Gardner Bender GMT-319 Multimeter Tester, RJ-45 & RJ-11, 7 Function / 19 Range 1000V Black

works good

This is a nice "old school" VOM. It won't do in a lab setting but for a homeowner it's great. The AAA batteries fit just fine. It will read AMPS and VOLTS even if the battery is dead. This was a plus for me because of infrequent use. The batteries on my digital VOM were always dead when I needed it.

Like ease of usage and needle metrics

This is a handy meter for non critical measurements. The main reason I picked this unit is that it is the least expensive I found that would measure up to 10 Amp DC current. Its quality appears reasonably good relative to the price paid, but it is not very rugged. It is not heavy, so it will not tend to stay put as you move its wires around making a measurement. While I found it easy to use, its accuracy did not meet requirements for exacting measurements (I compared it to a much more expensive Simpson multimeter --not a fair comparison.)Somehow while doing various tests the unit stopped working, and I found that one of the two installed fuses (0.5 A) had blown. I could not determine what the cause was, as I was not doing high voltage testing or current measurements. Be that as it may, I replaced the fuse (lucky I had an equivalent) and everything was fine.In terms of accuracy, the AC and DC voltage functions appeared to be fairly accurate, especially for the price of the meter, but resistance measurements were significantly off, particularly for resistances below 100 ohms, and especially under 10 ohms. The unit consistently gave much higher readings than I would have expected. So in my opinion, the meter would be useful to determine the "ballpark" value of low resistances, but I would not use it for that purpose if my needs were exacting. (There does not seem to be a way to calibrate the meter, and the couple of variable resistors I found do not seem to be intended for that purpose.)One interesting characteristic I discovered is that the polarity of the wires when making resistance measurements was reversed. In other words, the voltage applied to a resistor to measure its value was positive on the black (common) terminal and negative on the positive (red wire). This would normally be of no consequence, but measuring, for example, a transistor junction, would make an NPN transistor register as PNP, and vice versa. A diode's polarity would appear reversed too. And, no, reversing the polarity of the batteries would not help the problem because the needle would move in the wrong direction.All in all, it is a handy, yet inexpensive piece of test equipment that will suffice in many applications.

Very nice quality

Meter worked fine in voltage and ohms. When I tried to use the 10 amp setting nothing. was working. Checking the fuses found the F2 10A fuse missing. Tried to order one on Amazon, but could not find the same match. Contacted the supplier on their website requesting a fuse. Was told via an email my issue was forwarded to that department. No response, so I sent the meter back to Amazon. I would have liked to kept the meter, but since I could not find the fuse I needed, I felt no need in wasting my time.

I just received the meter today. I put batteries in it and gave it a quick check. It came very close to an accurate DVM that I already have.

works well, but the buzzer is not very loud