Andrew,

Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly is this pen type instrument?

Dubbie

Merry Engineering, Greg!  Thanks for keeping the tradition alive.  Nice ears.

Here is the first piece of test equipment I ever owned.  It's almost 35 years old and it's still in almost new form.  A couple of years after this one, I got a Fluke 87 III that has seen the bulk of work.  I still use it today.

Thanks for asking the question.  It has caused me to do some heavy thinking.

I have treated this meter like my most prized possession and when I pass, my kids are going to sell it for $3 at the estate sale.

I think it's time that this little guy got back to work.

I don't remember any specific projects.  I did use it while teaching at the Corps of Engineers Prime Power School.  We had upgraded to all digital meters and we still wanted to show the new technicians some of the nuances of the old meters - like how a true RMS meter gives a different reading than an average reading meter with RMS scaling.

My first instrument was a home made (by my Father) multimeter. It had a wooden box with a hardboard front panel.

No AC but several volts and ohms ranges.

No pictures exist (as far as I know).

The second (that I remember) was a Cossor dual beam valve oscilloscope. A huge and heavy thing. When it was made dual beam meant

two electron guns, chopping or alternating one beam between two channnels was invented later.

MK

Clearly multimeters seem to be the first test tool electronic/electrical engineers acquire and I can't compete with the examples above.  Mine was an Extech EX330 meter which I bought to go with my copy of Make: Learn Electronics

I read the manual (booklet) that came with it forwards and backwards.  It still sits on my bench and I still use it; I have other meters now as well but I can't see myself ever disposing of this one purely out of affection.  Besides, it's small and light and one can never have enough meters.

However, I'd have to 'fess up and say my first test instrument was one of these:

It still sits on the side of my bench and gets used when I need to sort something out in the house - especially if I'm drilling near a switch or socket!  Being electrocuted once is enough for anyone I reckon so every house should have one.  Not very exciting mind.

I love those old-school callipers - reminds me of a slide rule I once bought, for no other reason than I liked the idea of it (calculators were pretty cheap by then.)  10 years or so ago, my brother gave me one of those battery driven versions but it just sucked juice all the time and would never work when I turned it on.  Soon dumped that for a purely mechanical one along with a micrometer.

I still keep my eye open for an Avo, preferably a model 40.  There all in such bad nick though, I've never actually found one I could buy.

My first instrument was an analogue multimeter. I still have it. I have replaced it with digital ones. Thank you for letting us participate in this. The handheld digital oscilloscope is a good tool for me.

Does anyone remember the VTVM (Vacuum Tube Voltmeter)?

My first instrument was a Commercial Electric multimeter. It's pretty low cost, it has a rugged case. My parents got it for me 2 years ago. It's right next to me- I use it whenever I need to poke some leads around. For my current purposes it's fine, even though it's not the most advanced.

Oscillscope? No, I don't have one hehe, but I do plan on getting one if I need it.

Back to the question. What did I use it on? Well, I used it then mostly to detect if a wire was soldered correctly(I was terrble at soldering then), and uesd it to make some small blinky lights. NOt the most effective nor the most practical use case but it did work.

Currently? I'm still using it to detect traces, but now it's for fine pitch SMD components! I used it just the other day with my 1 Meter Of Pi project, when I thought my HAT wasn't receiving power.

Why a multimeter? Well, my parents told me, "this is going to be very useful". And useful it was. It could detect voltages, it could detect current, etc. It's also extremely helpful for loose resistors.

The question doesn't ask, but I'm just going to answer a question of what I would do with this.

For the multimeter- I'd replace my current. It probably doesn't have a significant level of enhanced features, not the most advanced, but it does have bluetooth which would be probably able to connect to my phone, or other bluetooth enabled device. This allows me to potentially monitor readings without being in front of the device.

For the oscilloscope- if I am the lucky winner, that would save me money. I would really appreciate an oscillscope with good features and bandwidth being added to my toolkit- there would be a lot of possibilities opened up with such a powerful device. And it's also a portable one that's smaller, which is suitable for my rather messy desk.

Humidity meter:I frankly don't have too much use for this at the moment but I suppose I could put it near my workbench to monitor readings.

While the chances of me being picked are extremely slim, if I am the lucky winner that would be extremely beneficial to myself and my projects.