very nice. As I said, a shielding around there as well.

You can also see the guard tracers going all the way around there and the plastic conductive shielding on top, so that is definitely more better and also nicer attention to detail on the fluke. On the bottom side of that, they've got a nice guard ring around the higher value end of that. So yeah, that's really, you know, nice attention to detail there in terms of performance. They've got like another guard ring up here.

very nice. Like, yeah, just more attention uh, to detail in that respect than the Brimen. Doesn't seem to have any of those guard rings or any of those niceties in there, but in terms of spec, if you want to look at the data sheet, the Brimen is actually a superior spec. So that'll come down to the drift of the reference and other things, but also, um, the characteristics of the input dividers.

So yeah, I'd say the fluke. I'd say this is going to cost more than this. It depends who you get it from, but I guarantee this will cost more. but then again, Defluke.

Still, They used to roll them in house, did they? And not that it matters. but the Fluke uses an Msp R430 processor another Fluke branded down here. but that's actually a linear technology jobby. And of course, uh, Brimen use their own chipset.

They will not, uh, say what chipset it is And that's the multimeter um interface on top of the Uh processor. So yeah, multimeter chipset? uh processor, then uh, Lcd, uh, driver. And the Breyman has some attention to detail in terms of uh slots. There's various, oh yeah, various, uh slots over here.

Isolation? Uh. slots routed into the board. Brian: do know what they're doing and you'll notice. Even though this is a fluke 70 series, a 77 Mark Iv.

It's actually got a fluke 170 series Pcb and I've seen tear down photos of the fluke 179. It has exactly the same revision board. Exactly the same revision, exactly the same number. So this board is used in both the 70 and the 170 series.

Identical. But they do actually have a slight spec differences between the 170 and the 70 series that might come down to. I don't know the reference used and other stuff, but yeah, as I noted before, the complexity difference between these two is, uh, really, quite remarkable. The Brimen is very complex.

Sure, it's got more features and everything else, but um, really, they haven't tried to simplify this. they've got. You know, The separate Lcd controller controllers, separate microcontrollers, separate multimeter chipset, and other stuff. And it's just more feature packed.

And it's double-sided load as well. Whereas the Fluke is only single-sided load that's going to decrease uh, cost of construction. of course. The fluke, though, of course, is using arguably more expensive components.

The Msp430 is going to cost more than the lesser brand Asian Micro on here. They've got a 20 bit Delta Sigma converter from Linear Technology here that's certainly going to cost more than the entire multimeter chipset on here. Got the Fluke custom Asic on here. We don't know how much they pay for that.

Um, yeah, I don't know, but you know. Anyway, and it's the reference on here is probably going to be a better, um, spec part, even though this technically has better accuracy. This might have just, you know, more expensive parts in general and I'm not entirely sure about this. But I'm betting that Fluke will have tighter control over the quality of components used in these things.

Whereas uh, Brymen, I'm not saying they're You know, they're not a shoddy manufacturer by any stretch of the imagination. They're one of the most credible, uh competitors to Fluke on the market. They make excellent meters, but I'm betting that Fluke have a probably a tighter control over their bill of materials and uh, component sourcing than someone like Brian who are ultimately building a cheaper meter down to more of a price point than Fluker. Now, in terms of range switcher, they're significantly different.

As I said uh, the actual mechanical click arrangement is inside. uh, the plastic, uh, like molding on the Pcb uh itself, whereas the fluke it's in the top of the case and they just have the Uh basically the knob on top of there that has the Uh pressure contacts going down to the Pcb and you can see that on the bottom that the fluke has your more, uh, traditional clip and ring arrangement down in here, holding that Uh pressure down, whereas the Brimen has the entire enclosure held by the four screws there. And you could actually make the argument this is a superior, more robust design than just the clip and pressure arrangement used by Fluke and many other meters. And there's the fluke arrangement down there.

There's the switch contacts on the Pcb. Once again, they actually run with uh, the same gold plating that they actually use up on the Lcd elastomeric connector up there as well, and it just looks like a really good quality hard gold plating. Now of course, Joe Smith has done extensive Uh switch testing and stuff like that. I don't know about the 70 series.

some flukes haven't, I think from memory, Sunflix haven't performed well, but others like the new 100, 101 or something or 110 or something. They actually perform like some of the best, longest Uh cycle life switches on the market. So yeah, I don't know about the 70 and 170 series though. There are the contacts down there and well, you could go under the microscope to your heart's content and stuff like that.

But that's not the purpose of this uh, video. The ultimate test is in simply, uh, you know, running a 50, 100, 000 cycle test on these and seeing what happens. and if you want me to get out old, uh, toggle the bot? um, I could drag that back out perhaps and I get a new test set up for that. and actually, um, run these side by side, but that's a bit of effort.

But let me know in the comments, leave a thumbs up if you want it. And here's the Brima one. It all comes out as one assembly. Check that out.

I don't know, I just like the contacts. I like those uh, gold contacts on the brim and better. But once again, the proof is in the actual test. You can't just look at them and say oh yeah, more better you know or something or more rugged looking.

but as you can see, that's a near identical arrangement. Um, pretty much I think everyone's copied uh, fluke switches In this regard. I think Fluke were the first to do this sort of uh arrangement. So even though they look similar, as I said, the fluke feels a lot better when you actually change the range.

Switch the bromine over here. As you can see, it's got smaller, a lot more contacts, feels a bit more fiddly. Um, in that respect, you have to get into the right light that is not a gold plating that is a nickel plating rather than a gold plating. so hopefully you can see that that's more silvery once again.

The proof, though, is in the pudding, but that's a more delicate, complicated arrangement than the flute. The flute just seems a little bit more robust in that respect, But as I said, overall, this mechanism feels like it would do the business better than the Fluke one. But yeah, and in terms of the cases here, both of them have a, uh, metallized um, insulated shield here. But the Fluke actually uses a piezo transducer here, and I really like this.

A bit of thoughts gone into this: You can see that it's got a little notch on there, and that actually lines up with the notch in there so it doesn't spin around so that you're always going to get your contacts aligned on there. and that's very nice and that you know that cost extra money and stuff over just the simple Pcb one. Um, the Pcb based buzzer that they've got inside the uh, Brian. But you know it's going to cost a bit more.

But and then they've got a little calibration. Uh, hidden calibration membrane. Uh, switch up there. It's not that hidden, it actually tells you.

Um, cow? test on the cowl point on the back so you just put a pointy thing in there and um, yeah, that just presses on a Pcb switch. But all that that extra cost money. So there you have it. That's a look inside the Breiman versus the Fluke And as I expected, we haven't really seen a difference in here.

That would explain like three to four times the cost of the fluke over. Like a real, like a really good quality. Probably the best quality competitor and feature for feature. So yeah, you might have heard me say that you know things in here: Cost you know, might cost a little bit extra or something here.

but then again, some process steps in the design of this thing might have cost extra over the fluke, which might have a more refined, you know, simpler, uh, process and stuff like that. But nothing in there adds up to three to four times the actual manufacturing cost. So nothing in the design aspects do that. And as I said, like you know, there might be high quality plastic differences.

They may cost more. And of course, this one's made in the Usa. I don't know. You know, the bare boards probably manufactured in the Usa to be assembled in the Usa.

They probably get their plastics from the Usa as well. Whereas all of these these don't come from China, these actually come from Taiwan. Um, so. But once again, you know, cheaper labor pool and stuff like that.

Maybe cheaper processors? I do actually think the plastics and stuff are a bit cheaper than in the fluke. It's just, you know, the warm fuzzy my spidey sense uh tells me that. but yeah, no. As I expected, there's nothing in here that explains the difference.

all that intangible stuff I talked about in the previous video. But anyway, I hope you found that interesting. If you did, please give it a big thumbs up. As always, discuss down below and check out all my alternative platforms.

I'm I'm on. I'm on everything. If there's a platform out there, I'm on it. Catch you next time you.