Application Note

Application Note
The electronic technician’s
Fluke 287 DMM
From the Fluke Digital Library @ www.fluke.com/library
Electronic devices, and the methods for designing and
servicing them, are changing daily. Fluke tracks these
changes closely, and when demand for a particular test
method reaches critical mass, we develop a new DMM
test feature to match.
The new Fluke 287 true-rms
handheld multimeter has multi-
ple features specifically designed
for electronic technicians work-
ing in service applications as
well as those involved in the
design and development of new
electronic products.
Display
Perhaps the biggest and most
important feature offered on
the new Fluke 287 DMM is its
¼ VGA dot-matrix display.
Fluke developed this large
screen in order to offer more
flexibility in changing function
displays and to provide more
information at a glance. In the
MIN MAX mode it’s large enough
to show the current reading,
the Min, Max, and Avg readings
along with their time stamps,
elapsed time, and the start time
and date for the recording ses-
sion, simultaneously. No more
toggling back and forth. This
capability can be very useful
in quickly tracking down inter-
actions between sensitive
electronics.
Then, there’s the added
capability this display brings to
recording and logging. Here’s
an example of how one creative
engineer tested the design of a
new power inverter using a log-
ging meter. He needed to record
the dc input voltage and current,
the output ac voltage and cur-
rent, and the temperature rise
inside the inverter, while the
input voltage and load were var-
ied. The solution was to use five
logging meters, download the
results to FlukeView
®
Forms soft-
ware, and graph it together in a
single report.
Although the user was happy
with his results, he still wanted
more – the ability to see his
results at the end of each test
segment, without having to
download to a computer each
time. Well, the new Fluke 287
offers a feature called TrendCap-
ture, a logging and graphing fea-
ture that was developed based
on such user inputs.
TrendCapture appears as a
strip chart-like display onscreen,
with date and time information
and a digital readout for which-
ever point on the graph you
select with the cursor. The meter
can also save multiple recording
sessions before downloading,
and it can record for over a week
without a battery change.
And finally, this new screen
has enough room to display
how-to information about the
meter’s functions—just select the
function and press the (i) info
button. It’s like having a built-in
user manual.