Parasitic drain testing with the Owon

I'm not here to sell tools. :silly: But I do want to take a moment and show how I make my Owon B35T work for me. It's quickly become my go-to tool and MVP for drain testing.

For this example, I'm working with a 2005 Hummer H2. Drain complaint. Measured 120mA initially. After disconnecting enough remote start/alarm/aftermarket crap under the dash, I got the drain down to 23mA. Awesome.

But before I let it go, I want to make certain there's no other 'surprises' in store. That means watching the draw over time. I'm on flat rate, so I ain't got time to stand there and watch the meter. :lol: Out comes the phone and the Owon MultimeterBLE app. I cycle the key and the door locks to establish a baseline (and to check that the fix is repeatable):



Don't sweat the negative polarity - all the values are accurate. We start out at 18A, then settle out at 23mA after all the modules STFU. I leave my phone on my cart and roll off to other jobs. After an hour, I can see that no other draws cropped up:



Never had to walk back over to the car and check the min/max. The Bluetooth range is long enough that I can watch cars from the other end of the shop, or even right outside if I don't want to occupy a bay. Using the Owon means I can keep my Modis Ultra freed up for other jobs. AND my fix can now be documented with screenshots.

Like I said, not selling tools. Just demonstrating one of the hardest working tools in my box.

Tyler wrote: I'm not here to sell tools. :silly:

I'm not here to buy tools :blink: , but you just pushed me over the edge......:woohoo: Ironically it was cheaper to buy it from Amazon US, paying taxes and shipping to Mexico, than to buy it from Amazon Mexico. :silly:

I like it for that and for starting/charging system from the drivers seat.

I love my BT35 for an inexpensive meter it is ace I have been using it for monitoring if I am charging batteries.
There are Bluetooth DC clamp meters around now but I haven't spotted anything tempting yet.

Where do I buy this? The only link I seen was for a case of glass fuses... would this work on a Microsoft surface pro? Or just phone based

Cheryl wrote: Where do I buy this? The only link I seen was for a case of glass fuses... would this work on a Microsoft surface pro? Or just phone based

Ah damn, I meant to link to Amazon. :blush: Sorry!

www.amazon.com/OWON-Multimeter-Measureme...ording/dp/B01C3IQDE8

www.owon.com.hk/products_owon_3_5|6_digi...meter_with_bluetooth

juergen.scholl wrote: I'm not here to buy tools :blink: , but you just pushed me over the edge......:woohoo:

Congrats, sir! I'd love to know what you think when you get one in your hands.

So today I got the Owon B35 T+ and played around with it.The two reasons I bought it are the bluetooth function wich allows for remote watching live data and the "offline" data logging function.

Both functions work fine, the app was very easy to install. So i am happy with the meter as far as what I intend to do with it.

Nevertheless I got a couple of further observations:

Frequency bandwith is announced with 10 (9.999) MHz, my device quits at 2 MHz.

The plugs are VERY tight to be connected to the meter, hope this will not turn into an issue. Fluke and Brymen cables enter just fine.

I opened the device to have a look at her guts. It's somehow decent, apart from the input protection. There are two simple glass fuses installed, one pretty close to the 20 amp current shunt! Both fuses are rated at only 250 volts although the rating says CAT 3, 1000V ??

I really would not want to work on mains with this meter but it is a very handy and convenient tool for the purposes I bought it for.

Thank you Tyler for pointing me to this device.

Noah wrote: I like it for that and for starting/charging system from the drivers seat.

This is one piece of hack allowing to check starting/charging from the inside easily with any DMM.

Guess from now on I'll only use it as memory saver.

That's pretty smart. I've got something similar to that I could be using, thanks for the idea.
My largest complaint with the Owon is that the back light times out too quickly.
I did purchase a small box of replacement fuses, but since I stopped loaning it to people, I haven't had to change the fuse.