Multimeter

[Vir Campestris]

Can't say I've ever seen one with a scale marked "conductance" either. Surely it's just resistance's other hat...

Andy

[Andy Burns]

On some Brymen meters the resistance ranges top out at e.g 50 megaohms, then you switch to a conductance range for readings down to 0.01 nanosiemens (i.e. 100 gigaohms)

[whisky-dave]

No conductance is differnt.

Someone from physics asked me if we had a resastivity meter. We don't.

[Vir Campestris]

"Conductivity Resolution : 0.01, 0.1, or 1 ?S; 0.01, or 0.1 mS"

It's measure in seconds?

Oh. Capital S not little s. I didn't know that. Nor do most of my colleagues I think.

And given the hint from Mr Burns I go to Wonkypedia and find

"The siemens (symbol: S) is the derived unit of electric conductance, electric susceptance and electric admittance in the International System of Units (SI). Conductance, susceptance, and admittance are the reciprocals of resistance, reactance, and impedance respectively; hence one siemens is redundantly equal to the reciprocal of one ohm, and is also referred to as the mho. The 14th General Conference on Weights and Measures approved the addition of the siemens as a derived unit in 1971."

I stand by what I said. Conductance is resistance's other hat.

Andy

[Andy Burns]

yep.

[Roger Hayter]

I may be ignorant, but I've never seen a multimeter with an inductance scale. You can get little meters with inductance scales for component measurement, but they're not usually multimeters as well.

[Andy Burns]

I occasionally oggle these, difficult to justify for the rare uses the extra features would get, in some reviews they compare well to Flukes

Hmmm ... twin thermocouples with delta display ... I suppose I could balance my rads with one ...

[Martin Brown]

It isn't uncommon for multimeters these days to have a capacitance scale but I agree inductance is usually absent. They also often have a diode and transistor testing option too. Most chipsets support it but it is up to the maker to decide what functions they offer to the outside world.

[tabbypurr]

Get yourself a £12 China special componen tester. Does most components , identifies pinout & gives secondary info too eg ESR.

NT

[Andy Burns]

Yes, I've got one of they.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yup - very clever devices.

[John Rumm]

It often seems to be the case that the quality makes will concentrate on meters that do the basics well, and eschew more exotic measurement ranges, and then the others compete by throwing in everything but the kitchen sink!

[whisky-dave]

I'd like some with that option then I wouldn't have to visit the toilets to fill up the water bottles for the soldering iron sponges :-)

[Adam Funk]

Ha! Good one.

[Robin]

You could avoid even more visits to the toilets if you can argue persuasively that urine is a "green" tip cleaner ;)

[whisky-dave]

Now that is taking the piss :-)

[Johnny B Good]

It would have to be a *very* persuasive argument to explain why the workshop smells like a pub gents' toilet. :-)

Also, not so much a 'green' as a 'yellow' 'solution'.