BEST Homemade Two Hand Multimeter - Finally!

this device can measure anything anything even the flatness of the earth n guys just kidding but I think this will finally get to be the best multimeter for makers and small electronics projects this is my new version of the twoand multimeter made with Arduino and capable of measuring all these units and a lot more to come because this is getting better by the day I was tired of trying all types of Sliders and switches and I decided to make my own dial so this time this project is made out of tw

o pcbs the multimeter and the dial and it works better than expected I also spent a few days designing a better enclosure so in this video let me show you what we have new share all the files with you for the code the part list the PCB files and the 3D enclosure so you could make your own so guys let's get started what's up my friends welcome back now this is my new version of the PCB that I've made for the project and it has a few new parts and I bet that you will like them I want this to be th

e best multimeter for makers and small electronics projects the PCB evolved a lot and it all started with a prototype that was made on a pro board then my first multimeter PCB which was kind of big and also ugly and this here was also one of my previous attempts but still had some errors and I've even made a Dev board to test the option of using relays instead of switches and sliders but you will see why I've decided to make my own dial system instead of Sliders or commercial sliding switches so

if you want to make the same project you can download the Gerber files from below and check all the parts and schematics on els.com then you go to PCB way and click the code now button and here we add the size of the PCB and the amount and to get the $5 offer select the five pcbs and for the color I went with red this time I save to card and here on the next page you upload the Gerbers files that you have just downloaded from my website now place the order and just in a few days you receive som

e awesome pcbs from PCB way and remember that we need two pcbs for this project the main multimeter and this dial which is just a circle and the reason it has multiple holes is because I wasn't sure which type of pins I will use so I've placed a lot of them and now that I've decided which one to use I'll will make the second PCB with only one row of holes and the PCB looks awesome as always so we can start with a project so first why is this multimeter better than others or at least in my opinio

n why not a commercial and professional multimedia like this one for sure this professional multimeter will be better right well it depends on what use you give it you see my projects are not that professional and I don't usually work with cat 3 600 volts or any kind of high voltage so why would I need such a professional meter 90% of the time I use the multimeter in continuity mode to detect short circuits I use it to measure resistance and capacit values or check the diodes or LEDs and see if

they still work or not as for the voltage my projects usually work at 5 volts and a maximum of 24 volts so I don't need any high voltage meter and best of all my meter is very small and why is that good well because when I work my workshop table is usually full of stuff components parts pcbs and much more so having this huge multimeter on my table is is awful most of the time the wires get tangled with other wires and almost always I drop something on the floor with these wires and the worst of

all this meter is so big that I have to put it on the table and then use the probes to measure but I would like to be able to measure directly and have the value in front of me that's why a twoand multimeter is way better just connect it to what you want to measure and it will show you the value in front of you so it's small simple and fast and that's all what I need and is able to measure all these units so why would I need more okay so what we have new on this PCB well first of all the dial in

the middle you see if you check the schematic you will see that for each type of measurement we have a different block if these blocks share the positive and negative probe it will give me a lot of Errors so we need to keep them separate especially for the current mode for my previous versions I've used a rotary switch to do that one like this one but as you can see this is way too big for my small twoand multimeter so for a different version I wanted to use some sliding switches but you see wi

th only one switch that wasn't enough I needed to add two and also gave me problems because the switches had to move at the same time and then I've decided to test the automatic mode switch using relays on a Dev board like this one and that worked quite well but having a relay in between the probes added some small voltage drop more resistance and the worst of all the current was limited to only low values otherwise the relays would burn out they were getting quite hot that's why the best option

was to make my own dial on the PCB we have five sets of pads and this is enough for more than eight different modes and then the dial will use this kind of springy pins so by rotating the dial we can change the mode and have different connections another difference from my previous versions is the use of a different chip for measuring the current because for my previous version I was using a whole effect module and that's not very reliable especially for switching signals this time I'm using a

sh module with the Ina 219 IC and is capable of measuring current and power and the board also has Bluetooth module so we can send the values to a smartphone app and that would be very interesting it uses the IDS 111c ADC so we have plenty of precision with a 16bits ADC it also has a charging circuit so we can charge the battery with the USB cable I won't go over the full schematic because I've already done that for my previous versions and the rest is quite the same except this part here with t

he pads representing each connection for the dial for each mode so get the pcbs and download the schematic from below and I solder all the components I've took the chip from an old Arduino Nano clone so we start with that Mega chip the resonator and the pull-ups and then all the resistors capacitors and the sensible IC such as the ADC the up amp and the current meter I won't add the Bluetooth module yet as for the OLED screen well made a very dumb mistake I place it backwards as you can see it g

oes the other way around but don't worry I've already corrected this error on the PCB that you download but in my case till I received the new corrected board I will sort with some Thin wires a separated ol display like this one and that should work for now so using thin wires I connect power ground and the IC wires once everything is in place I add the dial on top with the screw it it will get better once I also add the enclosure that I've designed for this project I connect this ftdi module to

the U pads and I open the code read it line by line to understand more but it's pretty much the same as for the previous versions We detect the mode and inside each mode we use the formulas to measure each value I recommend you to check my previous videos about the multimeter in order to understand how each block works so compile and then upload to the multimeter and now as you can see by rotating the dial we can change between modes also by pushing the button we can change the extra modes such

as continuity maybe diode or frequency when charging the red LED is turned on and when the battery is full the blue LED will turn on I've been designing an enclosure as well it has a few versions first I printed this using PLA and my fdm printer but if you want to get very small and also have good quality the next versions were printed using a resin printer the last two versions are this ones one is very small but the other one also has a space for the negative probe and this would get wrapped

around like this and stay inside the socket which is pretty nice right the dial also has these plastic parts they get Snap On Top of the dial PCB like this then I glue the screen on the top part I pass the negative probe through the hole on the back then I solar it to the PCB and now I could close it and I do that using some very small screws and that's it turn it on and start measuring I can measure the voltage of any battery and values up to to 60 volts both in positive and negative mode I can

measure different values of resistors up to megaohms test for continuity on pcbs or maybe short circuits test for diodes reverse voltage I can also measure all values of capacitance and also frequency and then in current mode I can now easily measure up to 2 amps or more but I haven't tested more than 2 amps yet and the PCV now also has a fuse for safety so that's how I've made my new multimeter so what do you think and what would you add extra to this meter maybe I will order the pcbs with the

different finish so it would last longer for the friction between the dial pins and the pads on the PCB also I want to add a frequency generator mode and also temperature measurement that would be quite easy right so check my website for the Gerber files the schematic the full code and the part list together with the 3D design design I hope that you will be able to make your own and maybe share your results with the community if you like this project comment below or give me a like thanks again

and see you later guys hey guys so that was another project and I hope that you like it as you all know to buy all these modules a huge help from you is from patreon so if you want to support me you can support me there but also just commenting below giving me a like or sharing this video it will also support my channel so thank you very much to all my patrons and to you guys