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Ohmmeter: Design Evolution Precision Ohmmeters See Also References External Links

An ohmmeter is an electrical instrument that measures electrical resistance. Early ohmmeters used a ratiometer design to measure resistance independently of battery voltage. Later designs used a galvanometer to measure current through a resistor from a battery. More accurate ohmmeters use electronics to maintain a constant current and measure voltage to calculate resistance using Ohm's law.

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75 views3 pages

Ohmmeter: Design Evolution Precision Ohmmeters See Also References External Links

An ohmmeter is an electrical instrument that measures electrical resistance. Early ohmmeters used a ratiometer design to measure resistance independently of battery voltage. Later designs used a galvanometer to measure current through a resistor from a battery. More accurate ohmmeters use electronics to maintain a constant current and measure voltage to calculate resistance using Ohm's law.

Uploaded by

Madhusudanan Ashok
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ohmmeter

An ohmmeter is an electrical instrument that measures electrical


resistance (the opposition offered by a substance to the flow of electric
current) . Micro-ohmmeters (microhmmeter or micro ohmmeter) make
low resistance measurements. Megohmmeters (also a trademarked
device Megger) measure large values of resistance. The unit of
measurement for resistance is ohms (Ω).

Contents
Design evolution
Precision ohmmeters
See also
References
An analog ohmmeter
External links

Design evolution
The first ohmmeters were based on a type of meter movement known as a 'ratiometer'.[1][2] These were
similar to the galvanometer type movement encountered in later instruments, but instead of hairsprings to
supply a restoring force they used conducting 'ligaments'. These provided no net rotational force to the
movement. Also, the movement was wound with two coils. One was connected via a series resistor to the
battery supply. The second was connected to the same battery supply via a second resistor and the resistor
under test. The indication on the meter was proportional to the ratio of the currents through the two coils.
This ratio was determined by the magnitude of the resistor under test. The advantages of this arrangement
were twofold. First, the indication of the resistance was completely independent of the battery voltage (as
long as it actually produced some voltage) and no zero adjustment was required. Second, although the
resistance scale was non linear, the scale remained correct over the full deflection range. By interchanging
the two coils a second range was provided. This scale was reversed compared to the first. A feature of this
type of instrument was that it would continue to indicate a random resistance value once the test leads were
disconnected (the action of which disconnected the battery from the movement). Ohmmeters of this type
only ever measured resistance as they could not easily be incorporated into a multimeter design. Insulation
testers that relied on a hand cranked generator operated on the same principle. This ensured that the
indication was wholly independent of the voltage actually produced.

Subsequent designs of ohmmeter provided a small battery to apply a voltage to a resistance via a
galvanometer to measure the current through the resistance (battery, galvanometer and resistance all
connected in series). The scale of the galvanometer was marked in ohms, because the fixed voltage from the
battery assured that as resistance is increased, the current through the meter (and hence deflection) would
decreased. Ohmmeters form circuits by themselves, therefore they cannot be used within an assembled
circuit. This design is much simpler and cheaper than the former design, and was simple to integrate into a
multimeter design and consequently was by far the most common form of analogue ohmmeter. This type of
ohmmeter suffers from two inherent disadvantages. First, the meter needs to be zeroed by shorting the
measurement points together and performing an adjustment for zero ohms indication prior to each
measurement. This is because as the battery voltage decreases with age, the series resistance in the meter
needs to be reduced to maintain the zero indication at full deflection. Second, and consequent on the first,
the actual deflection for any given resistor under test changes as the internal resistance is altered. It remains
correct at the centre of the scale only, which is why such ohmmeter designs always quote the accuracy "at
centre scale only".

A more accurate type of ohmmeter has an electronic circuit that passes a constant current (I) through the
resistance, and another circuit that measures the voltage (V) across the resistance. These measurements are
then digitized with an analog digital converter (adc) after which a microcontroller or microprocessor make
the division of the current and voltage according to Ohm's Law and then decode these to a display to offer
the user a reading of the resistance value they're measuring at that instant. Since these type of meters already
measure current, voltage and resistance all at once, these type of circuits are often used in digital
multimeters.

Precision ohmmeters
For high-precision measurements of very small resistances, the above types of meter are inadequate. This is
partly because the change in deflection itself is small when the resistance measured is too small in
proportion to the intrinsic resistance of the ohmmeter (which can be dealt with through current division), but
mostly because the meter's reading is the sum of the resistance of the measuring leads, the contact
resistances and the resistance being measured. To reduce this effect, a precision ohmmeter has four
terminals, called Kelvin contacts. Two terminals carry the current from and to the meter, while the other two
allow the meter to measure the voltage across the resistor. In this arrangement, the power source is
connected in series with the resistance to be measured through the external pair of terminals, while the
second pair connects in parallel with the galvanometer which measures the voltage drop. With this type of
meter, any voltage drop due to the resistance of the first pair of leads and their contact resistances is ignored
by the meter. This four terminal measurement technique is called Kelvin sensing, after William Thomson,
Lord Kelvin, who invented the Kelvin bridge in 1861 to measure very low resistances. The Four-terminal
sensing method can also be utilized to conduct accurate measurements of low resistances.

See also
Megohmmeter
Ammeter
Multimeter
Measuring instrument
Electronic test equipment
Electronics
Electrical network
Index of electronics articles
Series and parallel circuits
Galvanometer
Rheochord

References
1. http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/pdf/MeggerBK.pdf Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20120315011
216/http://www.g1jbg.co.uk/pdf/MeggerBK.pdf) 2012-03-15 at the Wayback Machine A pocket
book on the use of Megger insulation and continuity testers.
2. http://www.prolexdesign.com/images/evohmmeter.jpg Illustration of type. Note the absence of
any zero adjustment and the changed scale direction between ranges.

External links
DC Metering Circuits (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/DC/DC_8.html) chapter
from Lessons In Electric Circuits Vol 1 DC (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/DC/in
dex.html) free ebook and Lessons In Electric Circuits (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCir
cuits/) series.

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