Hi Today we're going to take a look at the Fluke 101. the cheapest fluke you can get. This thing you can actually get for $42 on Amazon or about 72 Australian bucks is the cheapest uh street price I can find at here in Australia So is it any good? Like can you get a genuine fluke that's actually handy and performs well for like 40 odd bucks? Let's find out now there's nothing new here. The Fluke R 100 series uh, dates back to 2013 so it's basically uh, 10 years old now and oh yeah, it looks genuine.

Look at that. I've got the holographic sticker and everything. Not that there are any fake uh flukes out there cuz they'll ham you down pretty quick if you try anyway. Um, this one is actually H built in China and the first Uh made in China fluke multimeter was the Fluke 19 and that was back in the late 90s early 2000s and that was incredible Bang Pbu, but it was a complete and utter flop.

trying find a working fluke 9 these days they're as rare as hen teeth so uh yeah, that was a fire but since then Fluke haven't made a dud meter since the Fluke 9, but that was an experiment. uh to see if they could produce a lower cost meter for the Asia-pacific market and it was only sold in Australia and some parts of Asia as well. Anyway, we're here for the Fluke 101. Let's check out this bad boy.

It is available in a Fluke 107 version as well, which does actually have a 10 amp range which this one doesn't Doesn't measure current at all, but it is bigger I believe and it's got the Jacks in a different location. The box is a bit cruddy here, but anyway. I Picked this up from Amazon Australia It was the last one and it was on special. So all you get are the probes and the Fluke 101 itself.

and for the filmer fados. Oh look at that! First thing you notice is that this thing is incredibly small. It's a tiny pocket size meter and you can see where um zot got their um inspiration from. It's exactly the same size as the Aing, but uh, that's they just to rebadge it.

This is actually a Zoey or Zot um a88 um which I don't think is available anymore. but anyway, I did a shootout of this. This is basically a $20 class instrument and it's really good, but basically exactly the same form factor except it can measure current and you've got the jacks on the top as opposed to the jacks on the bottom here on the fluke. Now this won't be a shootout between these two, but suffice it to say if you want bang pach, this at 20 bucks just absolutely blows the fluke away.

But we're not here. Uh, to do that. We're here to look at uh, whether or not this fluke is any good. Now the first thing you notice is that you know I I Expected the screen to be a bit bigger based on the photos and maybe a little bit brighter as well.

But I don't know is that they photoshopped that or something. Anyway, the digits could have been bigger on this. They're only 12 mm high, so it's a little bit disappointing. But the screen is, uh, quite usable.

It is, uh, fairly reflective, but you know it's it's a decent screen. I've seen better, but you know, no worries. and the protection on this thing? No problem whatsoever. Anyway, let's get the a hammer here and no worries.

Ah, speed up already. Um, that's no. no, no, just buffed out. No worries.

look at that. Oh like I Bought one and this really does feel like a high quality fluke. It feels really rigid like this that you can throw the thing around and it's like it's really going to survive practically anything. Uh, you throw at it.

There's no creepage in that at all. and the range switch feels absolutely fantastic. Um, nice indent and you can do it with your th as well. And I believe that uh Joe Smith has actually tested the rain switch on this one I think and it's one of the best, uh, performing rain switches of any uh meter on the market.

I Believe, Don't quote me on that anyway. Um, look look at the back here. They've got a beautiful little uh battery, uh, half turn thing here for the battery and let's get that out there. you go.

We got the Uh two Aaa's in there, but that is a very nice little battery compartment. I Really like that. Feels like a top quality bit of flute kit and you got to remember this is like 42 Yankee bucks on Amazon um you know, street price? Unbelievable. And you do get the standard fluke Tl75 probes and they're n they're PVC and they're like they're lowest quality uh probes? Some people like them but I no you know, nice set of good, uh high quality silicon.

uh. leads would be the go but for the price, but they are genuine fluke leads so no worries. So let's turn it on. So let's do continuity tester.

One of the things you're going to be wanting. Just a handy little me like these four is the continuity tester and it's it's. missing a few scratches there, but is that the probes? Let's try gold plat pair. All right.

We got the gold plater bman little bit better but it could be quicker. It's not the fastest, but it is a latchin uh continuity tester and it's a reasonable sound level. So yeah, it probably an 8 out of 10 maybe? I don't even know why they bother with the manual I mean it doesn't even have the specs in it? I Mean that's basically like that's it. You know it meets EMC uh standards and that's it.

Limited like why? so it doesn't even have the specs on the Uh back here. it's just got range. so it is uh, 6,000 count except on Ohms, it's only uh, 4,000 count on there. And of course there is no current so it's only voltage.

Uh ohms, continuity, capacitance, and frequency and that's it. And it's not a true RMS Of course it is average responding, but they do give basic DC accuracy of .5% here, but that's what you're buying. You're buying a 5% 6,000 count little pocket multimeter that's built like a brick dny. it really is.

um, and it'll probably last you a lifetime. and I it's relatively cheap, so it's not going to be your everyday use meter if you're going to use it every day for electronics or electrical. For electrical, for example, electricians they have like the 117. they have the like the 110 Uh series.

you wouldn't uh, be getting this. And of course, if you want something more feature packed and you want a minimum cost, of course you'd go for something like one of these Zotex. There's a whole bunch of Zotex, all get a re badged as Aing and uh, other brands as well and they're dirt cheap and they're going to absolutely blow this away. I Mean just look at the size of the digits uh there and the functionality of this thing anyway.

I've done a full review of that I'll link that one in now. of course this is triple the price of one of those, uh, cheapies. But does it feel like triple the price? Yes, it does. And of course, it's a genuine fluke.

It's going to have safety, uh, standards equivalent to any fluke. So we're talking 600 volt Cat 3 here. Even though Fluke don't get their meters UL certified, they do their own in-house certification. Fluke are, of course, fluke.

They're completely, uh, trustworthy. So and of course, this meets uh, the EMC uh and ESD uh standards as well I believe and um yeah. even though it's made in China this is. this.

feels absolutely fantastic. Feature-wise here, you haven't got much. You've got AC volts which is not even true RMS So it's only average. uh responding.

Um, you've got your DC volts range M Volts is ously only AC it doesn't You cannot do DC it doesn't select DC at all. Okay, so there's no I Don't know why that limitation exists. Maybe just they're saving a few cents in the path of the Uh chipset or something I'm sure the chipset is capable of M volts DC Why they don't have it I Don't know. but of course you got the Ohms up to 40.

Meg Youve got your continuity and your Diode test as well. Diode test. Can we light up a white lead here? We can. It does.

actually. Uh, come on. very low. but it's above the Uh voltage threshold here.

Let's test that. Yeah, 2.43 volts compliance voltage. but hey, it's power from two Aa's no worries and it's got capacitance range uh, 40 puff offset here and no, it doesn't have any uh zero n either. but you know you don't get that on the low end zot either.

so no worries. So we'll plug in my reference capacity here 10 narad and that's bang on. Um, including the offset. Uh there.

So yeah. spot on. Okay, let's measure 1,000 B cap here 872 over here. Wow, that actually took a while to come up.

Um, so 9177. But that's all right. let's let's do that again. Check out how long that takes so it's not the best thing out there for like you.

You would think that you haven't even got that connected at all, but it eventually jumps up there 920 and compare that with my fluke 87 over here cuz they measure differently. Oh yeah, 90 900? There you go because different measurement, uh, techniques. We won't go into that, but you know it's yeah, it's okay. As for accuracy on the Ohms range, that is a bang.

On to 10K there and well, you know, pretty close. Plus: I'm going equival over plusus one digit and that is absolutely bang on over there as well. Awesome! Now it does actually have hold here, but this is not fluke touch. a patented touch hold.

If we go over here like this, it's not. It's not the touch hold. A bummer. Why? Well I can tell you why.

it's cuz they're probably not using their own chipset, they're just using off-the-shelf multimeter. uh, chipset. and it doesn't. It doesn't have fluke touch hold technology whereas over here we can turn on auto hold like that and boom like that.

Bang on like that. So I oh that's so disappointing. but oh, you know what do you want for the price I Guess All right, let's use my Ac voltage standard here and uh, what? have I currently got? It's already set. It's set to 240.

Okay, let's operate it on 240 volts. It takes a while for this thing, uh, to settle until it locks in, but that is that is. bang on to one one leas significant digit and if we do the same with 600 volts there, 601 no worries. Um, so can it survive and overload? And by the way, you do get that little uh, lightning over voltage warning there which is kind of nice.

So I'm going to stress this up to the maximum. and yes, this bad boy goes to 11. Very special because if you can see yeah, the numbers all go to 11, look right across the board. So let's do uh 1200, 100 Vols AC Shall we will the Magic Smoke Escape Obviously it won't measure that, but no, it's already there.

It's already operating there. You go there, you go. That's 1200 volts. Um AC and Magic Smoke isn't escaping so no worries.

Well let's turn it back down, shall we? To say 500? That'll be 600 volts And it it survived just fine. No worries. AC molt range got us set to 600 molts. We're getting 601.

I'm not going to quibble about that and the same at 1 khz here it's a little bit under, but well within spec. and unfortunately, this can't go higher. Well could if external Me: whatever it's it's good enough. And my DC volt standard? Yep, bang on one volt.

Bang on 100 molts. Bang on. Okay, can it survive 12200 Vols AC Um on the Ohms range? Well, only one wait. Oh no.

Well, it's it's overloading. Okay, so it's loading. So obviously. uh, the front end prot protections kicking in and it's overloading.

Let's wind that down. wind that down to 600. Vol No, it still kicks in as you'd expect and 100 volts there you go. 100 volts ac.

So if we get Mains like 240 for example it it doesn't uh trip that. So 240 Vols uh Mains No problem. and if we switch that back like that, so live. uh switching there.

But of course you expect it to change a bit cuz the internal um protection stuff has actually heated up due to that overload. so you need time to settle, but that's settling back down and that works. Absolutely bang on. Look at that and the auto ranging speed on Ohms a It's reasonable.

What I'm doing here is just uh, sweeping it through from zero to uh, about 150 mahz or something to see if there's any common mode problems on the input and nope cuz I've seen this on. this is on the little thing on the EV log. Forum Some meters in particular, the key site seems to be the worst in this regard. That uh yeah, you can get at the higher frequencies you can get a common mode uh, problem, but nothing here.

All right. As for robustness? oops, oops oops oops a flat On's face right on the rotary switch. oh boun is nice and of course that survived the drop in and all the overload and everything just fine. That's what you'd expect from a fluke.

It's built like a brick dunny and it feels like a quality bit of Kit Absolutely fantastic. No worries. And it does have some power on options. You do the hold here and it does the uh, firmware version and tells you it's the fluke 101 and the yellow button here, um, switches the auto power off off.

but that's it. So unfortunately, yeah, there's no relative button. There's no manual range overhaul, so it's just always Auto Range Here here it's It's a very limited meter, but you got to remember this is not your everyday use meter so doesn't need to be feature packed. just needs to measure volts.

Ohms Diode calibration seal. huh? Oh, we can fix that. Is there a screw in there? No, it's a port. Oh there you go.

look at that. W Play to your hearts content. Is that a firmware programming? Port as well. Anyway, it looks like you can probably put into programming mode with that switch there.

perhaps? H Anyway, it's designed for automated uh production calibration, so let's open this up. These are stiff as and uh no metal threaded inserts but you wouldn't expect it at this price point. but it's really solid. but fluke have a have mastered the art of uh, metal into plastic studs so all their meters have had those.

Well, it's not just going to fall open I'm going to have to get the spudger. You can't get in there. Get the knife in there. who? Uhhuh Here you go.

Looks like yeah. looks like the front cover comes off. TDA We're in like Flynn No components on the top side I do like how the uh, right angle uh screws just go into your banana Jacks Like that. That's really nice.

Check out the uh, high voltage isolation slots. Really very nice. I Like that they've uh, physically put that in so you can't goof it. When you uh, put it, you know you know you've got the alignment when you put it back on.

And yeah, they're just the buttons. No worries. the rain switch is integrated with that front case so it's not going to come off and you'll notice the side of the case like this. it's got go down into deep grooves down here for your blast protection all the way around.

Very nice indeed. and that board's just not going to fall out either and this helps that like oh, even that bottom. even with the top of that case off. I Can barely twist this thing.

Wow, that is just solid ass. W I'm having a hard time getting these screws off. They are lock tied. There you go.

They got a star washer on them. Yeah, you can see the locktite down there. All right. We got all the screws out now and and oh yeah, hang on before I flip that over.

Let's just marvel at their solution for the banana. Jacks Here, look at that. Just a solid machined piece like that with the screw terminals in them. That is really, really nice with that insert with extra uh rigidity.

Um, put in built into the plastic case down there. Oh I'm really, really liking that. I'm thoroughly impressed. The contacts are intergral with the case there and did I snap something off there? Maybe that looks snapped off? Um I'm not sure.

Anyway, flip it over. Ah, beautiful minimalist design. Look at this. Got a chip on board? blob here? Um, optional.

uh, different package for that. What that chip is I Don't know, but it'll be one of the off the shelf jobbies and it's a single chip solution. So that that's doing everything, it's driving the uh screen as well. Is it? well.

let's flip that over and find out it's just a zebra strip There, you can see there's absolutely nothing under that. so it is a genuine single chip solution so we can whack that back in. Got some plastic on the bottom there. so anyway, that does go in there nicely.

I Just put the LCD back on I Really like the tight fitting there and they've got alignment holes as well and that all goes together very nicely. Once again, it's uh, there's a lot of engineering that's gone into this. a lot of Pride and uh yeah, you're paying for quality and you're getting it. And the PCB material itself.

Um, looks like the high quality fluke PCB material. It's really hard to convey on camera, but it looks like a top quality uh Fr4 board. Anyway, you can see they've uh, they've got some grease in there on the contacts, which you'd expect of of course. Anyway, very nice implementation Anyway, that looks like a big ass fusible resistor there, as is common influ in series with the PTC there.

and then you've got the two input mobs. We've got our AC cup cap there. Um, we've got another high voltage uh input resistor here and then a high voltage uh series array up here. Of course each one's only like a couple hundred volts, but you whack enough of them in series.

and no worries, you can get a high voltage resistor that way. and um, of of course there's nothing to go wrong with this. The great thing about this is that as you saw in the overload testing, it's going to actually perform really well cuz it's got I'm sure it meets its cat ratings, no problems whatsoever, and the clearance and creepage on the traces looks, um, absolutely fantastic. So very happy with that.

and I expected that other chip to be an E S Prom and indeed it is 24c something or other. So yeah, that's all she wrote I mean you know there's a couple of other uh, transistors in there? Well, there's one is that just driving the buzzer and that's it. I mean we've got a crystal and a bunch of passives, but that's all she wrote really. And we got more input protection diodes there, but that's about all she wrote.

So is the voltage reference internal and we got our battery uh, terminals here. There you go. um, input? uh, fuse there. very nice and uh, reverse diode protection there and that be the regulator of course.

The one thing you won't find in a cheap meter like this is any sort of hybrid resistor divider. Network You're just not going to get it. So um, yeah, they're just using uh, passive jobbies for that somewhere. Most of those seem to be caps I Know there we go.

There's probably a divider array over there. Yeah, that is exactly what I expected. Uh, in a top quality? uh, like bottom end fluke. I mean that Ret retails for you know, 42 bucks? Uh, street price? I wonder what it costs them to actually? uh, make this not a lot.

but you know, like they haven't skied on the safety and it's easier to do when you've only got the voltage uh, input? uh, of course. and of course you can make the smaller form Factory and you can put in all the creepage and clearance you want and all the isolation slots and everything else and that's a just a very nice implementation. I Really like you. You can't fault that at all.

Now of course, one of the things with having a little pocket meter like this is, well, what do you do with these big clunk and leads? Well, unfortunately. yeah, as I said, these are PVC jobbies. so obviously you'd like wrap them around like this and like have them like that and maybe you'd have a little pouch for it or something like that. but you know.

I I Don't mind the leads on the bottom and if you do have it down like that and you don't have the leads flipped over like that, then it can actually Rock but like there's nothing to like. it's curved on the bottom so like it does have these little um, feet on it but you know it's going to slide around on the bench and like it's got no tiling. bail of course. and but it does have a magnetic hanger hook and you can buy that as an optional extra and that is a really enormous hook on there so you could do it yourself.

um ones for that as well. but it's designed as I Wouldn't call it a pocket meter, but you know they sort of do imply that it's you know, pocketable and sure enough, it can fit in the pocket. but with all the you know, the big ass probes and everything yeah n it's It's not um, like the pocket meter shootout that I've done. but if you want a nice compact meter to throw in your glove box perhaps or as a spare in your um, work bag or something, then it's a winner.

Yeah, but ultimately they should have provided like straight leads coming out of there I think the right angle ones I don't know. you either like that or you don't I I think I'd prefer straight and power consumption. Why is at 3 volts? we're not even talking a milliamp there. So yeah, this thing supposed to have a 200h hour nominal life and well, at that sort of uh, consumption.

um for a AAA that at 1.2 Vols cutout for example? Um, that' be more like you know you're pushing like 8 800 plus hours something like that. So yeah, um, 200 hours I think is probably conservative little bit over a milliamp on the Ohms range capacitor range. it's under Mill volts Ac. it's 1.3 so it's highest there Htz? Yeah okay I'm just measuring 5 volts there and now we can actually adjust the uh battery voltage and we'll find out where the battery point is and see if it still reads good.

Okay, 2.3 228 let's call that 2.3 Vols It comes on and comes off so the hysteresis on that is quite is quite nice. but yeah, it's still accurate when the low battery is on. let's go keep going down until it starts to come a guts up. Oh oh then it just drops out.

Oh that's actually really nice. So it a nominal like 1.15 volts per cell. you're really looking at like seriously, you're looking at 800 to even 1,000 hours here from Alkalines? Um, this is way over its 200 hour spec. I I Can't see how you could possibly get 200 hours? Okay, there's people who want to know.

can you use Lithium batteries in this? Well, they're going to be above 3 volts. so let's let's just keep going. Let's just keep going. 3.4 it's still working so I'd say yep, you can use yeah, no problems whatsoever and the consumption is not going up so nothing's clamping or doing anything like that.

So wow I'm just going to keep going. Four volts. you can have two volts per cell and it's not a problem and well yet starting to go up 1 minut mil there. Yeah, okay.

yep. yep, no worries. Lithiums no problem and standby mode there. if you happen to leave the thing on um, you're only talking oh you know, 10 15 microamps, something like that.

that's not too bad. So their logo is smaller size, same quality. and yep, they've nailed it. It's smaller size, it's the same quality.

Shame. It doesn't have quite the features, but for the price point, eh, you get what you get and you don't get upset. And I don't think you'd be upset if you own this. I I Think it, love your lifetime.

So my verdict on this: uh, Fluke 101 multimeter. Well, I like it. It's pretty good and for like, if you can get it for $42 um, you are actually getting a genuine, robust little fluke for that price. But yeah, it's not going to win any awards for uh, you know, bang pach features and stuff like that like I'm really bummed that it doesn't have the proper Auto hold on here that would have been excellent.

Doesn't measure DC M volts, but that's neither here nor there. The continuity tester is okay. it's not the best one out there, but it's adequate. Uh, for the job.

and it measures capacitance and measures uh, frequency. but there's no temperature, there's no other fancy stuff, there's no relative uh mode. There's no manual range overh hold, so it's very, you know, plain vanilla type stuff. But if you want a genuine fluke, that'll probably still work in 20 years time, then it's worthy of consideration.

I Think like something like this is not really a competitor. this is more of an Electronics uh meter that you got to get a lot of bang per. Buck It's better to like compare it with something like another big name which is Klein Tools here this Mm500 this is one I've taken through the uh, mud run. So yeah, this one has been thoroughly, uh, abused and you know it's a similar sort of thing.

Like it's got no, uh, manual ranging. It's got no relative. It's got uh, you know, no molt, uh, function and stuff like that. It's not true.

RMS It's only average responding, but it's you know it just does. If you just want vaults, ohms and continuity, then you know meters like these are. You know, something that you just throw in your toolbox and you can really like depend on these and expect them to work when you need them. But you know the cheaper ones you can get for a third the price? Yeah, okay, but you know better bang per bu.

But this is a real fluke. and for the money, um, like for $42 I think this is a nice winin' little meter here. so C worthy of uh, consideration. Anyway, hope you enjoyed that video.

If you did, please give it a big thumbs up. As always, discuss down below and over on the E blog Forum Catch you next time.