E0403

The E0403 is an electronic multimeter, made by IEMI in Bucharest and designed at the ICE research institute [1]. A 1973 ministry report gives its research as 1970–1972, with the zero series approved in the first half of 1974 and series production planned for 1975 [2].

ICE’s laboratory for electronic instruments for measuring electrical quantities designed all the institute’s generations of oscilloscopes, voltmeters, multimeters, signal generators, frequency meters, logic analysers, RLC bridges and stabilised AC power supplies; they went into production at IEMI or in ICE’s own microproduction workshop, and equipped industrial laboratories and production lines as well as teaching and research laboratories [1]. In the 1970s and 1980s about half of the components of measuring instruments were imported; after 1980 about three quarters were Romanian [1].

IEMI’s production table, which calls it an electronic millivoltmeter, lists 1,409 units made in 1975–1979 [3].

Annex III.2.8 calls the E0403 the leading instrument of the series and describes it separately: a portable multimeter measuring DC voltage from 0.5 mV to 1000 V, AC voltage from 0.5 mV to 700 V (1 Hz – 10 MHz), high-frequency voltage from 5 mV to 10 V (100 kHz – 100 MHz, peak-reading but calibrated in rms values), DC and AC current up to 10 A, resistance from 50 mΩ to 5000 MΩ, capacitance from 50 pF to 5000 µF and the gain (hFE 5–500) of PNP and NPN transistors. With sources on its rear panel it also measured leakage currents and the voltages of diodes and Zener diodes. It ran on three R20 cells or from the mains [4].