My multimeter instructions(UNI-T manual) specifically warn to connect COM first(black/ground/neutral) and then the positive side(red).

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Just treat them like they are both Hot, ie don't be waving one stick around when testing. Your tester is essentially adding wiring to a live circuit which is only complete when both ends are connected. And firkin dangerous when its not completed.

You should do a video on that subject…it’s very confusing to DIYers! I know….I am one!

How do you get started getting clients? I have commissioned a few installs including new pumps. Are people searching for "irrigation technician"? Where should I advertise?

Boy I wish you’d do a video! I am having trouble with this exact issue right now! Can you suggest a good site to find help?

Great tip on fixing irrigation. Didn't even know this was something you could do yourself. Always thought you needed a professional.

Clearly not an electrician If your (black) probe were hot (120v) if you went hot to ground, that would be a ground fault So clearly this is inaccurate, unless your meter is faulty or damaged, it's completely safe to touch the probe while the other is connected to hot Also due to the nature of AC (alternating current) it does not matter which probe color goes where when taking a measurement

Can confirm!

Ok, safety Sally

funny, in the days when cars and lawnmowers used points and condensers, you could charge one up and toss it to a buddy. good times

@@stoopidbastid6420 Electrical condensers are capacitors, condenser is just another word for capacitor

Yes, they can store charge and render you a shock. But no, they can’t kill you.

No, you don't have to short a capacitor if it has a bleed off diode on it. It will bleed itself off as soon as it is de-energized. But if you don't know how to tell the capacitor has bleed off it is best left to a qualified professional.

I think I understand your fuzziness on the range voltage setting. On my multimeter screen, when I select AC, the screen has four zeros. The decimal point will be just on the right of the first zero as I press the range button. Example: 0.000 This range can only read 9.999 volts. The next range is 00.00 and reads up to 99.99 volts. The next is 000.0 which will read up to 999.9 volts. The last one is 0000 or up to 9,999 volts. I only use my multimeter once or twice a year and therefore purchased an AstroAI DM6000AR.

YES, MICRONTA!!!! I also have a little less old Radio-Shack pair of multimeters, both made by the Korean company "METEX", and both very durable, quite inexpensive, very acceptable performance and acceptable accuracy. The older one is not autorange, but measures many things, and the less old one is autorange. They cost me 30 and 20 USD back in the middle of the 1990s, and both have DB-9 digital output that I used a lot for checking and plotting the actual discharge curve of batteries. BTW, my neighbor had a much older Micronta multimeter that has endured the test of time, probably since the early 1980s, and still works perfectly. A shame that nowadays Radio-Shack no longer has that kind of devices!

@@alfredomarquez9777 Yeah I loved radio shack when you could actually go in there and buy some diodes, transistors, etc. I made a few projects based all on radio shack components.

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Good callout Pat, thanks for the help 👍

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Thanks for the feedback 👍

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Tools, and knowing how to properly use them, will always pay for themselves, sonner or later!

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In most cases, testing household batteries with a digital voltmeter will *not* weed out weak household batteries (unless perhaps it has a dedicated battery test circuit); The high impedance of the meter will not load down the battery sufficiently to duplicate the type of conditions that the battery will encounter in most devices that it is to be used in, including many LED flashlights! I actually prefer using an old analog Simpson or Triplett Volt meter with a much lower impedance (typically 1K ohms per volt) for checking batteries, as those will load the battery more similarly to it's actual intended in-circuit usage. I also have several little analog battery checkers with hinged contacts: a modern purchased at Harbor freight, and another one that I bought at least 30 years ago. The Harbor Freight device does not reject batteries when they get weak in the same fashion that my older battery tester does, and when I examined them both and measured their loading characteristics with an ohmmeter, I found that the Harbor Freight battery tester uses a 130 ohm load resistor and the 30 year old battery tester has a 30 ohm resister inside of it! Lots of crappy batteries will "pass" when tested with the Harbor Freight device but fail when tested with my ancient battery checker that forces them to work harder..

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Thanks Chuck 👍

I wouldn't go probing anything without turning the meter on first either !

@@millomweb - That's the same advice my wife gives me.

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Hey Richard, thanks for the support!

Hey Marc, completely agree. In terms of being to troubleshoot and find root cause of failures the Multimeter is top of my list. 👍

I used a multimeter to test the solenoid that helps control water flow of my discounted laundry washing machine and of course it was faulty. I wish i knew more to make use of the multimeter!

Nice! Happy to help 👍

That's a great meter if you like to replace batteries. That portable head chews through 'em at an unbelievable rate

Have you tried the special Eveready lithium-infused "Lithium Max" batteries?

Thanks Ryan! 👍

Literally not an issue. You can touch the probe in any order you wish. Also, power flows from the negative terminal to the positive so if he wanted to be "safer" he'd touch positive battery terminal first... but again it literally does not matter. Doesn't matter if you flip the leads either. It'll just show reverse polarity.

@@etherealrose2139 yeah, I was wondering where he got that idea… silly as putting ketchup on a hotdog before mustard to prevent getting it on your hands.

@@Ozmarilla Around so many things and among so many people, it's how they were taught, it's not something they've analyzed, before utilizing- like the old belief about putting a 12 volt automotive battery, on concrete, that supposedly it would "drain" the "current" , or throw away latex paint, if it's more than 5 years old. It's whatever gets handed- down to people, that they view as "correct" or "incorrect".

Not sure how many people NEW to meters are going to spend $180+ for a DMM

@@totallyfrozen I thought in the video he had asked what we use, I just listed the one I prefer.

@@totallyfrozen i don't know about the new ones. but I spent a bundle on a Simpson 360 a long time ago and i still trust it. So money well spent on a good meter is a wise choice in the long run.

current draw can be a bit tricky at 120 with a meter for diy people since with a meter you have to disconnect wire to measure load and most measure max out a 10 amp a clamp meter is better suited for that yes for vehicule it's usefull for parasitic loss...just don't open a door or other stuff you will max out 10 amp very fast i have seen some way to measure current draw in a car by measuring voltage drop across fuse...but never tried it my self

Happy to help!

Good tip. I blew my fuse not knowing why but think it's because it goes thru the milliamps test dial which is only rated for a meager 250 milliamps so instant blowout.

Your absolutely wright I touched one in the back of our old TV one time and it shot me across the room.

Run capacitor don't hold charge start capacitor do however

@@ricardoa4322 That's not accurate. However, it's always good to use a bleed resistor to ensure it's not charged. People are shocked to learn that I'm an electrician.

Oftentimes, it zaps you from one hand to the other, which gets you across your heart. Not good.

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It is worth noting that when I was a kid, in the days of analog multimeters, the impedance of the meter was often only 1k ohms per volt (unless you had a fancy high-impedance VTVM), and therefore when measuring 120VAC the load introduced by the meter was only 120K ohms, so yes, touching the bare tip of one probe while the other probe was connected to a voltage source could give you a nasty shock (even more so if you were working on a tube amp circuit at 400 volts DC or more). Modern digital meters perform more like a high impedance VTVM (vacuum tube voltmeter) and don't load the circuit down at all, which is usually a plus, but can give you erroneous readings in vintage-electronics work, where the original voltage readings as noted on the schematic may have been made with a low impedance analog meter, and use of a digital meter may give you much higher readings (be sure to use the correct-impedance meter for calibration procedures!). I actually use an analog meter frequently for electronics bench-work, as they are not only handy for a quick short-circuit and junction-drop test of diodes and transistors without the jumping around and fluctuations that occur with a digital meter, but an analog meter will also load batteries down more than the digital meter does, and so batteries that seem to measure OK on the digital meter may actually give up the ghost when you put them into any kind of device that outs a decent load on them. The low impedance of an analog meter will quickly show you which batteries should be tossed!

The meter may be at a diffrerent setting. When you do things often enough and do not do things safely at some point the accident can happen.

Then you should know it's a sine wave (sinusoidal) there is no 'y' in it.

how do i safely check ignition coils. i know its in resistance mode.

@@charlesdowns1691 you might want to get some good advice on that. Coils can build up a charge, and resistance mode of multimeters generates a charge. Meaning, you could charge up the coil and get quite a shock if you're not careful.

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Lithium is expensive and probably costs more than your meter. That being said they hold their energy forever and it'll last the life of your meter. Like probably 20 years. My alkaline lasts already 10+ years and counting still but I don't use it much.

@@jonfreeman9682 $2.40 each in packs of 8 for Energizer lithium AA batteries. That's definitely not the same cost as the multimeter.

@@davepaturno4290 That is really cheap for lithium battery. Definitely worth it as it'll last the life of the meter. No more fumbling for batteries.

Same thoughts, missed the first key part for setup. I know this cause I put a cheap harbor freight one into a socket and didnt pay attention to where the leads where, big spark, tripped the breaker, and melted the probe end a bit.

@@mosmosspam lol I don't have to worry about that, I have a clamp meter that measures up to 400 amps, AC and DC though you do have to make sure you are set to volts, not ohms, capacitance or temperature (the K thermocouple plugs into the same jacks as the test leads. ) some food for thought.

@@Sparky-ww5re 400 amps Jesus!

Exactly! This should have been titled: “Using the buttons on a Klein MM600” This was a very poor tutorial to say the least!

Can putting the the poles in the wrong spots (backwards) damage whatever I’m measuring? So if I touch with the black where I should be using red and vice versa could that cause issues? I’m using this device to measure things other than outlets too. Like guitar electronics. In wondering if the multi meter itself could send electricity back and short something in general?

Yep no way you re getting shocked at 120V from touching 1 probe, I just put the black probe in my mouth to test how much my boots insulate me, it was still reading around 38V, but once I touch the wall with my finger it jumps to 120V, I did the demonstration to teach the new guy about grounding and the concept of getting shocked.

That is true, but it's still a good practice because the user might have accidentally left the meter in current mode (as opposed to voltage mode), which has very low resistance. Of course, if the user connects both probes in that mode, it'll immediately blow the fuse, but before that happens, the other probe is indeed hot and dangerous.

@@catsspat how often have you used your multimeter in current mode? I placed the leads in the wrong spot once. There wasn't anything left of the meter.

@@catsspat Comes down to paying attention to detail. If a person cannot be bothered with that, they probably should just hire a professional. A healthy respect for electricity goes a long way toward safely working with it.

@@catsspat why would current go through your body when it's got a short it can get through (i.e. multimeter in current mode connecting hot-neutral or hot-ground)? Also that's a fused connection.

Oh yeah, the repair list is long for most of us homeowners 👊