Slightly Better Multimeters: Brymen, Fluke, Solartron 🌞 

Great to see the Solartron 7081 being given an airing! I designed the analogue circuits (1979-1983) and Brad Wilson did a lot of the software - all assembler in those days. It was a treat to work on it under the late John Bloomfield. The voltage reference had an analogue quadratic temperature correction circuit. Production testing and calibration was automated using Commodore Pet computers - leading edge stuff, believe it or not!

On the question of "Re-Cap or not?" my answer is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I always enjoy your videos.

Let me remind you of the 1st rule of engineering; Don't fix what's not broken. Thanks for the videos and your subtle humor.

Idk why, but your video style is some kind of German ThisOldTony! I love it!

I added a Brymen BM869s to my kit about 2 years ago. It is a TANK. It's been dropped from an antenna tower and it just bounced. It is one of my very best and favorite meters of all times...

Marco reps posted, time to drop everything!

A distributor sending you an old, used piece of gear for a video? That's actually really cool of them! It may also be not the best idea to recap the meter, since you may not be able to recalibrate it.

I use to be a Fluke only guy but after getting my first Brymen that has changed! Now I'm not saying the Brymen is better because they are really equal, BUT the Brymen gives more bang for your buck and is very well made so in that respect I would say the Brymen is a better.

The Brymen meter looks OK but it's just another DMM - another halfway there test tool. I keep hoping that a DMM will come out that includes inductance, cap ESR, *cap EPR*, and cap polarity tests. These are very common test requirements for electronics work, and I can think of no reason why a DMM can't do them all in a similar form-factor. Grr.

I am probably way wrong, but I say don't recap the radials. I have repaired a bunch of early 80's arcade boards and always suspected the caps. The only cap that I *had* to replace was physically beaten with a leg ripped off. However, more modern equipment I wouldn't hesitate.

There is still one parameter which you can never compare between the Fluke and Brymen : Long Term Reliability / Repeatable Performance = Dependability. I work in IBM and used to be a Service Engineer for 35+ years now, and we have consistently used Fluke. We dropped them, kicked them on the floor, used them at 50 deg.C and at 18 deg.C, installed them over shaking/oscillating mechanical bearings (long story !), used in dusty environments, and the list can literally forever. The meter NEVER gave a wrong reading. Full Stop. This is most important : depend on the reading you're getting from your Fluke. Now please make this simple calculation : How many Fluke meters are out in the field (not in the Labs), multiply that by the number of hours they have been working -> total "Meter.Hours" Now divide that by the number of reported failures ? You'll get a value for a metric which we can call "Reliability". Now do the same for other meters. Please note that I am not against Brymen or any other brand - but I just feel that it is not fair to compare just how many millivolts difference there is and then say "spot on : they are equal". Anyway I enjoy your videos.

I always support welectron. Best prices in Europe and outstanding personalised service. Not once but 5 times!

Those will keep rain, dirt and falling video lights off the sensitive circuit....? Wait what? Oh never mind.

Wet tantalums don't bother, they will be fine so long as they are the glass seal type. Rubber seal ones replace on sight, they will be dead. Wet slug ones work till the point they leak through the case from the outside corroding away, inside the silver plate and the PTFE carrier holds the slug in place well, and provided you do not over volt them or reverse polarise they will be fine.

After Meter Joe gave his stamp of approval to the bryman i got one. I have an 87v as well. I find myself grabbing the bryman more often though it might be because i use my meters in pretty dirty places and i dont want the fluke getting messed up:)

There is something about your videos, that makes one feel at home and cosy.

So true about nanovolts. And it's not the worst, try Fluke 8508A in resistance. 3 minutes per sample :P. Recap ofcourse :) If you up to the challenge (in shipping, that is), I can calibrate your K2001 at no charge.

Ive Brymens 867S and 257S, used Fulkes many many years (nope, I was happy too and keep my nice-old Fluke's). Brymens are really nice multimeters and everyday-horse guys: no any issues, all works fine (its maybe 6 moths daily work with). 257s is a little bit faster compared to 867s, but 867s is more accurate as well, so, its ok for me. I ordered Brymens at Welectron too..;-)

Nice little review. I’ve had my Brymen 869s for nearly 2 years. It has been flawless. It my favorite multimeter, mostly because it has a logical layout and an awesome display. I don’t dislike my Fluke 87v or my 28ii. I just like the usability of the Brymen better.

Thanks for the info on the Brymen! I've been looking for so long to a multimeter that will serve me well but that doesn't cost an arm and/or a leg and/or a kidney. Now if only I knew what I was doing.

Love the Brymens! My 869S is my favourite handheld unit. Found Welectron yesterday, will try to buy from them next time.

On the topic of the front panel connector, it needs a Fischer Connectors - S 104 A053-130+ I believe to plug into that mystery connector. Someone else did the repair for one and documented finding the connector. That is one hell of a cool meter.

I have a Japanese calculator built in 1972 with the original electrolytic caps in it, they still work fantastically. Yes 47 year old electrolytic caps that still have a very low esr, wish I could get a hold of more of them built that well.

Love the video and your incredible sense of humor. That take on opening up the meter... its what i do... I LOL for a good minute. Really put a smile on my face.

I really liked you replacing that old Varta battery with those supercaps.

At 3:12 I had to rewind this video several times and still can't stop laughing. This really made my day! :-)

I’ve got a fluke 89 4 that seems to have more functionality than the 5 you have. Also has the dual display and takes AA cells. And you can replace the fuses without breaking the calibration seal.. 89 5 seems a backward step, although I think they Marigot have renamed it a 189 when the the 89 v was released.

I know it's an old video but such a nice, informative and tastefully entertaining one; thank you.

lmao the reaction to those hand soldered spots ^^

I love your videos and I already binge watched them all shortly after subscribing a few days ago. keep posting often please!

Worked with same model Solatron back in about 1987. We had one as our local primary standard in a repair lab in Silicon valley. Was a nice meter, but as you say very slow in highest resolution mode.

I love these videos. Educational and calming. 🤗

Tektronix made a beautiful 500,000 count multimeter in about 1999, dual display for volts and frequency, or AC & DC, with a protective case design that is still the best I've seen, and, yes, AA cells for power, batteries and fuse accessible, but interlocked with the input sockets, so that the "hot" section was not accessible with a probe in any of the sockets...optical data port, too...just too bad that I can't find one. Cheers!

The Fluke 87 V is an awesome mulitmeter, but I always considered the 189 as the gold standard.

Received a new BM257s from Welectron at today. It was sent exactly in same cardboard box with same packaging paper around as you had yours :)

2:42 - I almost invariably take things apart before powering them up, particularly with mains-powered devices to make sure that they are safe. Non-mains devices are opened up just to satisfy my curiosity.

I'm still working on my 7081. The supercap mod is ideal, though we chose somewhat different part numbers. Half of the capacitors on my board were bad, so I suggest replacing all the electrolytics, shotgun style. The power line detection PLL had high jitter, so I implemented a slower digital FLL circuit. Replacing the power line inlet module is also a good idea.

The people saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and "never change a working system," obviously don't understand what _preventative maintenance_ means. Doing something to save yourself from a catastrophic failure, and/or 10x the work, is ALWAYS the way to go. I'm not saying that's the case here, as I truly don't know, but those aforementioned sayings are b.s.

I just realized that I have a Solatron 7071 its 7 1/2 smaller brother just laying around... It was throw in the trashbin at a reorganization of the R&D department, I did put up a hard fight to keep it in the inventory. But it was decided to go as "old and obsolete"... Now it resides at my home lab instead.

I just came to see the solartron. I have fluke and field piece on my bag for meters. That thing looked like a beast

Love your commentary and humor while being very informative.

Love the fresh humor, very cleverly done... well done .

My probemasters just arrived today and WOW they were so soft and flexible and just luxurious.

YEA ! All the new meter must be dissected to replace the fuses . I like this set up..

I haven't actually "laughed at loud" while watching a video in a long time, but "Protected by the thick chin on the Hell Boy bumper" got me. Thank you

Appears you're comparing to the Fluke 87V (6,000 counts or 20,000 hi-res). There's the Fluke 189 with 50,000 counts, dual display, and lots of other goodies which can be purchased used for similar cost of the Bryman.

Regarding the recap question: if it ain't broken don't fix it.

Wonderfull Sunday entertainment. Great video, great sense of humor too !

Brymen BM839 is really nice multimeter. It is not Fluke 87 V replacement still, unless you have some specific needs. Fluke is still better in terms of build quality, protections, just robustness and trust. Brymen BM839 tho is a good contender, and adds some features that are great. Dual display, larger battery capacity, easy access to fuses, good probes, good banana sockets and of course phenomenal pricing, makes it excellent replacement for Fluke 87 V, if you are on a budget, and mostly interested in electronics work. But for electronics work BM867s (50000 counts, 2 temperature channels, 1uV resolution, 4-20mA control loop readings, PC Comm interface, dedicated knob position for diode checks with 3.5V open circuit voltage (vs 2.8V on BM839)!, square wave duty cycle measurements, 0.01 Ohms resolution in 500 Ohm range, can do 5 reads/s in 4.5 digit mode, and 1.25 reads/s in 5.5 digit mode, frequency counter up to 1MHz), BM257s or 121GW are probably even better.

I would suggest recapping just to be safe. Those caps might last a good while longer, but if they don't you probably wouldn't want to risk any of those parts that would be damn near impossible to obtain having a catastrophic failure.

Oh, the 7081. I bought one of those back in around 2002 for about $1500. This was our poor man's HP 3458A. I built several precision shunts to add current capability, and wrote a bunch of Met/Cal procedures to automate the measurement taking and uncertainty calculations. It came with a couple sets of proprietary leads (5 wire and 3 wire). I'd be interested to hear how you find its reliability. I found it very finicky. The calibration stability never quite lived up to its claims, often being out of spec when it was sent out for cal. One of the advertising features was "calibrated for life"; they had some mathematical formula (and an accompanying graph) showing that after something like 7 years, the drift was so low as to be ignored. I don't know how that reconciled that with potential component failure. The AC voltage was especially fussy. There was one high frequency adjustment you had to do by way of pushing a resistor back and forth (seriously, this was an instruction direct from the factory service center). The specimen I had displayed a very bizarre aspect of not being able to measure voltages at the exact frequency of 45Hz. Some kind of resonance issue; the reading would slowly drift up well past the specified limit of error, pause, and then drift down to about the same magnitude below the limit of error. I'm talking orders of magnitude on the specified uncertainty. If you varied the voltage just slightly, it was rock solid. I got around this by writing into my Met/Cal sub procedure for 7081 AC measurements to throw an error if you tried to measure at a frequency of between 44 and 46 Hz. Good times. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

BRYMEN is an excellent multimeter, I wish they sold it directly in USA and I wish data link cable was priced more affordable. In USA they rebrand Brymen and sell it under names like Greenlee and EXTECH and charge ARM and a LEG.

Watching your videos is a constant dilemma, either what you are saying is sarcastic or real😂😂 And I still struggle to differentiate😛

Tony Stark after watching Nat Romanoff: 'I want one!' Me after watching Marco's ES121: 'I want one!'

I couldn't stop laughing when you seen the manual soldering inside and made that puke sound 🤣

That meter is older than you? Thanks, I feel old now. Great video. Thanks kid :)

3:12 best part of not just this video but any ever produced. 😂😂😂😂😂

Don't re-cap. Those old caps probably outlive the "modern" ones. The ESR could be lower than todays standard, but it works with those, designed for those. I never had to replace caps on any pre-90s or early 90s equipment. The bloody caps started to appear somewhere between 1995-2000...

I'm surprised the 87 series is still around, I thought it was replaced by the 18x and now 28x. Being a proud owner of a 189, it would be interesting to see that compared to the Brymen. It also has a very useful two-line display, and uses AA batteries (or even bigger ones, C or D, can't remember, with an appropriate battery box), so that's two advantages of the Brymen gone. Let us know how you get on with it.

Have a similar Bryman. find it a bit annoying in daily use, particularly the combined resistance/conductivity/contunity setting where you have to cycle through the almost-never-used conductivity to get between the very commonly used resistance and continuity.

Man that meter is a Electronics Work of Art. No one makes stuff like that any more. HP was the last ones I know of and there products have pretty much go to CHIT. Part of me say YES, Recap and the old in me say HELL NO ! Go for the Record. Let em run. So what did you ever do ?

Nice to see AA batteries in the Brymen 839. I have the big brother 869s and it uses a 9V battery.

Oh look! It's a Marco Reps video; always welcome.

the thing about the fluke is not really its features or necessarily its sensitivity. it's just the reliability. I never want to second guess this stuff

That vintage multimeter is ❤️❤️❤️

I've got a fluke 77 from the 80's and 87v, both with lifetime warranties. I send them out to fluke every year for call and for 50$ they recondition and calibrate. I use them everyday and they have never failed me. I'll stay with what works, fluke all the way

Do not recap, if it still works. they look very fine to me, i would highly recommend to leave them that way.

The Brymen can be started with a key combo press and then it stays on and does not auto power down.

That bit at 5:00 had me laughing out loud at work, thanks for making me feel awkward when looking at my colleagues surprised faces.

I’ve had my Brymen since 2016. My only complaint is the lack of the Fluke-style Auto-Hold function.

I’m no electrical expert but this guy sounds legitimate!

The caps look like Sprague caps. So I would keep them. The old Sprague seemed to me very robust. Had them in an HP power supply from 1960. All in perfect condition.

@Marco Reps Keysight is just about the only one who does handheld dmms discretely

that clip of the multimeter falling down was from a video by "I Did A Thing"

After nearly 40 years of carrying around a Radio Shack brand (Micronta to be exact) DMM, waiting for it to break (it never did), I finally got a Fluke. The ergonomics are so much better, but it's overkill for my needs. But they're so cheap now, so why not?

hahaha! I completely lost it at the "Right here at your fingertits" bit xD

You got to love the Solartron. It has that '80s character.

Can always use 3M matte film on the display to kill that knarly reflection

Great review Marco, could you post details of your little test jig with the binding posts they look as though they are floating. Class set up.

I would check the caps. They are deceptive, too, one in a Keithley 2001 started sneakly leaking

I was going to subscribe, but since you eradicated the dinosaurs to make this video, I had to change my mind.

I think with it's history alone, i would recap, give it back some of it's old glory.

The "hurk" at the bad soldering got me xD

That abstractions are on point :)

I use Solartron 7075. Had to replace that front Fischer probe connector with DIN-5.

I think thr brymen 869s is the true Fluke 87V killer. The Fluke 87v only stands out in lifetime warranty but for that it costs 2,5 times as much.

My answer to the recap is, I'm lazy so I wouldn't do it but on the other hand it wouldn't hurt to put new caps in either.

Brymen need to consider adding Diode test beeps like the Fluke does. This would increase meter sales to me.

Nice DMMs, but don't supercaps have much higher leakage current compare to batteries which would lead to the data in the volatile memories be lossed much quicker and that would be problematic if they hold things like calibration data? That was the case for meters like HP3457 and 78. Can you confirm whether this is the case for your Solartron DMM? And I think recap is a must for instrument like this.

Bit off-topic, but do you still use the iMortor ebike kit? Looking to get an ebike kit for my commute, wonder if you still think it's a decent motor.

Thanks Marco

Yes! Mod it till it breaks! (not actually though...)

GOOD TO DAY TO YOU SIR , I HAVE A BELOVED FLUKE 192 SCOPE METER IN NEED OF SOME SCREEN REPAIRS AND CALIBRATION . I WOULD BE GRATEFUL TO KNOW IF YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED IN THE REPAIR OF THIS FLUKE AND THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT VIDEOS AND YOUR TIME !

Very good video. Tks I own: brymen 869s, fluke 189 and agilent u1253b. The most I use now ? The brymen!! regards

Marco reps and GreatScott! uploaded videos together Yay!

Hi Marco Reps. Do you maybe have a link to the Probe Masters- the one you provided after these "many" years has expired :(...

The 87v also has a conductivity mode.

Yes for the recap, maybe video about it together with the mod?

It might be wise to replace all the transistor case components and voltage regulators in that just because if they go bad they love to take other components out with them, but you would know more about that and be a better judge

Thanks for another great video Marco.