Model 310 (3018)

It's small, very well made, and very accurate. It works well for troubleshooting audio and telecom lines, which is my primary use. These meters have been around forever, I lost my last one in a flood, it was 20 years old and still worked as well as the day I took it out of the box. Analog meters are great for finding noise and short signal transients that digital meters just show as a bunch of constantly changing readings. The analog meter movement shows patterns in the signal and the small size of this meter makes it easy to carry with you in your go everywhere tool pouch.

I had a Triplett meter at my first tech job many years ago when I was still in my teens. Now years later I found that I needed a reliable analog meter that I could trust. Yes, there are $3.00 multi-meters that you can buy at a flea market but if you do any real technical work and need something smaller, the Triplett is the meter. I still use Fluke digital meters for precise measuring but for trending and quick troubleshooting, analog is still the way to go. The Triplett 3018 is a solid meter in a compact size. The sliding lever is exact and easy to use with one hand when changes are required. Many commented that the meters of years ago were more solid and accurate. This meter is rather light so I guess they took some things out of it. My biggest concern is that I was measuring a voltage. I got a reading of both 10vdc and 10vac. How could it be both? I had to pull out my Fluke and determine the correct voltage. But that is an unforgivable error if you are doing a quick power supply check.

It’s small in stature but is excellent for what it is designed for.

I prefer using 2 types of multimeters, the analog and digital ones when trouble shooting a problem area. When a burned wire or carbon tracking in circuit digital one will give a false reading. I started my electrical career with a Triplett analog meter when digital meters was starting to come on market.

This little meter has been around for decades. And since I have had one that faithfully served me from the 70s and died recently it was time to buy another

This one was a disappointment. It arrived faulty. A return has been delivered to UPS for credit. This unit had a bent black boot clip and the red boot clip was missing. The meter failed to zero with the mechanical zero. As a result, could not evaluate the meter's AC/DC voltage functions, DC current function, and resistance function. Observed that the resistance functions were intermittent when attempting to perform the OHM zero. This was a strange one.

The Triplett 310 has for over 50 years been a good choice for those that need a compact analog VOM. The current model (type 7) uses a readily available (and cheap) 12 volt battery for the highest resistance measurement range, rather than the hard to find (and expensive) 15 volt battery used by previous versions of this meter. (see my review for the 15v battery) Actually, this meter will (unlike a digital multimeter) make most measurements with no battery at all, batteries are only needed for the resistance ranges. (and they ARE included) This is a well made, high quality meter!

It was the best tool for signal analysis when I was a young Engineer/Technician and other than an oscilloscope and a signal tracer (mainly for audio) it remains an important tool. A DVM is good for some things, but will not show charge/discharge features for a cap etc. and some other things.