I do a lot of electrical work and really you need only a simple meter.  I
have two of them, both cost me a whole $25 when it went on special at
Canadian Tire.

The one I use most of the time is a digital meter.  I like this meter
because of the continuity 'beeper' - basically where there is ~10 or less
ohms it will beep at you - good for finding the other end of a wire on a
very crowded harness (so you don't have to SEE if there is 0ohms or not).
It also works as a good DC Volt meter too.

The other meter that I use is an analog meter.  It is more precise than the
digital meter and it is better at doing things like measuring the .1 to 1.0
output of your O2 sensor as it is always 'swinging' up and down and you can
watch the needle move - a digital meter updates every second so you will
miss a lot of what is going on in a varying circuit like this.  The other
thing that I use it for is testing air flow meters.  You are looking for a
steady up and down sweep of the needed that doesn't jerk or spike - can't
see this on a digital meter.

Unless you are getting down to the nuts and bolts of the electrical system a
cheap digital meter is all you need.

David Marshall

Fast Forward Automotive Inc.
4356 Quesnel Hixon Road
Quesnel BC Canada  V2J 6Z3

http://www.fastforward.ca    mailto:sales@fastforward.ca
Phone: (250) 992 7775        FAX: (250) 992 1160

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-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
Of John Rodgers
Sent: December 16, 2002 10:18 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Meter Recommendation

I need to buy a meter to do all my testing and trouble shooting on my
van. Would some of  you enlightened ones on this list please give me
some recommendations as to what's best, where to get it, what your
experiences have been with them.

Thanks,

John Rodgers
88 gl Driver