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Multimet
er Tutorial
1. Introduction
The most important debugging tool in any E.E.'s toolbox is a trusty multimeter. A
multimeter can measure continuity, resistance, voltage and sometimes even current,
capacitance, temperature, etc. It's a swiss army knife for geeks!
What you will learn!
You should go through all of these sections in order, as they build on each other.

1. Continuity measurements
How to tell if two points are electrically connected
2. Resistance measurements
How to measure resistance - resistors, potentiometers and sensors
3. Voltage measurements
How to measure voltage - battery testing, wall-wart adaptor testing, and the terror
of mixed AC/DC measurements.

What to look for?

Everyone always asks What multimeter should I get?

Well, since they're rather commodified (there are dozens of manufacturers) it is hard to
make everyone use the same model, even though it would make things easier.

These are the necessities:

• Continuity testing with piezo buzzer

• Resistance test down to 10 ohm (or lower) and up to 1 Megaohm (or higher)
• DC voltage test down to 100mV (or lower) and up to 50V
• AC voltage test down to 1V and up to 400V (or 200V in the US/Canada/Japan)
• Diode testing

Here are nice things to have in your meter

 • Auto-off - to keep from draining the batteries
• AC and DC current test, from 10mA to maybe 200mA and then also a 10A one as
well
• Stand - a thing that flips out and keeps it upright on your table
• Auto-ranging - note: some people don't like auto-ranging because its slower and
not as precise
• Hold - keep the maximum value on the screen so you can probe without looking
at the meter.
• Common battery - such as 9V or AA's, pocket meters use hard-to-replace coin
cells

These are things that I rarely (if ever) use, in decending order

• Frequency counter - before I had a scope this was surprisingly useful!

• Capacitance testing - usually to check random SMT caps
• Inductance testing - how often do you really use an inductor?
• Duty cycle - never used this
• Transistor beta meter - people don't really work with transistors anymore
• Temperature probe - I use the "Pease temperature test": a finger

Where to get one?

I have a selection of suggested meters on this page, I strongly suggest the "better" (At
$15 its a great value) or "best" ($50, autoranging, has a temp probe, all sorts of other
junk) ones as the "good" one is really kinda bad. If you already have a multimeter then
just use that one. I'll only be covering digital multimeters here so if you have an analog
one, it may be a little different and you'll have to experiment to figure out what's up

A good multimeter will cost about $25. I suggest getting a ranging one , with current
testing, and a wide range as well as easy-to-replace battery. You don't need to spend $200
on a Fluke 73! A $50 meter will be excellent. Auto-ranging meters may keep you from
tripping up on ranges at first, but they're slower and often flakier.

I have had a Wavetek Meterman 27XT for half a dozen years and its been really good to
me, but it was also about $80.

More links

Here are many other links for learning how to use a multimeter

• TangentSoft's half-hour video tutorial

• Make Magazine's Bre & Joey Grand on how to use a multimeter

2. What is continuity?
You might be asking, "What is continuity?" But don't worry, it's quite simple! Continuity
means, are two things electrically connected. So if two electronic parts are connected
with a wire, they are continuous. If they are connected with cotton string, they are not:
while they are connected, the cotton string is not conductive.

You can always use a resistance-tester (ohmmeter) to figure out if something is

connected because the resistance of wires is very small, less than 100 ohms, usually.
However, continuity testers usually have a piezo buzzer which beeps. This makes them
very useful when you want to poke at a circuit and need to focus on where the probes are
instead of staring at the meter display.

For some basic circuits you can just look to see where the wires go to determine
continuity but it's always wise to use a multimeter. Sometimes wires break or you're tired
and can't easily follow all the PCB traces. I use continuity check all the time!

What is it good for?

Continuity is one of the most important tests. Here are some things it is good for

• Determine if your soldering is good. If your solder joint it is a cold solder

connection it will appear connected but in actually it is not! This can be really
frustrating if you are not experienced in visually detecting cold solder joints
• Determine if a wire is broken in the middle. Power cords and headphone cables
are notorious for breaking inside the shielding, it appears as if the cable is fine but
inside the wires have been bent so much they eventually broke.
• Making sure something isn't connected. Sometimes a solder joint will short two
connections. Or maybe your PCB has mistakes on it and some traces were shorted
by accident.
• Reverse-engineering or verifying a design back to a schematic

Remember!

You can only test continuity when the device you're testing is not powered.
Continuity works by poking a little voltage into the circuit and seeing how much current
flows, its perfectly safe for your device but if its powered there is already voltage in the
circuit, and you will get incorrect readings

Always test to make sure your meter is working before starting the test by brushing the
two tips together, and verifying you hear the beep. Maybe the battery is low or its not in
the right mode.

Continuity is non-directional, you can switch probes and it will be the same.

If you are testing two points in a circuit and there is a (big) capacitor between those
points you may hear a quick beep and then quiet. That's because the voltage the meter
is applying to the circuit is charging up the capacitor and during that time the meter
'thinks' its continuous (essentially)

Small resistors (under 100 ohms or so) and also all inductors will seem like short
circuits to a multimeter because they are very much like wires.

Likewise, continuity doesn't mean "short" it just means very very low resistance. For
example, if you have a circuit that draws an Amp from a 5V supply, it will appear to be a
5Ω resistor. If you measure that with your meter it will think its a short circuit, but really
its just a high-drain circuit.

Get into the mode

First step is to get your multimeter into the correct mode. Look for the icon that looks sort
of like a 'sound wave'

Here are three examples. Note that sometimes the mode is "dual" (or possibly more)
usage,
Turn the multimeter knob so that it points to this symbol

Touch and go

For a majority of multimeters, you're ready to go, just touch the tips of the probes
together so that they make a beeping sound!

Here are some examples covering a couple of different multimeters

Example 1

This meter is very simple. When the probes are not touching, the display shows "1"
When you touch the tips together, the display changes to a three digit mode (it's
displaying resistance, which we will cover later) It also emits a beep

Example 2

This meter is dual-mode but still very easy to use. Turn the dial to the symbol. When the
probes are not touching the display shows "OL" which stands for Open Loop. (Open loop
is another way of saying there is no continuity)
When you touch the probes, the soundwave icon shows up in the display (upper right)
and it also shows a number. The number is not the resistance, actually...its the voltage
(look for the V in the right hand side for Volts). This is because this mode is also a Diode
Test (which will be discussed later)
Example 3

This meter is triple-mode and requires an extra step to get to the continuity function.
Click on the image to get a closer view of the triple-mode. After you dial to this mode
you must press the Mode button, the wave icon will then appear in the display.
You can see the wave icon in the top right as expected. This meter also displays OL (I've
noticed that nicer meters do this)

Unlike the other meter, this one displays Ohms (see the symbol on the right of the
display). The resistance is low (4.7Ohms) but not 0 (the ideal value) because the probes
and wires act as resistors. Usually with these sorts of meters they will beep whenever
resistance is under 100 ohms or so.

Probing a PCB
Here is an example of testing a PCB for continuity.The first test shows that the two points
are not connected.
The second test shows that these two points are connected

3. What is resistance?
Resistance is just what it sounds like, its the characteristic that makes a component fight
current flow. The bigger the resistance value (in ohms Ω) the more it fights. Most
resistors you'll see range between 1 ohm and 1 megaohm (1.0 MΩ) they often have 5%
tolerance but you can buy 1% or even 0.1% accuracy resistors.
In general, resistence testing is best for measuring resistors, but you may find yourself
measuring the resistance of other things, such as sensors and speakers.

Resistor coding

Resistors are color coded, at first it seems like a bad way to print the values but with a
little time it becomes faster because you dont have to read any numbers and the stripes
are visible no matter how it is rotated. You can use this calculator to play around with
resistor color codes

Click here to display a resistor color code chart below

This image shows a 1.0 kΩ 5% resistor (brown black red gold)

What is resistance testing good for?

Resistance-testing is very useful

• If you don't have a continuity tester, it can double as one

• Check resistors whose values are not clear, if you aren't good at reading color
codes or if the marking has come off
• Measure input and output resistance of circuits
• Test and characterize sensors and potentiometers (see below)

Remember!

You can only test resistance when the device you're testing is not powered.
Resistance testing works by poking a little voltage into the circuit and seeing how much
current flows, its perfectly safe for any component but if its powered there is already
voltage in the circuit, and you will get incorrect readings

You can only test a resistor before it has been soldered/inserted into a circuit. If you
measure it in the circuit you will also be measuring everything connected to it. In some
instances this is OK but I would say that in the vast majority it is not. If you try, you will
get incorrect readings and that's worse than no reading at all.

You can make sure your meter is working well by having a 'reference resistor' to
test against. A 1% 1KΩ or 10KΩ resistor is perfect! Low batteries can make your
multimeter wonky.

Resistance is non-directional, you can switch probes and the reading will be the same.

If you have a ranging meter (as most inexpensive ones are), you'll need to keep track of
what range you are in. Otherwise, you will get strange readings, like OL or similar, or
you may think you're in KΩ when really you're in MΩ. This is a big problem for
beginners so be careful!

Get into the mode

Look for an ohm (Ω) symbol, if its a ranging meter there will be a bunch of subdivided
modes. If its auto-ranging there will be only one.
 This meter has the Ω symbol and then 7 submodes, ranging from 200Ω to 2000MΩ
(wow!)

This meter has the Ω symbol and then 5 submodes, ranging from 200Ω to 2MΩ

This meter has a multi-mode (you need to press a seperate MODE button to change
between capacitor sense, diode test, resistor test and continuity!) It does not, however,
have any numbered submodes, as it is auto-ranging

Ranging vs. Auto-ranging

As long as it works, it doesn't matter which type you have. But auto-ranging meters are a
little slower.
Compare these two videos as I measure a 1KΩ resistor with an autoranging meter:

Which gets the first significant digit instantly, the second digit after 1 second and the
final digit after 2.

Expensive autoranging meters, like Fluke 73s, will be super fast so it's not a big deal, but
if you have a $200 meter you're probably not reading this tutorial.
Ranges will almost always be something like 200Ω, 2KΩ, 20KΩ, 200KΩ, 2MΩ, etc.
Why the 2s instead of 100, 1K, 10K etc.? Well, here's my guess.
Because the vast majority of resistors are 5%, the resistor values are 5% apart (or so). For
example, the "standard" 5% values between 1K and 10K are:

1.0K, 1.1K, 1.2K, 1.3K, 1.5K, 1.6K, 1.8K, 2.0K, 2.2K, 2.4K, 2.7K, 3.0K, 3.3K, 3.6K,
3.9K, 4.3K, 4.7K, 5.1K, 5.6K, 6.2K, 6.8K, 7.5K, 8.2K, 9.1K

There are way more values between 1KΩ and 2KΩ than between 2KΩ and 3KΩ, etc. By
picking 2KΩ as your max range, you get the best precision for the most probable values.

Example 1. Testing a resistor

With an auto-ranging meter, its easy, just put the two probes across the resistor and read
the number. For example, this 1KΩ 5% resistor is actually 0.988 Kohm.

And this 10KΩ is really 9.80KΩ. Note that the numbers look similar but the decimal
point has moved.
This ranged meter requires that you dial in the range. We'll guess that this resistor is
under 2KΩ then measure it. We get 0.992 which means its 0.992 KΩ (or, a 1KΩ resistor)

Now testing a different resistor, we will again guess its under 2KΩ. However, this time
we get a strange response, a 1. which means out of range. Some meters will display an
OL which you may remember from the continuity secion as meaning "open loop" here it
means "the measurement is higher than the range"
We try again, changing the range to 20KΩ

Aha! It is a 9.82 KΩ resistor (10KΩ)

Its a little clumsier than auto-ranging but if you are pretty sure you know about how big
the resistance you are expecting is, its very speedy.

Example 2. Testing a potentiometer

You can test the max-value of a potentiometer by measuring across the two 'ends' as
shown here with a rotational 10KΩ pot. To find the 'range' look at the dial.
You can also use a multimeter to tell whether the potentiometer is a linear or logarithmic
(audio) pot. When the pot is centered, if the resistance between the wiper and one end is
half of the total value, its linear. (I used clips instead of probles to make it easier to take
these photos)

This is a 10KΩ linear potentiometer

The minimum resistance of the pot, 0Ω (a short) as expected

 Potentiometer centered, about 5KΩ

Maximum value is 9.5KΩ (it should be around 10KΩ)

This video shows the resistance of a 10KΩ linear pot as it is adjusted. At the end it is set
to approximately the midd, which is measured at 4.7KΩ, pretty close to the 'ideal' of
5KΩ.
Minimum is 0Ω as expected

Middle is 8KΩ
 Maximum is 54.2KΩ, close to the ideal 50KΩ

If, when centered, the resistance is more like 85% or 15% of the total resistance, then its a
log pot. This is a 50KΩ analog potentiometer. When centered, the resistance is about
8KΩ.

Potentiometers are resistors that change value when they are moved. A Light Dependent
Resistor (LDR) is a resistor that changes value with the amount of light it receives. This
one has a range of about 20K max.

First, set the range, in this case 20KΩ seems pretty good. In bright light, it measures
about 610 Ω
Slightly shaded it's 5.84KΩ (remember this is still a well-lit photo)

4. What is voltage?
So what is voltage anyhow? Well, its a pretty abstract term but a lot of people like to use
the term "potential energy" which is that thing you heard about in high school physics
and then forgot immediately.

Some people like to draw an analogy to water to describe voltage. A water pump is like a
voltage supply (also known as a battery).
The pump pushes water through a hydraulic system, and the voltage supply pushes
electrons through an electronic system.
The higher the rated pressure of the pump, the more 'work' the water can do.
Likewise, the higher the voltage the more 'work' (Watts) the electrons can do.

Voltage is used to provide power (via a battery or wall plug) and its also used as a way of
transmitting data. For example, music is recorded from a microphone as an analog
voltage signal, if that voltage waveform is applied to a speaker the voltage performs the
work of making air move and produces sound.
Voltage is also used to in digital circuits to talk back and forth in binary, usually 5V or
3.3V is a "1" and 0V is a "0", by alternating the 1's and 0's millions of times a second,
data can be moved around rather quickly.

AC/DC

Not just an 80's hair metal band! Voltage comes in two flavors (yum): Alternating
Current (AC) and Direct Current (DC). Here is a quick tour of the differences.

Direct current voltage is what comes out of batteries. The battery is at 9V, and it
pretty much keeps that voltage constant, until it dies. The chemical reactions inside the
battery creates DC voltage.
Electronic circuits really like DC voltage.
Alternating current voltage is what comes out of the wall. The generator at the US
power plant creates a voltage that oscillates, going from -60V to 0 to +60V to 0 again, 60
times a second. At the European power plant its -120V to +120V at 50 times a second.
(Note that those voltages are 'RMS' - Root Mean Square - which means that the peak
voltage is actually about 1.4x higher, but since multimeters show RMS voltages, its easier
to just use those)
AC voltage is great for power plants because its easy to transform AC voltages (using a
transformer) up to 50KV for long distance travel and then down to 240V or 120V to
safely power your home. Those big honking grey things that you see next to buildings
that hum are the huge transformers.
Motors (like your washing machine and refrigerator compressor pump) like running off
of AC voltage.

You can turn AC voltage into DC voltage very easily by using a very small transformer
to bring the 120V down to a reasonable level like say 16VAC and rectifier. This is
basically what's inside a wall wart plug or your laptop power supply.
Its much harder to turn DC into AC, you will need an inverter which are more expensive
than transformers/rectifiers.

Batteries only supply DC voltage and wall plugs only supply AC voltage. However, it is
totally possible to have both AC and DC voltage at a certain point:
If an AC voltage is oscillating between -60V and +60V it has 120V AC and 0V DC
because the average voltage of -60V and +60V is 0V.
If an AC voltage is oscilating between 0V and 120V then it has 120V AC and 60V DC
because the average voltage of 0V and 120V is 60V.

In the above oscilloscope image, the dashed horizontal line in the center is ground (0V)
and each dashed division is 5V. The scope is displaying a signal that has both AC and DC
components. There is an alternating voltage (a square wave) that is about 4V high at
about 100Hz and a DC (mean average) voltage that is around 7V. Use the dashed
divisions to verify for yourself that this is so.

What is voltage testing good for?

Voltage testing is very common, you'll use it a lot

 • Test if your power supply is working, are you getting 5V out of that 7805
regulator?
• Verify that your circuit is getting enough power: when all of the blinky lights are
on, is the power supply drooping too low?
• Verify signals to and from chips to make sure they are what you expect once the
circuit is up and running
• Testing batteries, solar cells, wall plugs, and power outlets (carefully!)
• With a current sense resistor you can perform current testing on a project
without possibly damaging your meter.

Remember!

You can only test voltage when the ciruit is powered If there is no voltage coming in
(power supply) then there will be no voltage in the circuit to test! It must be plugged in
(even if it doesn't seem to be working)

Voltage is always measured between two points There is no way to measure voltage
with only one probe, it is like trying to check continuity with only one probe. You must
have two probes in the circuit. If you are told to test at a point or read the voltage at
this or that location what it really means is that you should put the negative (reference,
ground, black) probe at ground (which you must determine by a schematic or somewhere
else in the instructions) and the positive (red) probe at the point you would like to
measure.

If you're getting odd readings, use a reference voltage (even a 9V battery is a

reasonable one) to check your voltage readings. Old meter batteries and wonky meters
are the bane of your existence but they will eventually strike! Good places to take
reference voltages are regulated wall plugs such as those for cell phones. Two meters
might also be good :)

Voltage is directional If you measure a battery with the red/positive probe on the
black/negative contact and the black probe on the positive contact you will read a
negative voltage. If you are reading a negative voltage in your ciruit and you're nearly
positive (ha!) that this cannot be, then make sure you are putting the black probe on the
reference voltage (usually ground)

DC voltage and AC voltage are very different Make sure you are testing the right kind
of voltage. This may require pressing a mode button or changing the dial.

Unless otherwise indicated, assume DC voltages

Multimeters have different input impedences that affect readings of high impedence
circuits For example, measuring a sensor that has 1Mohm impedence with a 1Mohm
impedence meter will give you only half the correct reading

Get into the right mode

There are often two seperate modes for AC and DC voltage. Both will have a V but one
will have two lines, one dashed and one solid (DC) and one with have a wave next to it
(AC).
This meter has the double line for DC voltage, and 5 ranges, from 200mV to 600V. The
lightning bolt symbol is a gentle reminder that this voltage is extremely dangerous.

There is also the V-wave symbol for AC, and two ranges since most AC voltages that are
measured are power voltages and are pretty big. (For small AC waveforms, a scope is
best since you will be able to see the waveform itself)

This autoranging meter makes it pretty clear which mode you want to be in
This ranged meter has 5 ranges, the top range is 750 VAC or 1000 VDC, to switch
between DC and AC you need to press the DC/AC button on the upper right.

When the probes are not connected to anything, they should display 0V. They might
flicker a bit if they pick up ambient voltage (your home is a big radiator of 60Hz voltage
which can couple into your meter probes).

Example 1: Testing batteries

Testing batteries is a super useful skill and is one of the best ways to practice with your
multimeter
The first battery we'll test is a new 1.5V alkaline. This one is a AAA but a AA, C or D
cell will be the same voltage. Set the range to 2V DC .

We read 1.588V, which you may think is a mistake, after all its a 1.5V battery so
shouldn't it be 1.5V? Not quite, the 1.5V written on the side is just a nominal voltage, or
the "average" you may expect from the battery.In reality, an alkaline battery starts out
higher, and then slowly drifts down to 1.3V and then finally to 1.0V and even lower.
Check out this graph from Duracell's page about alkaline battery voltage

Using this graph you can easy tell how fresh your battery is and how long you can expect
it to last.
Next, we measure a 9V alkaline battery. If we still have the range set to 2VDC we will
get a mysterious "1. " display, indicating is it over-range.

Fix the range so that it's 20V, and try again.

For this new battery we get 9.6V. Remember that battery voltage is nominal, which
means that the "9V" is just the average voltage of the battery. In reality, it starts out as
high as 9.5V and then drops down to 9 and then slowly drifts to 7V. You can check out
the discharge curve in the Duracell 9V datasheet

If we want to check a rechargeable AA battery, and it's set to a 20VDC range, we will
read 1.3V, which is about what a fully charged NiMH battery will measure.

If we fix the range so it's 2VDC, we can get an extra digit of precision. This meter
probably isnt more than 0.5% accurate so the precision may not mean much.
Finally, I test a lithium 3V coin cell, its at 2.7V which means it's getting near the end of
it's life.

Example 2: Testing wall wart (adapter) plugs

Testing wall adapters is also very handy, especially when you build your own circuits.

The first kind we will test is a transformer-based adapter.

This photo has notes. Move your mouse over the photo to see them.

Note that the label says Transformer, its also blocky and heavy which indicates a
transformer as well. It requires 120VAC input, US power only. The nominal output is
9VDC at 300mA. The polarity symbol shows that the middle is positive, the outside is
negative, thus we place the ground (black) probe on the outside and the positive (red)
probe on the inside.
Yow! 14V? That's not anything like the 9V on the package, is this a broken wall wart?
Turns out, its totally normal. Transformer-based wall adaptors are (almost always)
unregulated, which means that the output is not guaranteed to be a particular value, only
that it will be at least what is printed on the box. For example, with this adapter it means
that when drawing 300mA, the voltage is guaranteed to be higher than 9V.

Since the output is unregulated, the voltage supplied will droop as more current is pulled
from it, which means that open-circuit (connected to nothing) the measured output can be
as high as 14V. Glitchbuster has a long page that describes this.

Next, lets check out a Switch-mode adapter

Notice that it's not square, its much thinner and although you cant feel it, its quite light
for its size: There is no big honking transformer inside!

This photo has notes. Move your mouse over the photo to see them.

Note that it says Switching (not Transformer) on the label, and you can input US or
European power. Like the transformer adapter, it is center-positive polarity.
Switch-mode wall adapters are regulated which means that the output doesn't droop
from open-circuit to full load. Its not an ultra-high quality supply, the voltage is 12.2V
which is less than 5% error. Still, its much better than the transformer's 50% error!

Lastly, we'll test a 9VAC adaptor, which outputs AC voltage instead of DC. Basically
this means that there's still a transformer inside, but no rectifier. This is also an
unregulated supply
Note that is is similar to the transformer-based DC supply we checked out first

This photo has notes. Move your mouse over the photo to see them.

Note again that the label says transformer. It requires 120VAC input, US power only.
The nominal output is 9VAC at 300mA. The output is indicated twice, once at the top
"AC/AC" and then again in the output designator "9V AC"
There is no polarity because AC adaptors are not polarized: AC power oscillates between
positive and negative voltages.
We test the output, but get 0V! That's when we remember that the multimeter has to be in
AC voltage mode.

Switching over to AC, we get a good reading, 10.5VAC. This is an unregulated supply so
again we are going to get a voltage higher than 9V.

Example 3: Testing Wall output

This is the 'easiest' test, just shove the two probes into a wall socket. If you're clumsy and
think you'll somehow electrocute yourself, don't do this. Many people freak out about this
test, but ironically it's what the multimeter was designed to do.
About 120V, as expected

Bonus Example: Testing a circuit with AC and DC

If you're trying to measure something that is just DC or just AC its very easy, just get into
the right mode and measure away! The hardest thing to do is measure a circuit with both
AC and DC voltages.

For example, here is a few attempts to measure the VCO output of a x0xb0x as seen in
the oscilloscope output shown here (its the same one from above

The DC portion is the easy part to measure, most multimeters just average out the input
measurement
We read 6.75V DC, which is about right.

However, when trying to measure AC, this multimeter gives us a seemingly random
number. (Maybe the DC voltage * 2 ?)

The Extech meter reads 1.65V

The Wavetek does the same

The lesson? You can't depend on your multimeter to measure AC voltages when there is
a DC component!