You can put that into other quality meters as long as their CAT rating is sufficient and was verified by a reputable testing lab (Underwriter Labs, TÜV, etc.). Fluke isn't the only player in town with quality meters.
Also don't skimp on the meter, buy something decent. There is a lot to be said about the real life and noticeable differences in cheap and quality meters when testing or repairing electronics but in the realm of embedded device hacking I particularly found the following features handy:
- A high speed voltage bar at the bottom of the instrument which tells you if a voltage is indeed stable. You can detect the TX pin of serial lines with that. Cheap meters may have that bar but the update speed is way too slow to be useful
- A high speed and loud continuity tester. Many cheap meters (and some expensive as well) have a large delay between shorting out the leads and the buzzer going off. That's rather annoying when you can't make good contact long enough (also see below for test leads).
After working with a cheap meter for a while (Uni-T) I went for a Brymen BM869s and never looked back.
Also get yourself some high quality pointy, hard gold coated test leads. I personally can wholeheartedly recommend the Probemaster 8000 series.
Also don't skimp on the meter, buy something decent. There is a lot to be said about the real life and noticeable differences in cheap and quality meters when testing or repairing electronics but in the realm of embedded device hacking I particularly found the following features handy:
- A high speed voltage bar at the bottom of the instrument which tells you if a voltage is indeed stable. You can detect the TX pin of serial lines with that. Cheap meters may have that bar but the update speed is way too slow to be useful
- A high speed and loud continuity tester. Many cheap meters (and some expensive as well) have a large delay between shorting out the leads and the buzzer going off. That's rather annoying when you can't make good contact long enough (also see below for test leads).
After working with a cheap meter for a while (Uni-T) I went for a Brymen BM869s and never looked back.
Also get yourself some high quality pointy, hard gold coated test leads. I personally can wholeheartedly recommend the Probemaster 8000 series.