Tuesday, October 27, 2009

How To Solve An Electrical Problem With A Digital Multimeter ?

By Scott Rodgers

The absence of a proper electrical tool box and the associated tools at your home lays the foundation for a major mishap that could've been cured during the initial stages.

Hence getting a quick and wise apprehension of an electrical irregularity should be a common practice. To fulfill this task completely a digital multimeter may come to the rescue. A digital multimeter is a simple to use electrical device that gives you an in-depth information about the root cause of the electrical fault.

A digital multimeter is easy to use and more importantly it notifies you of the flaws in your electrical framework.

If you notice an electrical device, appliance or a socket not operating in a normal way then its time to take the services of your multimeter. There are three types of tests that can be preformed to know whether the circuit is short, open or close. That in turn would help you in further course of action.

Make sure that you equip your toolbox with a digital multimeter(with LCD display) and not the needle-based meter. Check that the impedance limit of the multimeter is somewhere close to 10 mega ohms(at least). A higher resistance will fetch more current from the appliance's circuitry leading to a possible breakdown.

Once you're ready to test an appliance/socket for its circuit's operational state, just plug the leads to the wires with red being the positive terminal and black being the negative terminal. There are three modes in which you can test the component: ampere, voltage and resistance. In the amperage test, the LCD displays the reading of the current passing through the component(in A or mA ).

In the voltage test, the multimeter is set to the V(Voltage) mark and the reading shown is of the voltage of the appliance. The difference in the volts level of the two terminals is what makes the final reading.

Also an ohm test can be preformed as well. If the reading shows 0 ohm then it means that the circuit is short. If the reading is 1.000 or 'OL' then the circuit is open. If however the reading is more than the prescribed limit of the device(in ohms) then a short-circuit is again indicated.

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