Found out my multimeter was off by 4.5 volts for who knows how long

I was chasing a weird voltage drop on a Garmin G5000 display unit last Tuesday, and nothing was adding up. Finally pulled out a second meter I never use, and it showed 12.2 volts instead of like 7.8 on my main Fluke. Turns out my Fluke that I've been using for 2 years was reading low by 4.5 volts on DC. I must have done hundreds of checks with it, including some that sent parts back to the shop for no reason. Blamed a good alternator once too, I bet. Has anyone else had a meter drift on them like that without noticing?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret_kelly551mo ago

Oh man, that's brutal. How'd you finally catch the drift?

mark_thomas1mo ago

Man, I feel like fishing line drift is one of those things you gotta just let happen sometimes. For me @margaret_kelly55, I finally stopped fighting it and started reading the water more than my rod tip. Once you accept that the current's gonna do its thing, you can predict where your bait'll end up.

shaneb161mo ago

Honestly yeah, once I stopped fighting it and just watched the surface trash, it clicked.