RmftJoGts

- fu lf,olltOilm0mil
-

(E)
OHMMETER
EXPERIMENTAL
As commercialohmmeters arecheapandeasyto find,anyonewhowantsa
goodinstrumentforhisownusewillnotbuildone.Butyoucanbuilda simple
ohmmeter howit worksor studyhowthebigonesaremade.
to demonstrate
Thesimpleohmmeter herecaneasilybemadefroma milliamme-
described
demonstrations
andcanbe usedin experiments,
ter or microammeter, and
manyotherapplications.
Ourohmmeter Andsincethisohmmeter
is alsoa voltmeter. canmeasurea
we can saythat it is, in practice,a
largerangeof voltagesand resistances
Voltages
multimeter. canbe measured Inthe rangebetween 0 and12volts
(therangeusedto poweralmostall circuitsin this book),and resistances
between 0 andinfinite.
lf usinga2OOuA microammeter, willbe 5,000ohmspervolt.
thesensitivity
Thisvalueis typicalof severalcommercialtypesof commonmultimeters.

Butyoucanuseanyotherammeter witha full-scale from100

valueranging
uAto 1 mA.SimplychangeRl to achievebest performance.

oftheexperimentalohmmeter
Theschematic is shownin Figure1.Notethat
thatcaneasilybehousedina smallplasticbox.
weuseonlyfourcomponents
Layoutis shownin Figute2. Components mountingis notcritical,andyou
canreplacethe bananajacksby probesor anyothermethodto makeexter-
nalconnections.
Probesareconnected to theexternalbananajacksdepending on the mea-
surementyou intendto make.To measurevoltage,the red probeis con-
nectedto J1 andtheblackprobeis connectedto J2.Tomeasure resistance,
connectthe redprobeto J1 andthe blackprobeto J3. Putthe probesto-
scale.
of zeroat the instrument
getherandadjustP1to getan indication
it is possible
Byusinga seriesof knownresistors, themeterscale
to calibrate
to readohmsdirectly.Startfrom0 (withJl andJ2 shorted),andnotethe
meterreadingswhenlk,2k, etc,reslstors areconnected acrossJl andJ3.

202
 PlUoGt
88 S0ftncmlol|ffir

Figure I

Figure2

the deviceto readohms,use a variablepowersupplyto

Aftercalibrating
calibrate
thevoltagescale.
of thepolarized
Position components, andpowersup-
suchAstheammeter
ply(cells),mustbe observed.
fmH!ffifrthomilmffi

PartsList - ExperimentalOhmmeter
81 -3V-twoMcells

R1 - 10,000 resistor
ohm,114W,5% l
l

Pl - 47,000ohm,1l4Wtrimmerpotentiometer ll
l
M1 - seetext
- 0-200uAmicroammeter I

J1-3 - banana
jacks

ldeasto Explore
Tolearnmoreaboutthecircuitor to getbetterperformance:
o Explainhowresistance
andvoltagescalesoperateinthisohmme-
ter.
. Calibrate
thescalesof yourohmmeter powersup-
usinga variable
plyandsomeknown-value resistors,
as describedabove.
o Calculate valuesreadin the meterand compare
the resistance
Doyourcalculated
withthe realvaluesof usedresistors. resultscon-
firmprevious studies?
applications:
anduncommon
Science
o Youcanusetheohmmeter to determinesensorandmediaresis-
if youdon'thavea commercial
tancesin severalexperiments multi-
meter.
o Bywiringa47,OOO ohmpotentiometer between Jl andJ3 youcan
usethisdeviceasa position Cursorpositions
indicator. canbedirectly
bythemeter.A scaleof anglescan
intocurrentas indicated
converted
to readdegreesdirectly.
be arranged

2U