Review on TRMS 6000 Auto Ranging Digital Multimeter: Battery Powered, Alligator Clips, AC/DC Voltage, Amp/Ohm/Volt Multi Tester by Dale Hing

Well, I wouldn't rely on this multimeter for lab work, but it has one positive trait: capacitance and resistance measurements are pretty good. The voltage varies widely, sometimes by a volt or more, and sometimes the device just doesn't measure voltage, AC or DC. I wouldn't trust that. The only thing it was reliable at was measuring capacitors. I've even found that there is no resistance reading from time to time which gives oddly different readings, but most of the time it works fine (yes I know how caps and other network components affect readings, I've been doing this for 35 Years). My old Fluke Radio Shack DMM is much more reliable in everything else, but lacks the wide bandwidth for testing capacitors. That's why I bought this cheap counter. So far every capacitor I've tested with it has been fairly accurate compared to what my Fluke/RS instrument can test. Not worth sending it back, it costs more people and fuel than it's worth. I wouldn't even recommend it as a first multimeter for an engineering student. Better spend the money on a refurbished Fluke or one of Radio Shack's classic DMMs or analog FET meters and you'll be far less disappointed. Your mileage may change if you get your own copy of this device from the land of ferroplastic, but don't expect much if you're already used to using good gauges. I already have some decent meters at home to measure other things, I only bought them because they were cheap and promised to test in capacitance ranges that none of my current good meters can. So far the capacitance meter is the only thing that meets my expectations. I think it's worth it, a few years ago I paid a lot more for another capacitance meter that did a lot worse. The capacitance scales are micro-farad, milli-farad, and nano-farad, this doesn't directly read pico-farad, although you can derive the reading from decimals in the nano-farad range. It automatically scales to the furthest decimal point from the whole value, so the readings can feel like bullshit at times, and there's no way to manually switch it to a scale you can take care of, so you have to keep track of decimal places . Set in your head to arrive at equivalent, practical values. You get what you pay for, and in this case it's not much. It comes with two sets of test leads, one set is insulation piercing needle tips and the other is ordinary pin tips, suitable for general testing. The tips are grooved to prevent slipping, which is a good detail. The pads on the alligator clips are nothing more than regular alligator clips that are crimped to make them easier to fit onto the probe tips, there isn't a clean, tight shape that fits onto the probe tip like in older versions of the Radio Shack. The plastic insulation on them is so bulky and rigid that they're practically unusable, and they won't even stay on the probe tips. I think you can pull the clamps off and use them to bite between the wire under test and the tip of the probe and hopefully this will last long enough for a reading. But you can use any alligator clip for this job. It might have been better if they included handle-style clamps for attaching to the ends of the thin wire. I've always found myself using them more than alligator clips. You can use a jumper clip to do the same thing as those cheap alligator clips. Almost every Specialist will have several of these anyway, so yes, the Grabber style would be far more useful. In any case, if that's all you can afford, then go for it. I know I can't afford much, so buying good test equipment isn't an option for me. So it's a worthwhile game to try cheap stuff from time to time. But the money could be invested in a more reliable tool, otherwise it's a waste. Buyer Warning.