Metrel Eurotest Easi (M3100) worries

[Mr Hehound]

Hi all.

Wondered if anyone had any advice for this or experienced same thing:

Went to do a quick reccy yesterday on a cu change. Not a full pir just a pre-survey to see how much trouble the job was likely to be.

Anywho. My MFT had been working ok and for the first 30mins I was there doing some dead tests still worked fine.

Stopped for 5 mins then went to carry on and found that all the buttons on the left hand side of the tester where doing strange things.

The rotary dial to choose functions still worked fine but the arrow buttons to scroll through parameters didnt do what they should, the test button did nothing and the null leads button was now turning the backlit screen on and off!

Tried turning it off and on, taking batteries out, pressing the factory reset - nothing made any difference.

Apologised to customer and packed up.

Called metrel, who directed me to a company who does repairs for them near me and booked tester in for them to have a look at.

Next morning (today) got up to take meter, turned it on (just in case) and lo and behold its working again.

To be on the safe side, I took it to the place for them to have a look at it and without opening it up they've told me the repairwould cost min £250 + vat plus another 45 + vat for recalibrating it.

So question is, anyone had similar happen? If so, how much did it cost to fix?

I'm wondering, if it really is a £300 + job, whether to just get a new meter as at least it'll have a warranty on it for a few years.

 

[Jabbajaws]

What strange things were the buttons on the left doing? To be honest its not worth paying £300 for a new MFT when they retail now for about £315+VAT.

Ive got the same machine and mines ok so far... Touchwood...

 

[Mr Hehound]

So on the left you've got the arrow buttons that normally scroll through the menus - 3 did nothing at all, one brought up the help menu that you normally press the help key for.

The cal button (for nulling leads) turned the backlit screen on/off.

Proper bizzare - seemed to work fine again when I turned it on this morning and always been a good unit as far as I'm concerned.

Been sound as a pound up to now but if I can

 

[silverfox1]

How old is MI3100 I believe they have a 3 year warranty.

 

[Mr Hehound]

...Get a new one for the price of the repair with warranty might as well do that.

What's got me vexed is whether I actually need to do anything at all since it seems to be working ok again - don't want to buy a new one or pay for repairs if it was just a bizzare glitch and theres note the matter with it.

 

[Mr Hehound]

How old is MI3100 I believe they have a 3 year warranty.

Out of warranty unfortunately - bought in late 2009.

 

[Octopus]

How old is MI3100 I believe they have a 3 year warranty.

ONLY if Metrel do the calibration.

 

[Jabbajaws]

Apologies, Mine is actually the Easitest M3000.

I would guess that for the internal electronics to behave the way that they are doing that you have either got component failure, or solder has leaked onto the pcb somewhere. This is a common problem with Playstation 3 consoles due to overheating.

Do you self- calibrate your MFT regularly using a calibration check kit? And if so, are you getting the same measurement values recorded, as the ones previously?

I personally dont do enough to warrant getting one of these but l would suggest doing so if youre doing regular work that requires certs etc...

You could attempt to have a look yourself to assess what visually needs doing. I wouldnt throw it away though.

One of your future jobs may be for an electronics enthusiast, that may just be able to solve your problems, in which case you will have a couple of MFTs to play around with...

 

[silverfox1]

ONLY if Metrel do the calibration.

Good point there Murdoch

 

[Mr Hehound]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Jabbajaws - yes self calibrate regularly (though prob not as often as I should) and checked it this morning after it sprung back into life. Results were in line with previous checks.

Going to do a bit of buggering about with it at home tomorrow and if it continues working as it should, try and forget about it.

If it starts playing up again will go for a new one - the prices their quoting to fix an unproven fault seem OTT