Fluke 117 vs Fluke 87V

Specs side by side

Specs checked against manufacturer documentation and official Amazon listings. Both products hands-on tested by OhmSavvy. How we research.

Key differences

• →Safety: the 87V is rated CAT IV 600V and CAT III 1000V; the 117 is CAT III 600V, so it isn't rated for the service drop or meter base.
• →Precision: Fluke lists the 87V's basic DC volts accuracy at ±(0.05% + 1) against ±(0.5% + 2) on the 117, and the 87V adds a 19,999-count high-resolution mode.
• →Low current: the 87V resolves down to 0.01 µA DC. The 117 starts at a 6 A range with 1 mA resolution, too coarse for flame sensors or standby drain.
• →Electrician extras: only the 117 has VoltAlert non-contact detection and a LoZ AutoVolt position for ghost voltage. Fluke lists neither on the 87V.
• →Drive work: only the 87V has a low-pass filter for variable-frequency drive outputs, 250 µs peak capture, duty cycle and temperature.
• →Both have an analog bar graph (33 segments on the 117, 32 on the 87V), True RMS, a 9V battery rated about 400 hours, and up to 9,999 µF capacitance.

At a glance

OhmSavvy owns and has used both meters, which is why both carry the Hands-on Tested badge. The numbers on this page still come from Fluke's own product pages and specification tabs, not from our bench. For the full single-meter write-ups, read the Fluke 117 review and the Fluke 87V review.

Fluke 117 vs 87V spec by spec

Unlike the 115 and 117, which share one accuracy table, these two come from different Fluke families, so almost every line differs. The charts pick out the four numbers that change what you can safely and usefully measure.

To put the accuracy gap in numbers, take a 24.00 V DC control supply. Using Fluke's figures, the 117's ±(0.5% + 2) on its 60.00 V range allows 0.12 V plus 2 counts of 0.01 V, so ±0.14 V. The 87V's ±(0.05% + 1) allows 0.012 V plus one count, roughly ±0.02 V in its standard 6,000-count mode. For checking that a supply is "about 24 V" the 117 is plenty; for calibrating a 4-20 mA transmitter or trimming a reference, the 87V's margin is the reason it exists.

CAT III 600V vs CAT IV 600V: where each meter is allowed

Measurement categories describe how much energy a transient can deliver at the point you probe. Close to the utility transformer, a lightning-induced surge or switching spike has very little wiring impedance to slow it down; at a receptacle on the far end of a branch circuit, it has a lot. The IEC 61010 impulse tables typically set a 6 kV test for CAT III 600V and 8 kV for CAT IV 600V and CAT III 1000V. Fluke says the 87V is designed to withstand spikes above 8,000 V.

In practice, a residential or commercial electrician working inside panels and on branch circuits stays in CAT III, where the 117 is rated. Readings at the meter socket, the service conductors, an outdoor feeder or a utility-side disconnect are CAT IV work, and so is anything above 600 V, such as some solar strings and 690 V industrial distribution. That is where the 87V's rating, not its accuracy, decides the purchase.

Why drive technicians pick the 87V

A variable-frequency drive builds its output from fast PWM pulses. A True RMS meter reads all of that high-frequency content, so the voltage on the motor leads can look far higher than the fundamental the motor actually responds to. The 87V's low-pass filter, per Fluke, has its 3 dB point at 1 kHz, which strips the carrier and leaves a reading that tracks the drive's set frequency. The 117 has no filter, so its readings on drive outputs are hard to interpret. Add 200 kHz frequency, duty cycle and peak capture, and the 87V covers most of what a drive commissioning check needs short of a scope.

Fluke 117 vs 87V for electronics repair

On a repair bench the questions change. Nobody needs CAT IV to probe a 5 V rail, but you do care how small a change the meter can show, whether it reads a PWM signal's duty cycle, and whether it can measure the few milliamps or microamps a board draws in standby. Here the two Flukes are far apart, and the gap favors the 87V almost everywhere.

What that means in practice: tracing a voltage drop across a PCB trace, a current-sense resistor or a connector pin often comes down to a few millivolts, which the 117's 0.1 mV step shows coarsely and the 87V's 10 µV step shows clearly. Duty cycle lets the 87V confirm that a fan controller or LED dimmer is actually modulating; the 117 can only give you the frequency. And because the 117's smallest current step is 1 mA on a 6 A range, it can't tell a healthy 200 µA sleep draw from a faulty 800 µA one, a job the 87V does in its µA position.

The 117 isn't useless on a bench. It reads capacitance from 1 nF, has a 2 V diode test and a continuity beeper below 20 Ω, and its True RMS AC input handles a mains-side power supply check. If you mostly replace fuses, check rails and swap obvious bad parts, it is enough. The low-pass filter is the one 87V feature that matters less here: it exists for drive outputs and rarely changes a bench reading. For meters chosen purely for boards, see our best multimeters for electronics repair.

Fluke 117 vs 87V for automotive diagnostics

A car is a 12 V DC system, so the 117's headline features, VoltAlert and the LoZ AutoVolt position, do little under the hood. What a technician needs is fast capture of intermittent faults, enough current capacity for a fused circuit, a duty-cycle reading for PWM-controlled parts and, on many jobs, temperature. Neither Fluke lists an RPM or dwell function in the specifications we cite, so tach work needs a dedicated automotive meter or a scan tool.

The Min/Max difference is the one to understand. Both record minimum, maximum and average while you wiggle a connector or crank the engine, and the 117's continuity mode, per Fluke's 110 Series datasheet, flags opens and shorts as brief as 500 µs. The 87V adds a separate peak-capture mode that holds a 250 µs spike, which is how you catch an ignition-related transient or a relay that chatters for a moment.

Parasitic drain is where the 117 stops short. Many technicians use a figure around 50 mA as a rough after-sleep ceiling (check the vehicle maker's number). The 117 will show 0.050 A on its 6 A range, so it can follow a module settling from 35 mA to 22 mA, but only in whole milliamps, and it has no microamp range for motorcycles or other small batteries. The 87V reads the same drain on its mA input with finer steps. Its thermocouple input, -200 °C to 1090 °C at the meter (the 80BK probe in the box is rated -40 °C to 260 °C), also covers coolant and intake air checks. For tools built around RPM and dwell, see best multimeter for automotive.

Is the Fluke 87V worth the extra money?

The 87V sits in a clearly higher price tier than the 117. Amazon prices move, so we don't quote figures; instead, here is exactly what the step up buys and who actually uses each item. If you can't name two rows below that apply to your work, the 117 is the better buy.

Two things run the other way. The 117 keeps VoltAlert and LoZ, which the 87V doesn't list, so a residential electrician moving up to an 87V usually ends up buying a separate pen detector too. And the extra spend doesn't buy better AC accuracy where it counts for building wiring: on a 120 V circuit the two differ by about half a volt of allowance, which changes no decision. Our view, as owners of both: the 87V is worth it the day your work crosses into CAT IV locations, drives, microamps or calibration-grade DC, and not before.

Fluke 117 vs 87V: which should you buy?

If you need CAT IV but not the 87V's precision, the Fluke 87V vs Fluke 179 comparison covers the cheaper CAT IV option, and Fluke 117 vs Fluke 179 sets it against the 117. If the 117's extras are more than you need, see Fluke 115 vs Fluke 117.

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