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Simpson users - D cell replacement?

Autoranging has got to be the biggest bane of all time...

Heck the autoranging analog VOM I have has got to be the most confusing meter I've ever come across. Fortunately you can lock t he range and manually up/down so that helps, at least... It generally does an okay job at selecting range but it still isn't always optimal...
 
audiodummy said:
Autoranging has got to be the biggest bane of all time...

Heck the autoranging analog VOM I have has got to be the most confusing meter I've ever come across. Fortunately you can lock t he range and manually up/down so that helps, at least... It generally does an okay job at selecting range but it still isn't always optimal...
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Never had problems with mine and autoranging.
 
Wait till you try an analog autoranger whose scales are not multiples of 10 apart... I guarantee you this will be confusing as you won't know which scale to look until the dust settles. If it had used x10 scales then at least the mantissa would be known, though then accuracy would suffer towards the ends of the scale.
 
audiodummy said:
Wait till you try an analog autoranger whose scales are not multiples of 10 apart... I guarantee you this will be confusing as you won't know which scale to look until the dust settles. If it had used x10 scales then at least the mantissa would be known, though then accuracy would suffer towards the ends of the scale.
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Mine are all DVM autorangers, never used analogue AR, so that's probably it.
 
The sole reason that I hate autorange is speed. All of the autoranging meters I've come across take a couple seconds before it settles, and then you have to carefully look at what range it's in before understanding what the true voltage is at that point. Sometimes knowing it's 6.2 volts in 200.0V range is sufficient if I have absolutely no idea what voltage is at that point -- don't need to know it's 6.235 volts. (And being able to quickly tell the difference between 100mV versus 100V makes a difference... I'll happily touch a with a capacitor at 100mV when it reads 0V without autoranging; but 100V, not so much.)
 
Today I tried to get a universal remote working for my housemate's ugly lashup of an AV system. The remaining two alkalines in my stash were stone dead despite being over a year away from their "expiration date".

I'm gonna hope that IKEA will ship me some more AAs as I'm rapidly running out of NiMHs... and of course the Harmony program for the receiver was wrong, so I'm back into Xsight programming again. Gonna have to set up yet another search on the bay for an Xsight Color... those stupid things are just so amazingly flexible.
 
audiodummy said:
Autoranging has got to be the biggest bane of all time...
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I'm honestly not a huge fan either, and for the same reason. I don't instantly know what the number is telling me until I figure out what range its on. Manual ranging can be done but its honestly more annoying than just having a big twisty knob that requires no thought to get where it belongs.

I find myself in that odd minority of people that has great difficulty with "easy to use" features, but has little trouble with excessively technical things with lots of buttons and switches. I guess my brain just doesn't work the same as the majority of folks who design or give feedback on these types of things.
 
gadget73 said:
I'm honestly not a huge fan either, and for the same reason. I don't instantly know what the number is telling me until I figure out what range its on. Manual ranging can be done but its honestly more annoying than just having a big twisty knob that requires no thought to get where it belongs.

I find myself in that odd minority of people that has great difficulty with "easy to use" features, but has little trouble with excessively technical things with lots of buttons and switches. I guess my brain just doesn't work the same as the majority of folks who design or give feedback on these types of things.
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I think it's an engineering mind. Something that I understand how it works but the average person thinks is overly complex, I have no issues with. However, attempts to simplify that to make it easier for the average person end up frustrating me. See programming an Xsight Color, above - yeah it takes more time but I can do it, whereas if Logitech's programming is wrong, I'm at the mercy of their tech support to fix it (and I'm probably going to end up using an Xsight to get them the information they need to do so.)
 
N8Nagel said:
...I picked up a 4 pack of Energizer Lithium AAs and they're working fine....
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Good call. I'm late to the thread, but those cells were what I thought of when I read your first post. They can crank out a decent amount of current, and as far as I've seen don't leak.
 
So as a follow up to this thread. Since I got a serious answer from a Simpson rep to my question (I guess there is a advantage to using a $300 multimeter as opposed to a $5 Hazard Fraught one) I asked why the Rx1 and Rx100 circuits couldn't be modified to use any of alkaline, NiMH, or LiFeS2. The response was that the intent was for the meter to stop zeroing once the cells had discharged to 60-70% as with alkalines below that level of charge there may not be enough current available to read resistance accurately. Therefore if the adjustment range were such that you could zero on NiMH, it might not properly indicate low state of charge on alkalines. So, there actually is a reason for this. (while searching for the email I found that it was the same rep that looked up replacement part numbers for me years ago when I got two of these meters and needed new battery connectors etc. to get them back in top shape again. I actually bought one "for parts" but upon inspection it was worth fixing rather than cannibalizing. I gave one of them to a friend as "payment" for shipping me a broken Marantz 4270, which I'm listening to as I type this, so good deal all around.)

Now I want to modify it with a switch to allow NiMH to work correctly, but then again, we're talking about modifying a Simpson meter which would be even more expensive to replace than my Flukes... (at least those seem to use NiMH correctly, but then again, I wonder...? Those use 9V exclusively though and don't have a 1.5V cell for the lower resistance ranges.)

Also, I got a bug up my butt over the weekend to program a universal remote for my housemate's system, as the receiver had no remote at all and it was a little lashed together. I threw out my last two alkaline AAs as they'd gone stone dead sitting in a case. At least these hadn't leaked yet. I am now 100% alkaline free, most stuff gets NiMH except the D cell in the Simpson as above. Now what am I going to do when the supply of AR Xsight/Nevo C2 remotes dries up? Yet again, I tried to use a Harmony and it failed - incorrect codes for tuner input on the receiver. I will see if I can get Logitech to fix this though.
 
Digital multimeters have regulators and (at least the good ones have) voltage sensors to know when its output cannot be trusted. The nice thing about digital multimeters along with properly designed FETVOMs and maybe VTVOMs is that if their noise is low enough and sensitivity is high enough that they don't need to pass hundreds of milliamperes through to measure low resistances like analog passive VOMs do. I recall most of my DMMs pass no more than 10mA or so in the lowest resistance range 200Ω, some even less. This is a 10 fold improvement over analog passive VOMs that typically is around 150mA.

10mA is fine for AA and even PP3/9V cells, but 150mA will kill all of these smaller cells fast, at least Leclanche carbon/manganese zinc cells -- thus requiring the D cells. Again most of these multimeters were designed for these low capacity CZn cells in mind, "AA" Alkaline cells will pass 150mA fine too though they will still drain quickly.

Incidentally 9V cells are getting tough to find cheaply now, loved getting them for 50 cents a piece just a year or two ago and lasts in my Fluke for a long time. And just checked my small 30+ year old VOM with its original AA is still working ... no leaks!
 
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N8Nagel said:
So I wrote to the source, and got this in reply:



So on my way home from work I picked up a 4 pack of Energizer Lithium AAs and they're working fine. While digging in my battery box I found that I had four Duracell alkalines in there that I had forgotten about. Why I bothered to keep them I don't know. Must have come with something I bought and I just kept them in case I gave something away with a remote or something like that. Two had an expiration date of 2024. I say had, because one of them was leaking into its little plastic case already. This right here is why I never use the bastards, and why I say that alkalines are trash.

View attachment 1874206

I also checked the fuse to which he was referring, but I expected it to be OK because I'm pretty sure I replaced it (what is it with good meters always having the wrong value fuses in them when you get them used?) and it measured at 0.1-0.2 ohms on a cheap Greenlee meter. (couldn't use the Simpson as that is the fuse that protects the resistance measurement circuit.)
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Yes i have seen that so much with the Duracell Batteries, even when not used and in storage. not so much with Eveready Batteries cells, though i did see a few leak..
 
Speaking of Eveready, they do own Energizer, and they also sell Eveready alkaline cells as well. I heard the Eveready alkaline cells had higher impedance and thus cheaper than Energizers, but I suspect either version is acceptable for "low" drain VOMs. Anyone have access to both and tried them?

It's confusing because "Eveready" cells in the USA typically are acidic-salt Leclanche dry cells, but not everywhere in the world, where some of them are alkaline... These acidic-salt "super heavy duty" cells are also fine for VOMs of course.
 
I don't know who made batteries for JVC, but I have the original batteries in the remote for my CD player and after 33 years they have not leaked and still work! I do not use that remote often because the one for my receiver also works the CD player. But still working after 33 years?! Wow.
 
Back in the day "super heavy duty" tends to be steel clad... was it the case with the JVC?

My Eico has "Dollar Tree" carbon-zinc batteries in it right now, and they are not steel clad. They do still work however, and they have a date of 2014-2015 so already about 5 years past expiration date and not leaking (yet). However they are starting to look a little blackened which I would think means that the zinc is eaten up, but still does not explain why the resistance modes are still working fine and I can calibrate to 0 ohms.

BTW, I saw a note that Energizers really did have a leak free guarantee of 2 years past expiration date or something like that. Or was it 2 years after they're flat and dead (which typically happens well before expiration). Did not see any such guarantees on Duracell or any other brands.

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Speaking of batteries, how have people been dealing with the "other" battery in vintage multimeters? Luckily my 1960s Eico uses 4xAA for the Rx10k, but some of the older multimeters use this weird 15V battery, which I think I've only seen once ever. How have people been dealing with this battery? Have they been leaking on people?
 
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Yeah those JVC are CZn steel clad. Likewise the AA in my small VOM is also steel clad. I don't exactly remember when it was new but it's at least 30 years old, and likewise it's still alive.

I've not had many new carbon zinc batteries these days but have not seen any steel clad CZn batteries recently. Right now the cheap CZn batteries are Dollar Tree's Sunbeam and E-Circuit, as well as Harbor Freight's Thunderbolt, these are all plastic clad (and may well all be the same OEM). These tend to easily dry out apparently, and tend to have time limited life even with low drain. I didn't take a close look at the Panasonic heavy duty cells also offered by Dollar Tree, and don't recall how newer Eveready are built, though reallly old Eveready were plastic cladded. Evereadys seem to give a 3 year shelf life to these CZn cells (compared to 10 years for Energizer/Eveready Alkaline).

The steel clad weigh more and have less zinc in them so technically they won't last as long, but apparently they seal the minute amount of moisture in, that make it last longer in terms of shelf life.
 
Was looking for a different thread but this one came up in a search. Very timely. I just found a Simpson 260-6XLPM in a thrift store (!?!?!?!!!!) yesterday and the D cell did D cell stuff all over the insides. The only real casualty was the battery contact however and a) Simpson uses the same part to hold the 9V battery in place, so temporarily for testing once I cleaned the fluff out I used that for the negative D cell contact and wedged the 9V in place with a little paperboard and b) when I hit my storage locker this morning I not only found my box of left over Simpson parts from the last time I fixed up meters there were three extra battery contacts in there! So I now have another operational meter - with leads, no less - for a total investment of about $40, most of that being batteries. I did use the Energizer Lithium AA and 9V both and I was able to zero the needle on all ranges. I also replaced the AAs in my 260-8P because they were about 3 year old alkalines (I had that one calibrated just because, they provided the cells with the calibration) so some of that cost went into the other meter.

Annoyingly, those AA lithiums must be targets (no pun intended) for thieves because my local Target showed several packs in stock but they weren't actually there. So, I ordered them online for store pickup so they'd zero out their inventory, guess what, when they did that I transferred my order to the next closest store and the same thing happened. They canceled my order and I reordered from a store ~8 miles away and this time I got them.
 
Unfortunately those lithium primary batteries are indeed very high dollar to size*weight ratio and excellent ROI for theft :(
I'm going to continue using dollar tree batteries for my meters wherever possible, however... they work long enough. Should check my Eico again, but I figure it's still working well past the expiration date of those carbon zinc cells.

I'm still shocked at the longevity of the carbon zinc PP3 cell in my Fluke 77. Have yet to replace it unlike many of my other DMMs which keep crying for new batteries *sigh*
 
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