Depends on your needs.
I will say this about Fluke as a general rule. Vineyard Vines is popular around here with a certain crowd. They like the appearance that “A fool and his money” portrays. Mechanics with a tool box full of Snapon or SK are the same way and that’s what you sound like. If that’s your goal just buy the most expensive one and buy the leather bound case and a gaudy magnetic clip too. Most guys buying high end Flukes also have whale shirts.
NO one meter does everything. For instance a clamp meter is pretty handy troubleshooting running motors and drives. But once you shut it off you need a Megger, milliohm or better micro ohm meter, a good capacitance meter, and a high range (10 Megaohm) ohm meter, more of an instrumentation meter. And depending on the system maybe a packet sniffer, LAN tester, scope meter, 4-20 mA tester/simulator, and HART tool. So having a good BASIC meter is a start but it’s just a start. I don’t like them but a Simpson is just as good.
Don’t expect miracles out of the Bluetooth/WiFi stuff. In practice it doesn’t work very well. As far as that stuff goes the Amprobe meters (sister company of Fluke) is much better. Fluke CAN do some fancy stuff like linking a voltmeter and a clamp meter and reporting Watts. But honestly getting FC all set up and working is always a lot of fiddling around with it. The Amprobe stuff is much simpler. You run the app, press a button, and go. That’s it. Works much more reliably. As far as innovation, Fluke just buys companies jacks up the prices and turns the product to crap. The big innovators are Hioki and Amprobe to some degree. Fluke has become like Tektrpnix…big name but that’s what they are selling.
Accuracy for an industrial electrician is far less important than sampling rates and range. It is very aggravating to work with a 6 digit meter that is very slow to respond. It often misses fast things like relay switching when troubleshooting. Also when measuring do you really care or want to know it it’s 120 V or 120.000 V? Industrial electrical work needs about 1% accuracy (3 digits) at most. Digital inputs use 12 bit ADCs often on instruments which is only 4 digits. So even calibration work barely needs 5 digits. Plenty of industrial electricians get by with a Simpson analog meter. The big thing with it is that although you don’t get 6 digit readings with one of those very fast events like a relay just barely dropping out you get a twitch from the meter that a Fluke 87 will never detect. I’m not pushing Simpson here, just pointing out that specs are highly overrated.
With ANY meter the most important feature is the stuff between your ears. For example the other day an electrician Meggered a motor at the starter that smelled burned. He clipped one lead to what looked like a good ground and touched the other to a T lead and nearly instantly got open circuit readings on a 10 HP motor. Two things here. First off the reading is very unbelievable on that small of a motor. Second it does not charge up “instantly”. But it was a Fluke which we all know is gospel. I took a cheap Klein and put a clip on the ground. Then I stuck the probe on another ground and read…open circuit. So I moved the ground clip to another “ground”, tested against (shorted) then tested the T lead (shorted). Was it the difference between a $150 meter and a $1500 meter or spending 5 seconds testing the setup and recognizing the reading is garbage?
So just saying you are an industrial technician and looking for the most expensive whale shirt out there without even knowing what you need it for just screams “a fool and his money…” Start with what you are doing all the time. If it’s just instrumentation calibration you need something more like an 87 V and every single feature you mentioned is 100% useless to you. If you do more industrial electrical then I’d seriously consider brands other than Fluke. I mean maybe a 177 as an all around meter but you need a good flexible current meter, good Megger, etc., and an 87 just doesn’t do it. Fluke doesn’t make a good motor/HVAC tech meter and their instrument meter can’t hold a candle to Hioki. And for ruggedness and old school tech, a Simpson beats any Fluke. So sorry if I’m hating today but I just don’t see the “value” in anything they make today. Heck they just bought the best vibration analyzer out there and are hard at it doubling the price and turning the product to crap.
