Digital multi meter

Yup, it's a minefield out there. Can I suggest you take the faulty one apart and do a close up inspection? You may see something obvious.
Next, find a load that you can connect to a Lipo, I'm thinking a bar from an electric fire, a bulb from a headlight (it has 3 terminals, use your meter on Ohms and connect to the 2 contacts that give you the highest reading). Connect the load, the lamp should glow, turn your meter to Volts, DC (that's the white side) 20V. Now get the Balance lead, starting from one end (any end), using 2 of those fancy pins of yours pushed into the sockets, measure the voltage across the pins. What I mean is number the pins from 1 to 5 (if it's a 4s) measure 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5. Each measurement should be in the region of 3+volts. Be careful, do not slip and short the pins! You have now measured the state of each cell under load! If you want to know the total voltage, measure between 1 & 5.

I think I see what BB is trying to do, and he has the wrong kind of meter! The multimeter will serve, but for simplicity 'in the field' THIS is the one he should have -







In the first pic, it just shows a (scrap) lipo plugged in to the meter.
Pic 2 shows the reading of one cell (a 3S)
Pic 3 shows the reading of another cell
Pic 4 shows the reading of the whole pack

I didn't bother photoing each cell reading. Most of the functions are self-explanatory. The 'cell' button steps the meter between all - cell 1 - cell 2 etc and back to all.
Note the meter shows cell/pack voltage, and amount of charge remaining.

The site has decided that image 4 makes the file too big -

Was that last to me or BB?
If you meant MY meter, it's off E-bay, about a fiver.

Maybe so - but when I bought it, I'd never heard of those two, OT.