I made a mistake and destroyed my old multimeter.
It’s a 30+ year old multimeter, and it had become very dirty because of all the dust it collected while I used it in a home renovation project, years ago. It was still functional, so I used it for years like that.
But recently, after discovering YouTube “restoration videos”, I got the idea to open it up and clean it.
The result was very good. Until I used it the first time to measure a 230V cable. Then there was a big flash inside the casing, and all the lights went out.
This is how it looks now (notice the black soot marks on the orange plastic):
And the burned diodes:
What went wrong? The meter also has aluminum foil to shield the electronics:
And I was not careful enough when I put it back, and it shorted the 2 connectors:
Article Link: Quickpost: “Exploding Multimeter” | Didier Stevens