Vintage Fluke 189, Replacing the Supercap and More 

Using the video as a sleep aid? lol.

Borrowed a 189 a few months back and the batteries were dead. Owner said they had just installed a new set. Put a new set in, and the battery indicator came on shortly after. With permission, I pulled the cover and sure enough the cap was bad. Lucky it had not broke the seal yet but it was pretty much shorted. They didn't use the RTC so I just removed it. These meters are getting pretty old.

@@joesmith-je3tq Yes, they are getting old, too bad Fluke doesn't still make something similar. Great meter accuracy wise and feature wise. I've turned on a lot of people to the Brymen meter's They all seem to love them. People who are skeptical I send them to watch your channel. I belong to a lot of tube amp builders and repair pages on FB and other platforms and meters come up quite often. Recently a page moderator was promoting a meter I would not dare use on a 500v+ tube amp. Most of the members challenged him on his choice. A lot of members threw out the Fluke brand of course and quite a few mentioned Brymen including myself. Great bang for the buck and I feel confident probing 500v B+ in a tube amp with a Fluke or the Brymen thanks to all your thorough tests.

I will run up the free meters from HF to a KVDC from time to time but the current from my supplies is fairly low and they don't have a lot of stored energy in the filter stage. There is a big difference in say my home stereo tube amplifier and the local TV station. lol. I am comfortable working at several KV at home on the bench but shy away from a 440AC line in a factory. As always, the best tool will depend on the application.

Why would you go to some unknown eBay seller? I bought mine from Digi-Key.

@@joesmith-je3tq Perfect Form-factor closed the deal. Do you know the actual mFs and voltage ratings on the original caps? Mine were too far gone to determine anything useful. The replacement caps measured about 20mF and are 3.3v rated. Their marking are "3.3v .20" If there's more, it's welded under the positive connection tab. I no longer have an LRC meter, so only my FLUKE 289 and my Mastech MS8040, with 100mf and 200mf respectively, have the range to measure the new caps. I'm totally lacking on detailed knowledge about designing with Super Caps so don't know if there's a trick to measuring them. I've got some slack time this week so am going to educate myself. I know you used 100mF / 5+v replacements but it requited mechanical mods to fit the solder pads. I wanted my two meters to look "original" when opened so went with the smaller form-factor devices, since I'm selling one of them. The only markings on the original S-Caps were a stylized "M" that has a "logo" appearance. One cap is marked 33 above an 11 all above above a lower case "f". The other has a "54" above "15" above a lower case "f". These markings are to the right of the "M" logo. The "-" sign is below the "M" inside a circle, presumably representing the negative post of the device. I'd say the markings are week and year, but the meters should be way older than 2011 or 2014.... 54 M 14 - f EDIT: I now understand measuring Super Capacitors requires charging them and timing their discharge via a specific resistive load. No big deal...

@@Tool-Meister I used 5V parts to try and give them a chance.

I still have some early supercaps that we used back in the mid 80s. These were very reliable but used a different technology than the tablet that I mentioned that was damaged. The tablet was maybe three years old as well. I have not seen the parts I am using leak yet but it's early. I hope by derating them they will out live me.

I kept the ultracapacitor and cleaned it after removing it from the 289, it was a single cell ultracapacitor and some brown goo was exiting from the negative end, the laser etching on the ultracapacitor said 3N14 (it measures 6,78mm in diameter and the thickness is 1,73mm).

The 189s I have are all used. I really have no idea how they were used. They are a fairly old meter and I would expect them to have some problems after several years of service. Strange that Fluke would not have covered that under warranty on a 289. If they left me hanging like that on a three year old top of the line meter, I would do more than just remove the cap. Is there more to the story?? Did you buy it brand new? Was the meter really three years old or was that just how long you had owned it? If it was brand new and you are the original owner, why would you ever take a soldering iron to it? Did you try to have them warranty it and if so, what was the reason they would not cover it? Please fill in the blanks.

It was brand new (7 years ago), I did it myself because I did not want to wait for it to be repaired by Fluke, and I felt it was not a big deal to remove it, it gave me a peace of mind to not have it in there, eventually a new ultacapacitor can always begin to leak again and destroy the PCB, and really in the 189 with the C-Cell battery holder I would never install it again anyway. I have another (second hand) 189 and also removed the ultracapacitor, I already bought a second BP189 to attach to it, so it can work for many years as well. These Fluke 189 may be old meters, but they do work very good and I can use the Fluke ir-3000FC Bluetooth to log and see the screen remotely.

I picked up a BT interface from UNI-T but after I received it, I realized they had lied in their manual and have no support for the Windows OS. Then again, I don't know why I was expecting anything less from UNI-T. Good to hear it was not a warranty problem from Fluke. I was thinking that may have been a free NIST cal. On the reliability of the caps I am using, ask me again in 20 years if I am still alive and have the mental capacity to know what you are talking about.

Thanks for the post. That's potentially very good news.

@@joesmith-je3tq I recent;y bought a full set of battery contacts for a 189 for about 12.00. Installed them on a 189 type back cover and tested fine. Cheaper quality than the originals but they work.

Congratulations on your new meter. These are indeed very nice, even for their age.

I have a friend who had the 87 IV. He really liked that meter. It eventually died and he bought an 87 V thinking it would be an upgrade. Even to this day, he is not a happy person over that deal. lol They claim 72 hours typical with the backlight off when using Alkalines. I never measured the current draw. When my friend gave me that one Fluke 189, I installed new NiMH while I was going over it. Those batteries are still in the meter on their first charge. When I was making this video, I had some very old AAAs that came with the Anengs installed in dead meter that I was using to power it. It it not last very long on those! lol. I have fitted both Brymens with rechargeable lithium batteries. The first one I had installed one into is now on it's second charge.

I get like anything, what's fair will depend on what people are willing to pay. eBay shows them around $200 to $300USD depending on their condition. At this price, I would rather have a brand new Brymen BM869s. There was one that sold last week for $113 but we have not seen any posts from the person who bought it yet.

I bought a pristine 189 a few months back for $210. It looked as if it had never been used and is bang on with my Brymen BM 869S.

I have a very nice one with a new supercap on sale on eBay. Seller srjaynes49

Looks like you are having a similar symptom as this person. Maybe consider joining that thread and adding your findings. www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/fluke-189-multimeter-repair-advice-needed/msg4397968/#msg4397968

Mine use a press fit.

Do you have an account on the EEVBLOG site? If so, could you post a picture of the part there and maybe circle it?

I didn't suggest anyone to change them during the video. For educational purposes, the video describes a particular test that a modern meter would be required to pass if it were to be certified and that I suspect that this meter could use a better part.

My first Fluke runs but took a lot of TLC to bring it back to life again. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ObKomuLLqU8.html

I watched that video along with a few others on the 189. My favorite is still this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DUwkuM3blsk.html

I watched this video quite a while back. I loved his humor about the engineer LOL! I've dealt with a few of those type guys in my years as a toolmaker/programmer. Most guys were on the nuggets with knowledge, a few I ran across were as clueless as they come working for a world wide manufacturer of fiber optics at that time in the late 90's. Amazing how some of these guys got their degree. @@joesmith-je3tq

Not but depending on your skills, you could ruin the meter. I believe the parts I procured are no longer offered. Good luck and if you have any questions, feel free before doing anything with the meter.

@@joesmith-je3tq Thanks for the reply my soldering skills are not too bad so i don't think that would be a problem and i'm quite surprise that the calibration is not going to be affected by changing the super cap , i thought i would loose everything and would have to send the meter for calibration also i can't buy the panasonic cap that you've used in Switzerland so i'm gonna go with this one i think www.distrelec.ch/Web/Downloads/_t/ds/FC0H104ZFTBR24_eng_tds.pdf the size is pretty much similar to the one you've used but it's a different package

Also i saw in most of your videos that you also like your brymen bm869s alot but is it really that much better than the fluke ?

@@rickalison5718 Right, I do like the Brymen BM869s. Out of all the meters I have looked at, it's still my choice. Of course, that doesn't mean it's the right meter for you or anyone else. Fluke hasn't offered the 189 for several years. I like the 189 but I like a few features the BM869s offers that the 189 doesn't have. Two temperature sensor inputs for example....

@@rickalison5718 This message hit the spam filter due to the link. Many people will remove the cap and leave it out as they don't need the features. Calibration is checking the meter against a known standards. Alignment is adjusting the meter to bring it back into calibration. Changing the cap will have no effect on this.

Everything we humans make could be improved. This meter is no exception. Still, for it's age, it's a very nice general purpose meter.