Re: Voltmeter questions...
Stevo said:
No meter?? Some people like to look at the needle but I always use digital meters these days. You don't need high precision for guitar work. Fluke has a large line of meters and they are highly rated. One of the lower priced Flukes would work fine.
The analogue meters are prone to loading effects per a given voltage/resistance/current range ... it has to do with the way that they function ... the meter's sensitivity effectively changes for different ranges. on guiatr work I can't see it making a big difference, however working on amps, err that's a different story,also true RMS reading meters are crucial there. Generally B&K ,Tenma, Vellemen ( never can remember how they spell it) makes some descent ones also, many of the cheaper one's will work just fine, but they don't take a hit to the floor as well as those costing a bit more (it does happen). Yeah there is always fluke of course. Radio Shack has some descent DMM's as well, they have one around $34 that has a diode teset, continuity test, resistance, voltage, and current, auto range, and auto polarity . They have a smaller one also that fits in your shirt pocket and it's leads fold up and go inside the case, about the size of a checkbook, I think that's like $25 or so.That covers just about anything you'd need to do, except for capacitance readings, and full function transistor testing, or frequency counting. Generally the only thing you'd need is the resistance mode, and continuity (really just a form of that mode), as well as ac/dc voltage, and current. For about $30 you should be able to find a descent basic function digital meter.
A digital meter with say a 10 Meg input impedance will be 10 Meg for all ranges, and not load and siganl down, nor give a false reading due to loading the source it's measuring. Plus digitals are just easier to work with also. Hit some of the electronics supply sites under meters and see what you want feature and price wise.
that, mine does just fine in auto range, but like everything else, you get what you pay for ... ;-)
