multi meter + scrambled brains = zombie food

[XWrench3]

i am admittedly old school, i like analog gauges and meters, but i do realize that sometimes you do just need to update, and buy, try, and adjust. so i own a nice pair of analog multi meters. and a couple of inexpensive digital ones as well. ( I use these so seldom anymore its not worth buying a $500.00 Fluke) i just bought an assortment of resistors for a project, so i thought i would use the digital ones since they are "self sensing for resistance ranges. that way i could sort them by ranges (ohms, 1K ohms, 100K ohms, etc.). the biggest thing that bugs me about digital ones is they very seldom settle on a steady number. they constantly wander over a small range. anyway, sorting these is not going as planned. first one of them is dead. the battery leaked, so that one is in the trash. then, rather than getting straight resistance readings in a range, i am getting decimal readings, which is confusing the heck out of me. electrical has never been my strong suit, which does not help. so in whole numbers, what does a reading of .564 K ohms mean? what about .329M ohms? i am pretty sure that "K" = 1000 and "M" = 100. but when it comes out as a decimal, its throwing me off kilter. i am going to take a stab at this, i am thinking that .564 K ohms = 564 ohms, and .329 M ohms = 32.9 ohms. the meter showed me lots of whole numbers in the 100's range and in the 10's range. so i dont understand why it read these as decimals. unless of course, my brain is a scrambled mess.

 

[strollin]

M = Million ohms so .329M ohms would be 329K ohms. What do the color codes on the resistors say they should be?

 

[setishock]

If you hold the probes to the resistor leads the meter is going to read the resistance of your skin. I find using some alligator clips to hold the probes to the leads is much better.
When you encounter a decimal drop down to the next lower scale.

 

[MidnightShadow]

Many of those meters also have a button that you can push that will let you move that decimal over to see the range differently without having to use other methods. I would encourage you to check out the manual for your specific meter.

 

[XWrench3]

yes, i know about using alligator clips or at least making certain that the leads do not read any other material. over the years i have lost over 30 clips (i am on my 4th bag of them now, and it is getting thin). its fun to show youngsters that humans are resistors, even though they do not really grasp the whole concept. // i did not even think to look up the color codes, though now that i think of that, it would not do me a lot of good. i am mostly color blind in the brown - grey - green category. /// the one digital multi meter i have only has one scale, with no buttons to change values. it is supposed to automatically switch between ohms, K ohms, and M ohms. it does show what scale its using, but there is no way for me to manually change them. i wouldn't even have to do any of this if it wasn't for the U. S. Mail. the package came mangled and ripped open, with resistors hanging out of the hole. there are only a few actually missing, and they came in 10 packs. and i really only need a few of them. but i have to make it up as i go, so i needed an assortment.

 

[carnageX]

Well the good thing about it - they're measured in metric units...so just multiply by the factor of 10 that you want to get the value you're used to .

 

[S0ULphIRE]

 

[XWrench3]

COOL! i have not seen that chart before. i will print several copies of it, and post them in my work bench areas.

 

[Zekester2097]

heads up : just downloaded that image lol

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Now I feel bad for linking such a poorly formatted chart here's a prettier one, or just google image search "metric prefix chart"

which reminds me of one of my other favourite pics