I recently repaired one of these (289) at work where the IR LED that did the probe detection on the amps ranges had gone out. Looking on the EEVblog forums, other people have had a similar issue. Replacing the diode was easy and I appreciated the polarity marking on the PCB. Despite not having been calibrated since new, it was at most 2 counts off on all ranges. I was amazed at how much better than spec this was, with all the "normal" ranges being less than 1 count off. The low 50 ohms range gets a lot of use, many people reach for the 289 instead of any of the other meters.

I've got the same meter at work, the kickstand always falls off it. I'd also guess the inner case is transparent so they could mold the case, display cover and IR port in the one part and remove two o-rings from the BOM and some assembly steps.

We have one of these at work and I always get stuck with it. 90% of the time I prefer a simpler meter like the the 87V. The seven segment LCD has better legibility in indirect light and the fact that this 287 takes so long to boot is just annoying.

This is my 'go to' multimeter at work, the AC bandwidth is excellent and apart from the slow boot-up they are reliable and accurate. We have many of these in our office and we had a problem with one of them where the current probe input detection circuit didn't work correctly. It turned out to be a problem with the IR optics that are used to detect if the socket is occupied. I did a KZfaq video showing what I found and from the comments it would appear that it is not uncommon to have problems in this circuit.

I think I first heard about doing a quick counter-clockwise turn on the self tapping screws from Franlab. Definitely been making sure to do it since!

yes that tilt stand is crap. this is the most annoying thing on my 289. plus the "supercrap" that needs replacing

The clear plastic case is so that the IR port works without needing a cut-out in the case.

Nothing flapping in the breeze? Nothing how you doing? Nothing to play along with at home? What an earth is going on Dave ????

Keep mentioning the "how to replace screws into plastic" comments. I often find that there are multiple paths "offered" as I reverse turn the screws where others (before me) have forced a new set of threads. I select the one the feels biggest, or I will try all paths and select the one that makes the first half-turn with the lease resistance. Keep up the good work!

It's a great meter from a resolution, precision and functionality perspective, but i find i have to use the backlight all the time to be able to see the screen clearly.........

The first multi-meter teardown of the year.

This is quite an old design dating back to early 2000s. I was involved in a contemporary job for them on the Fluke Biomed side and a bit of preferred tech came our way. I'm not surprised to see an MSP on the Meter side. I'm unclear about the ~28 pin Fluke chip, but recognize the LTC196x. It's a good part as long as you do your cals and understand its LF performance. What's that 6Hz lowpass? Could they not do that in firmware? I heard about a big-ass processor on the UI side which caused them pain ("all your engineer are belong to us"). But they got it done and made the product they wanted. I still like my 289. I also like my 189. I guess the transparent inner is for the IR port. The Fluke IR dongle looks weird but works fine. This was before Bluetooth took off. Fluke were very hot on electrical shielding. They have A LOT of experience across industries and use it well.

Glad that getting that service manual by luck was helpful in one of your videos - BlackPhoenix from the EEVBlog Forum here.

I bought the 289 brother for work for the extremely low burden voltage. This is, for the moment, not used to its potential. I still love the functions. We primarily use Fluke 179's for testing and diagnose. This meter is used for those special projects to impress customers!

Sad to hear right away that the stand just pops right off, given how much Fluke meters cost

Great meter, been using them for years, main downside is they can eat batteries when used daily

I always advise on sheet metal or plastic thread screws to reverse it until it drops into the original thread also. No sense cutting new threads that will destroy the plastic over time.

For my line of work I love the magnetic clip on adapters as it makes it handy for switchboard applications to take measurements for a period of time.

The rusty capacitor is a known issue for fluke 289 and 287

The tilt stand indeed is kinda crappy and could've been better. I just rest the meter against a surface. I'm surprised you didn't take the front panel off or talked about the optical jack sensing. The case is actually transparent and the grey frontpanel is what makes it either a 287 or 289. The 287 front panel limits the movement of the range switch as the 289 has two extra positions. Of course the firmware is different. But other than the front panel and insert surrounding the lcd, the cases are identical.

Dave is really good a circuit board analysis. the guy hasn't worked in commercial design is years, how does he keep up

Clear plastic is probably stronger due to lack of filler for colouring.

Thank you 🙏

Every time I hear someone say "decade old" the first thing I think of is 80s technology

Have owned one for 10 years. My only wish would be Fluke updating the display for better viewing. Ditch the backlight and go to a OLED display for my tired old eyes.

Thanks, love my 289.

bought one of these in 2009, new, for 285usd on ebay and it still works great. I've been really happy with this multimeter

I have had one for well over a decade. Best meter ive ever bought. I just use the magnetic hanger instead of kickstand.

The transparent case appears to be Ultem plastic. Ultem is very resistant to heat. It's transparent only as a default attribute of Ultem. No functional reason for transparency.

Clear plastic might be polycarbonate for higher impact resistance with the standard PA6 plastic over-moulding. Also provides the IR LED window.

Bob is your uncle 😅 I love this guy and his educational shows❤

Great teardown. It's an amazing DMM, almost as good as my Aneng AN870.

You kept missing the LT2415-1 24bit ADC (to the left and just above the MSP430 in the schematic). Also, the voltage reference is not the LM4041 but U42, a 2.5V LTC6652 (last page of schematics). At first sight the ADC reference inputs look to be wrong with Ref+ connected to AGND and Ref- to AVSS (cct gnd) - until you realise that AGND is actually driven to the 2.5V reference voltage relative to AVSS. Also confusing at first sight is that the LTC2415-1 +Vin is connected to reference +ve (AGND) and the input signal is fed into V-. However the ADC has a differential input so it's not a problem.

The 287 is indeed a very pretty meter, especially on the inside, but it ought to be for the retail price it has. You indeed get extra quality for the considerable extra money. I still have and use daily the Fluke 8060A which I bought back in 1983. It went back to Fluke in the late 1980s for an LCD board update and calibration. I just checked the calibration against my 6.5 digit Keysight bench meter and the Fluke is still spot on. I am not sure I would still trust the 41 year old plastic of the 8060A for high voltage withstand, but I rarely deal with any voltage greater than 240 volt mains.

C145 probably doesn't have a replacement. From the research i did on my Fluke 189 (on your forum), it's there just to store your memory when batter power isn't present. Many other 189 owners have, and suggest, removing the super cap entirely so it doesn't leak out and ruin the board. I've had mine removed for several months now and use my meter every day at work with no issues.

Cool a fluke teardown right on.

A thing of beauty indeed. I wonder if these ethernet jacks were ever a feature of any model, or if they were there as a production-time only interface. It shouldn't be that hard for Fluke to release an upgraded battery compartment and stand. It's one of the higher end meters after all...

Damn, i thought for aure the 3rd terminal would get more treatment. Left me hanging 😢

Oh a teardown with the full Schematic! Now THIS I like! MORE (please)!!! After b!tching about Flukes being overpriced, i can now see they ARE kinda Class - at a good used price, of course ;)

I know what an ENET2 and ENET3 are. They are terminals used to connect certain Fluke Multimeters to lithium plasma solar panels attached to the backpacks of school children in the Netherlands. These panels, designed by native Americans to look like a porpoise dorsal fin, captures the Sun's energy and stores it directly into our children as they walk to school. By building schools next door to Green Energy Distribution Communes (GEDC), the kiddies become living 'batteries' that shares power with the GEDC. The special ENET connectors are required because the power GEDC power is so emotionally pure. We learned some years ago from Whitney Houston that "Children are our future", now we know that she meant that "Children are our Energy future".

I don't know if I want a multimeter like that (because of its features AND that datalogging is useful) or not (the battery consumption thing, that bootup time and that plain garbage stand) but if one of those comes by cheap I would. Lightyears ahead of the Aneng I got!

I repaired a few of the 289's with high voltage AC abuse in industrial test cage (likely about 4 kV 50 Hz) due to user error. Why did the management chose to use a fine instrument like that to test basic voltages in a cage baffles me. Opportunity for me to get them cheap. I had 3 of those at one point - sold one. Putting one back together I forgot to tighten the screws and wasted quite some time finding the culprit. Once tightened I have not had problems over the years. 289 has two PTCs. Upstream there is the transistor clamp array protecting the very input to the ADC. In one of the 289's a cople of the transistors were damaged. The input protection is battle tested - in one of the meters the big input resistor had blown to pieces so violently that part of the inner case was evaporated (the clear part). Replaced the MOVs, PTCs and resistors and it was fine. GOAT meter!

The clear plastic casing under the rubber is a genius touch: you can have a display port that is totally waterproof without any kind of joint with the casing itself… Would the loktite interfere with the conductivity? I do think so…

I've got two 289's here. Fits my needs just fine. The only things i don't like about em, is the screen isn't always easy to read, and how fast they chew through those 6 x AA batteries.

Re: that clear inner skeleton: I'll bet it's polycarbonate, designed to give the ABS outer shell some beefy impact resistance. Seems odd, because usually the protective case goes on the outside. Perhaps Fluke cannot get BASF PC in the trademarked yellow color they need.

Dad used to have something like that! He was an electrical engineer 👍

Nice meter,looks repairable,which is nice, as you say you can get a new LCD display for it.

Excelente 😊

I was lucky and got a new 289 for pennies, ladies husband died and not long had it and she sold it to me for the price of a cheap multimeter. I did try to tell her it’s worth a lot but she let me have it for pennies in the end. Great meter and my go to meter.

Was a bit of a surprise to see an Intel module in there. I was aware that they made nand flash chips, I have an old sata ssd from them, but I figured that other manufacturers would have been preferred by Fluke.

The first plastic is to allow the IR interface and maintain a single piece for sealing. If they used a separate window it could develop leaks over time.

At my workplace, power electronics designer in EV, I have a bunch of Flukes with rechargable batteries. They have a dedicated charger which plugs into the bananna plugs. I don't remember exactly which of them, usually it's written on the front.

If some schmoo interferes with the IR-lead-sense, use compressed air to clean it. Chemicals can stain the plastic & the IR-emitter-lens, making the DMM think there's always a probe in the ammeter-hole.

My daily meter for the last 12 years is a 289. Good but...battery life is terrible. Boot up time is irritating. 87 is usually better. But, i do like the Min Max avg all on the screen at the same time with the current value. Very useful. So, i keep using it.

Those ethernet headers are external MII interfaces to an external PHY. Interesting.

Now if the 287 and 289 weren't so big and heavy, I might drag out mine more often.

Fenomenal!!

Я в своём 289 заменил supercap на EECS0HD224H. Заводской был в таком же состоянии как на видео.

Hey Dave, you mention the miliamp jack (13:55), it's actually the IR port. Cheers, Stu

ENET1 and ENET2 have the correct pin counts for an RMII ethernet interface.

My company had things in a kit with a Bluetooth module and you can set the real time graph up on your phone or computer

The white range switch reminds me of a 45 to 33 rpm adapter. Dating myself!

I'm convinced nobody makes a good multimeter kickstand. It's actually the only thing I don't like about my BM235 meter, too. The floppy kickstand attachment area drives me nuts.

Awesome review!! Where can I get that schematic diagram?

I have a 289 and the tilting thingy is more a breaking thingy...annoying...plus if it drops a bit to hard the photo diode at the amp inlet tumbles off the pcb. It's very tiny but you can solder it.

It seems every high voltage technician has one of these. I've never seen one get used for anything that you couldn't do with a basic multimeter.

hello dave love your channel did you ever get the part from Germany for that gun ?

Wow, is that an Intel flash chip? Haven't seen one of those in years!😂

Nice.

in reference to my earlier post I just want to know why use self tapping screws , to me that is not quality , that just says can`t be bothered to use metal inserts or we don`t care if the screw gets cross threaded , blow a fuse unscrew back , replace battery and again play with screws The multimeter I bought from Radio Shack back in early 1982 has metal inserts Fluke isn`t the only one I`ve seen Dave here do tear down/ review of other meters same thing self tapping ....Just Why Is it to save a buck

When will the next generation be released? Meaning Fluke 389 to follow the 289 which followed the 189. The 289 has been sold for over 20 years - how long was the 189 sold for by comparison? Improvements for next generation (389?):- -Make that near useless rear stand stonger and stop it falling off -OLED display -Battery life improvement OR Rechargeable Li-Poly battery pack (with Wireless Charging like a Mobile Phone) that fits in place of AA Alkaline battery holder -Faster boot up time

The pr0n bots are at it again, seconds after upload!

I have a 289 at home. The kickstand is crap. Would also have liked to see an option for external power brick because it eats batteries for breakfast.

Recently score 289 for 300$)) Disadvantages: 1) Big and havy. 2) Tilding bay. 3) Start up time is not bad but usually when you use multimeter preferred scheme switch and go in fluke 28x case is switch wait and go. 4) Strange software solution at resistance mode they dedicated F3 button to switch between continuity and resistance mode ok it need, but in capacity and diode you need messing with menu F3 button doesn't used. 5) Doesn't remember las used mode after switch rotation. 6) Expensive Ir cable I made myself for 5~10$. 7) other minor thing like price, battery consumption, leaking ionistor, not so crisp display. Overall is good multimeter with lot of good features but are it the best is opened questions.

Just had a question. How would you know that the input resistor is fusable? My understanding is that a fusable resistor has a white band before the tolerance band.

That C145 supercap is just too bad! Rusty on every Fluke 28x, eventually malfunctioning and drawning the batteries and unable to keep date and time at all.

is there any serial eprom? in meter information is fields that by default say 'Use Fluke ViewForms to edit fields' .. it is for setting Company name, Site name, Contact information. As a private user, I can't justify FVF, and they told me its the only way.. I wonder if I can set it manually if its in an eprom. but I guess its in the flash?

Got 2 289 and a 189. Brilliant meters. 289 does get annoying waiting for it to boot compared to the 189. Fluke Forms and dumping trend data to it is really good too.

Loctite works as an insulator, not really optimal for the input jacks. Did some work for the military and using loctite on the screws for the earth cable was a no go, never seen so much paperwork with instructions on how to mount a single screw.

Did you try the Linus tech tips screw thing?

just checked my 289... no rust :-) the ENET 1 /2 are not populated,too... so no difference there, well one thing - i only have two connections to the batterie. the "Z" connecection is missing

Is loctite a non-conductive risk?

I assume they made it clear so that it was one single part and they didn't need a separate part for the IR window?

Could you explain the LOW Z and LOW V modes of the 289, I know what the manual says, but you have such a better understanding of these inner workings I would appreciate it.

It makes me wonder how you guys get access to schematic?

"Worth every cent from a design and build quality POV", and yet you had to tech us how to screw self-tappers into plastic. I am surprised, they did not put self-tappers on terminals' posts.

Terminal screw @7:49 is already loose. Unless you previously loosened it off camera.

schematic link pleaseeeeeee

Doesn't the screen turn off in long-term logging mode?

I wonder if the reading at the beginning was from radio waves.

is that cap replaceable without soldering?

everything screams quality cept self tapping screws Just why?

I understand it runs some sort of embedded Linux!

that’s a nice $60 meter

Looks like the 287 supercap (made by Elna) is EOL'd - anyone know if there is an equivalent? I looked at mine and its leaking too :(. Had no idea until I saw this video :).

E net, Ethernet 1 and 2?

That processor is way overkill for just the LCD.

Fine teardown, but sadly another overpriced Fluke that NO-ONE should buy!

👍👍

Si los pernos no están enroscados en metal sería muy malo