Inside the Triplett MM350

Feeling adventurous I decided to take a gander at the insides of the Triplett MM350.  First task was to figure out how to get the red rubber boot off.  This was fairly easy after I realized there were four slots in the plastic case and four tabs on the rubber boot:

  Note that this makes the serial number easier to see:

Also, the only thing I don't like about this meter is the battery holder.  The cells spring out of the holder - it's hard to get the battery cover on while trying to keep the cells in the holder.

After taking out the 6 screws the back comes off easily:

There are two replaceable fuses, so now I know how to get at them if needed.

Here is a slightly closer view of the circuit board:

Unfortunately the main chip is "blobbed" - I was hoping it might be packaged so that I could read the part number and vendor.  I suppose the number of pins and the type of package might reveal something ?  But if I really want to know I'll have to ask Triplett.

Why would anyone want to know what chip was used ?  This interesting page mentions a reason:

https://sigrok.org/wiki/Multimeter_ICs 

The reason: many of these chips have some serial I/O capability built in - kind of like my Metex ME-11.  And the Sigrok software may be able to use that serial I/O to log measurements - that kind of thing.  Unfortunately none of the Triplett models is mentioned on the Sigrok page.

As with the Metex, hooking a meter to a computer is the kind of thing that might be done once and then nevermore.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm