Multimeter display repair

This might be a little off-topic for this forum, but I thought that it might be of interest to some.

I have an old Fluke 87 multimeter and it is a great meter. It is hard to explain, but Fluke multimeters are beautiful meters to use compared to cheaper brands.

The display on my multimeter has been playing up a bit over the last few years so I decided to fix it. You might be surprised how easy it is the repair a display.

This is what the display looked like immediately before the repair...



This is very typical of what what happens when the ‘zebra elastomeric connectors’ dry out and fail. The repair is easy...

Open the multimeter and remove the internals from the case...



Unclip the gray plastic LCD retainer...



What you can can see above is the LCD (glass-like) display and the two zebra elastomeric connectors (the pink strips visible through the LCD).

Carefully lift the LCD up. It will probably be a little stick by the elastomeric strips but it will come away with a little bit of careful force. The strips will either stick to the display or the PCB.



In this case, they remained stick to the LCD and came out with the display. Be careful from here. You don’t want to touch any of the contact surfaces of either the LCD or the PCB. If you do, you’ll have to clean them and it takes quite a bit of work to get them perfectly clean again. It is best not to touch them in the first place. Pull the zebra elastomeric connectors from the display.



It is is a bit hard to see in the photo above, but I have placed the new replacement strips in to the slots above and below the display using tweezers. The replacement strips are a new, improved, versions and they are gray instead of pink.

Carefully place the LCD back in position (being careful not touch any contact surfaces).

Clip the retainer and covers back on and check your work.



And it is all all working perfectly again!

It took longer to write this post than actually to do the repair.

Here is a close up of the old zebra elastomeric connectors so you can see how they work.



Between the two pink strips, there is a sandwich of alternating conductive and insulating elastomeric material. If you look carefully, you can see the zebra stripes.

It is these ends that are easily contaminated so it is best not the touch them at all.

If you have a no-brand meter, you might have to search for zebra elastomeric connectors of similar dimensions. At a push, if you have nothing to lose, you can simply clean the strips with alcohol and reuse them. They will sometimes come good. I’ve also had some success with swapping the top and bottom strips to get them to work. However, replacement is best if you can source replacement strips.