Does anyone know when Fluke first started making the 77?

[USMCPMEL]

I have ran across quite a few of these in my travels and I always wonder how old they are. Most of the ones I have came across seem to hold thier calibration pretty well.

[Squidley]

I remember getting them in the lab at SIMA Newport in 88. . .

[Winterfire2008]

I got a Fluke 77 back in 1987 that had passed through a helicopter engine.  The mechanic had left it and it got sucked right in.  The case was melted, but it still turned on.  I ordered new case covers for it and it cal'd out fine. Amazing instrument!!!!

[USMCPMEL]

My buddy just told me he was at on onsite and he was handed one with the original factory sticker on it. It was calibrated in 1984. I had thought they were a bit older than that though?

[metrologygeek]

The oldest ones I can find in our inventory were purchased in a large buy in late 1983 and received for cal on 10JAN84.

The meter I have at home and use on a regular basis is a 8024A and dates from 1980.

[Bryan]

Company I work for used to be a distributor and looking at the records it appears first purchases were Jul 1984.
I was stationed in Korea that year & a friend of mine bought one, seems like there were articles in the electronics magazines at that time about them being a new product being introduced.

[USMCPMEL]

Ok I thought they were a bit older than that. Pretty good though coming up on 30 years old.

[Fernblatt]

The oldest ones I can find in our inventory were purchased in a large buy in late 1983 and received for cal on 10JAN84.

I searched my rathole/file cabinet and found a receipt for a 73 that I purchased for personal use in Nov '83, and remember calibrating 77's about the same age.  I traded that 73 a year or so after that and ended up with a 77.   The 8024A's sold for quite some time after that, and I've seen many that were newer than my personal gear and still in spec.

[Hawaii596]

I was at the now defunct SIMA calibration lab (lab code PZQ) from 1982 to 1985.  Hugh Lowery, the Asia Pacific head of calibrations for the Navy at that time brought us a few Fluke 77's somewhere around early 1983, I think.  He told us to play with them and see what we thought of them.  At that time, most of the multimeters we calibrated were Simpson 260's.  I remembered the electrician's mates on the ships frequently checking 440VAC when they forgot and left the Simpson 260 in Ohms, and vaporized one of the solder runs.

So I thought it was awesome that you could put 440 VAC into the Fluke 77 and not worry about damaging it.  Our brand new meter calibrator was, by the way, the Fluke 5102B, which replaced our Fluke760 calibrators.

[USMCPMEL]

Hawaii your really dating yourself there... Thanks for all the responses guys. I called a little while ago on an 8062A and I believe they told me it was pre 1970 they said they could not pin down the exact date because there records did not go back that far.

[OlDave]

My buddy just told me he was at on onsite and he was handed one with the original factory sticker on it. It was calibrated in 1984. I had thought they were a bit older than that though?

You still haven't told us if it was still within specs?

[USMCPMEL]

OHHH sorry. He said it was dead on.

[John Treekiller]

I know this has pretty much been settled, but I checked a Fluke catalog from 82-83 and none of the 70 series was there.   The oldest manual we have available has a copywrite date of 1983, so late 1983 would be a very good guess.

[WestCoastCal]

Here with jack somppi with fluke since 1976 he believes July 1982

[Bryan]

Must be true, I found it on the internet