A coworker recently gave me his Fluke 8021B to repair as it had taken a fall ages ago, and the LCD had been damaged. Having seen a post ages ago on Mr. Modemhead’s site, I knew repairing the screen on the 8020A was doable, and figured the 8021B would be identical as far as screen.
The problem, actually, is the LCD holder is surprisingly different (much more sturdy). So after I ordered and received the LCDs, I went about “machining” the LCD holder to let it fit. This took grinding off part of the “top” where the pins would lay, and several other ribs to allow the LCD to sit “flat” on the holder ((As noted later, I actually didn’t do enough the first go around)). Wiring the LCD, I used two colors of 30AWG wire, and a wire wrap tool (that I hadn’t used before). I used two colors of wire to help differentiate between the bottom and top pins. I also, breaking from Mr. Modemhead’s page, drilled small holes in the LCD holder to feed the “bottom” wires through, and to help keep them in order. Stripping the wires, then soldering to the PCB was annoying, but not overly time consuming. I also had to re-solder the “COM” jack on the unit since it had worked loose enough to “spin”. This is very easy to do, as you just put the soldering iron IN the jack, let the whole thing get nice and hot, and then touch solder to the bottom side, then the top side, and let it cool. I did have to “machine” the plastic of the top case a bit to let it clear the new solder, but it worked just fine, and was now solid. =)
Another meter repair everyone! Anyway, as usual, I purchased a Fluke 12 off eBay listed as the buttons not working, but the meter itself worked as long as you were measuring diodes, or VDC. After a quick search online, this appeared to be due to the elastomeric strip between the buttons PCB and the main PCB being dirty, or failing. I contacted the seller to make sure the case wasn’t broken (as this meter seems to be on Fluke’s “Repair by Replace” list, I didn’t want to fall into that trap again), and after he said it was all intact, I ordered the unit for $30 + $6 shipping.
I recently, mistakenly, purchased a Fluke 322 off eBay for far more than I should have paid (paid about $35 for a broken one). I thought it would be an easy repair, but sadly, the issue was that the case was broken (guessing it got dropped from some height, or was partially crushed). The self-taping screws all screwed into the plastic casing front, and several of those threaded lugs were broken, so the case wasn’t being held together fully, which results in the contacts from the rotating switch not making contact enough to turn the multimeter on.