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Voltmeter
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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A voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring electrical
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potential difference between two points in an electric circuit.
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Analog voltmeters move a pointer across a scale in
Current events
proportion to the voltage of the circuit; digital voltmeters
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give a numerical display of voltage by use of an analog to
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digital converter.
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Voltmeters are made in a wide range of styles. Instruments
Interaction permanently mounted in a panel are used to monitor
Help generators or other fixed apparatus. Portable instruments,
About Wikipedia usually equipped to also measure current and resistance in
Community portal the form of a multimeter, are standard test instruments used
Recent changes in electrical and electronics work. Any measurement that
Contact page can be converted to a voltage can be displayed on a meter
that is suitably calibrated; for example, pressure,
Tools
temperature, flow or level in a chemical process plant.
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General purpose analog voltmeters may have an accuracy
Languages of a few percent of full scale, and are used with voltages
Demonstration voltmeter from a physics
from a fraction of a volt to several thousand volts. Digital class
‫العربية‬
meters can be made with high accuracy, typically better
Azərbaycanca
than 1%. Specially calibrated test instruments have higher accuracies, with laboratory instruments
capable of measuring to accuracies of a few parts per million. Meters using amplifiers can measure
Беларуская
tiny voltages of microvolts or less.
Български
Català Part of the problem of making an accurate voltmeter is that of calibration to check its accuracy. In
Čeština laboratories, the Weston Cell is used as a standard voltage for precision work. Precision voltage
Cymraeg references are available based on electronic circuits.
Dansk
Contents
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Deutsch
Eesti 1 Analog voltmeter
2 VTVMs and FET-VMs
Ελληνικά
3 Digital voltmeter
Español
4 See also
Esperanto
5 References
‫فارسی‬
Français
Gaeilge Analog voltmeter [edit]
한국어
A moving coil galvanometer can be used as a voltmeter by
inserting a high-resistance resistor in series with the
Hrvatski
instrument. It employs a small coil of fine wire suspended in
Ido
a strong magnetic field. When an electric current is applied,
Bahasa Indonesia
the galvanometer's indicator rotates and compresses a
Italiano

Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm[20-02-2014 14:12:43]

Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

small spring. The angular rotation is proportional to the

‫עברית‬
current through the coil. For use as a voltmeter, a series
Қазақша
resistor is added so that the angular rotation becomes
Lietuvių
proportional to the applied voltage.

Nederlands One of the design objectives of the instrument is to disturb

日本語
the circuit as little as possible and so the instrument should
draw a minimum of current to operate. This is achieved by
Norsk bokmål
Norsk nynorsk using a sensitive galvanometer in series with a high
resistance.
Piemontèis
Polski The sensitivity of such a meter can be expressed as "ohms
Português per volt", the number of ohms resistance in the meter circuit
Română divided by the full scale measured value. For example a

A moving coil galvanometer of the
Русский meter with a sensitivity of 1000 ohms per volt would draw 1 d'Arsonval type.
Simple English milliampere at full scale voltage; if the full scale was 200 The red wire carries the current to be
Slovenščina volts, the resistance at the instrument's terminals would be measured.
Српски / srpski 200,000 ohms and at full scale the meter would draw 1 The restoring spring is shown in green.
Suomi milliampere from the circuit under test. For multi-range N and S are the north and south poles
instruments, the input resistance varies as the instrument is of the magnet.

Türkçe switched to different ranges.

Українська Moving-coil instruments with a permanent-magnet field respond only to direct current. Measurement of
Tiếng Việt AC voltage requires a rectifier in the circuit so that the coil deflects in only one direction. Moving-coil
中文 instruments are also made with the zero position in the middle of the scale instead of at one end; these
Edit links are useful if the voltage reverses its polarity.
Voltmeters operating on the electrostatic principle use the mutual repulsion between two charged plates
to deflect a pointer attached to a spring. Meters of this type draw negligible current but are sensitive to
voltages over about 100 volts and work with either alternating or direct current.

VTVMs and FET-VMs [edit]

The sensitivity and input resistance of a voltmeter can be increased if the current required to deflect the
meter pointer is supplied by an amplifier and power supply instead of by the circuit under test. The
electronic amplifier between input and meter gives two benefits; a rugged moving coil instrument can
be used, since its sensitivity need not be high, and the input resistance can be made high, reducing the
current drawn from the circuit under test. Amplified voltmeters often have an input resistance of 1, 10,
or 20 megohms which is independent of the range selected. A once-popular form of this instrument
used a vacuum tube in the amplifier circuit and so was called the vacuum tube voltmeter, or VTVM.
These were almost always powered by the local AC line current and so were not particularly portable.
Today these circuits use a solid-state amplifier using field-effect transistors, hence FET-VM, and
appear in handheld digital multimeters as well as in bench and laboratory instruments. These are now
so ubiquitous that they have largely replaced non-amplified multimeters except in the least expensive
price ranges.
Most VTVMs and FET-VMs handle DC voltage, AC voltage, and resistance measurements; modern
FET-VMs add current measurements and often other functions as well. A specialized form of the
VTVM or FET-VM is the AC voltmeter. These instruments are optimized for measuring AC voltage.
They have much wider bandwidth and better sensitivity than a typical multifunction device.

Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm[20-02-2014 14:12:43]

Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Digital voltmeter [edit]

The first digital voltmeter was invented and produced by

Andrew Kay of Non-Linear Systems (and later founder of
Kaypro) in 1954.
Digital voltmeters (DVMs) are usually designed around a
special type of analog-to-digital converter called an integrating
converter. Voltmeter accuracy is affected by many factors,
including temperature and supply voltage variations. To ensure
that a digital voltmeter's reading is within the manufacturer's
specified tolerances, they should be periodically calibrated
against a voltage standard such as the Weston cell.
Digital voltmeters necessarily have input amplifiers, and, like
vacuum tube voltmeters, generally have a constant input
resistance of 10 megohms regardless of set measurement
range.

Two digital voltmeters. Note the 40
See also [edit] microvolt difference between the two
measurements, an offset of 34 parts
Electrical measurements per million.
Electrometer
Electronic test equipment
Metrology
Multimeter
Ohmmeter
Potentiometer (measuring instrument)
Solenoid voltmeter
Voltage divider
Class of accuracy in electrical measurements

References [edit]

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external

links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline
citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise
citations. (April 2009)

v · t · e Electrical and electronic measuring equipment [hide]
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Video signal generator · Voltmeter · VU meter

Categories: Electrical meters Measuring instruments Electronic test equipment Voltmeters

This page was last modified on 7 January 2014 at 15:20.

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Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm[20-02-2014 14:12:43]

Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Voltmeter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm[20-02-2014 14:12:43]