# Who's using Flir's clamp meter ?



## David C (May 19, 2015)

Looking for a trms AC/DC 1000V clamp meter with a slim jaw that does inrush and frequencies and recently bought a Flir E4 wifi thermal imager, I placed an order today for a Flir CM74 clamp meter ($175 USD holiday special, $250 MSRP). I would have loved the Fluke 376 FC, but curiosity got the best of me and also the price was hard to beat for a meter that is an even match to the Fluke 375 FC on paper (minus the bluetooth connectivity) and fall in the "expendable" price range.

I was also leaning toward the Flir CM46 with Accu-Tip as I do a lot of DC low voltage work (not related to electrician field) and having true rms 0.01A DC accuracy in a clamp meter is exciting, but the 600v CAT rating was a turn down since I wouldn't be able to use it in commercial/industrial settings (thus not worth carrying around as main clamp meter).

I couldn't find much real-life reviews of the Flir clamp meters beside the Amazon freebies wannabe review of free stuff. Availability is also scarce compared to other big brand meters such as Fluke and Klein.


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## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

Not sure about FLIR but I've had problems with Extech clampmeters that merged somehow with FLIR but hands down in terms of features Amprobe and Extech frequently leave Fluke in the dust, even though Amprobe is also a sister/subsidiary of Fluke. In the field, Extechs break easily. That's coming from a long time Extech customer. I've moved on to Amprobe/Fluke for clampmeters. Extech flexible current probes are still the best regarded in the industry. I have an old Fluke one and wished I had the Extech. We of course have lots of FLIR cameras. I keep looking at Seek which with the latest product beats the cheap FLIR, Fluke, etc., but haven't bought one yet. The FLIR One resolution is total crap, down there with the Fluke one.

Not sure if I'm being fair to FLIR here but their FLIR branded meters only started showing up after buying Extech. Hoping somehow the quality cross pollinates. Hands down having a Bluetooth meter that doesn't cost thousands and doesn't need an engineer to set up like Fluke is a big advantage.

As to "only" 600 V CAT rating the whole rating system is really just confusing. They basically hi pot the meter through a resistor for a period of time and see if it passes, nothing more, nothing less. CAT IV 600 V for instance uses the identical test conditions to CAT III 1000 V. Some manufacturers use one, some the other, some both. The hi pot voltage in this case is 12 kV. Focus on the transient voltage, not the CAT or nominal voltage rating. Most systems cannot exceed around 1.5 times nominal and that's what utilities use as an estimate for transient overvoltages. But with inductive kick and ungrounded deltas the upper limit is your insulation limits which in practice is about 6-8 times nominal according to IEEE Green book. Also think about accidentally getting on the wrong side of a transformer so that's another consideration if say your plant has 4160 or 2400 V. So even lower limit CAT III meters easily exceed insulation coordination so if a fault or transient happens the system will arc over first not the meter which is the idea.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk


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## David C (May 19, 2015)

Good stuff, thanks.

I've received my meter just before christmas and I've been using it a few times on the job already as well as DC for car stuff. The backlit LCD is very helpful and the LED work light actually came in handy several times in electrical rooms with poor lightning or when we did shut downs. The loZ mode works great for troubleshooting with ghost voltages on floating grounds or neutrals. Nice surprise was to see the accuracy was of 0.01A AC/DC up to at least 30A, something Fluke doesn't even have.

The clamp accuracy is good enough, compared to a Fluke 381FC. Overall for less than $200USD, that's a good clamp meter with all the features I wanted.

I also recently upgraded my Flir E4 to what's referred as an E8+. Basically unlocking the full 320x240 sensor resolution and enabling extra colour palettes and measurement modes and other advanced features that aren't even available on the E8 or Exx series. Hard to beat for a $1000 TIC.


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## Pete E (Jan 2, 2018)

If folks are looking for a small clamp meter that reads DC current in the mA range, take a look at the T-RMS UNI-T UT210E..

Yes, this is a cheap Chinese meter and no, I wouldn't suggest it for professional use, but as a beater to play around with vehicle electrics, alarms ect I think its surprisingly good, especially considering its dirt cheap. 

A friend bought one to trace some problems on one of his farm tractors and he was quite impressed...

For those who doubt, there are quite a few unbiased reviews on YouTube...


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

paulengr said:


> Not sure about FLIR but I've had problems with Extech clampmeters that merged somehow with FLIR but hands down in terms of features *Amprobe* and Extech frequently leave *Fluke in the dust*, even though Amprobe is also a sister/subsidiary of Fluke. In the field, Extechs break easily. That's coming from a long time Extech customer. I've moved on to Amprobe/Fluke for clampmeters. Extech flexible current probes are still the best regarded in the industry. I have an old Fluke one and wished I had the Extech. We of course have lots of FLIR cameras. I keep looking at Seek which with the latest product beats the cheap FLIR, Fluke, etc., but haven't bought one yet. The FLIR One resolution is total crap, down there with the Fluke one.
> 
> 
> Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk


Fluke and Amprobe are the same company, Fluke bought Amprobe a while ago.


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## David C (May 19, 2015)

Thanks, I see a lot of UNI-T and TackLife clamp meters that pack a lot of features for a very low price, however it's a wild bet as to how accurate they get and how much they are affected by electromagnetic fields nearby. On my personal vehicle which I use mainly for work and road trips, I have an extensive setup with a secondary battery, inverter, etc and when dealing with those tiny automotive gauge trying to figure if I can safely add more load to a given circuit or section of wiring (for example hooking up trailer harness), it really comes down to being able to know that you're NOT above a given current rather than knowing the exact load which can be hard to determine if you have too much induction going on. Consistency plays a lot into measurements.

Still, if they were smart enough to put most of the production cost into the quality of the electronics rather than making it look good on the photos, those clamp meters are a dime a dozen for someone who doesn't need Fluke's precision but want something that's at least close enough to the real number. You'd almost have to order 3 of each to see if there's any consistency between units and if any of them has an acceptable accuracy and consistent measurements.


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## David C (May 19, 2015)

paulengr said:


> Not sure if I'm being fair to FLIR here but their FLIR branded meters only started showing up after buying Extech. Hoping somehow the quality cross pollinates. Hands down having a Bluetooth meter that doesn't cost thousands and doesn't need an engineer to set up like Fluke is a big advantage.


I've been looking at Extech products and tbh if you ignore the fact they look goofy, some of their meters are actually hot stuff. Pretty sure that Flir's meters are the results of Flir's market team who pushed the Flir all black rugged look and "niche" product onto the newly acquired Extech guys, because Extech meters haven't changed much to reflect Flir's imprint. Extech products do have a very el cheapo look, almost like it's a dollar store kid's toy meter. However the fact that Flir owns Extech gave me confidence that they had something solid to back up the new meters in terms of quality and features, after all Flir can't miss an occasion to stand up to Fluke and offer a "better" product with exclusive features.


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## Bruce Wayne (Jun 14, 2009)

David C said:


> Nice surprise was to see the accuracy was of 0.01A AC/DC up to at least 30A, something Fluke doesn't even have.


Just to be clear, this meter does not have an "accuracy of 0.01A". It has an accuracy of 2% +5 digits, which means that when measuring 20A it has an accuracy of 0.45 Amps. Still nice, but not 0.01A. 

The Fluke 374 and 375 that were mentioned also have an accuracy of 2% +5 digits. This makes the Flir "more accurate" when measuring less than 60A, but the same as the Fluke above 60A.


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