Completely off-topic but watching the video I noted the bright yellow multi-meter just like I had until last week (see the car battery thread).
I wanted to check the parasitic leakage from the battery when at rest and was all set up to do this when I realised that I had a problem to make the connection without losing battery power to the car radio.
I had checked using the voltmeter setting that I had a good earth point on the car (+ve to earth) and so connected the meter across -ve to that earth point with the intention of measuring current, and set about disconnecting the battery to earth at the earth point. In the process of doing this I knocked the meter connections so before I removed the earthing bolt I thought I'd better check I still had a good connection and clamped back to the +ve of the battery.
Woooshhh - my wife said "it's smoking". Yes, forgot to set back to volts and put the wire in the other socket on the meter. So just ran open circuit +ve to earth via the meter.
You should have watched more of Clive's videos sooner, he constantly reminds people to put multimeters back to volts range/socket immediately after using amps range/socket.
I thought all multimeters whistle if you switch away from the high amp range while plugged into the high amp socket. And they all have a fuse, surely, in the amps circuit?
A few weeks ago, I had a similar current drain investigation to do on a car, and setup the meter and wiring correctly on the 20A range, using the 20A socket, circuit in series, not worried about the radio, ignition off (obviously) etc....
Then a spark from made connections and the crappy meter leads got quite hot. Meter reading was dropping to less than an amp, but losing voltage in the meter leads due to rising resistance from heat probably invalidates the readings if anything.
So my immediate mistake was using Maplin meter leads of insufficient construction to carry possible currents I might be measuring, unexpected ones as well as expected.
Seems something electro-mechanical in this 2003 VW Polo, takes an initial gulp of current on an initial battery connection. I thought I heard a motor, but it's neither ventilation or the radiator. Auto priming fuel pump? the drivers door was open.
However, that investigation can wait for another day. I maybe also should stay away from car electrics and glitching ECUs with my intermittent battery connections.
Best way is to connect the DVM before removing the terminal from the battery. Let the car electric go to sleep, then remove the terminal. An easier way is to buy one of those battery disconnect devices that fits between terminal and lead, with a knob you unscrew to disconnect it.
That's pretty well in line with the suggestion of using the cells in low power demand devices like wall clocks (in this, the OP would need a conductive packing shim or an AAA to AA adapter since most wall clock movements use AA cells) or TV remotes which typically use a pair of either AAA or AA cells.
The OP's mention of a 3 AAA cell torch strongly suggests a cheap 'n cheerful LED torch (cheap 'n' cheerful because it uses more than two cells in series to proved the excess voltage required so that a simple series resistor can be used to limit the maximum current draw to a level safe enough to be handled by the LED or LEDs).
The more expensive electronically ballasted LED torches can efficiently provide the necessary 2.7 or so volts to overcome the forward volt drop typical of the white LEDs used at drive current levels in the range of tens to hundreds of milliamperes depending on the Lumen output levels required from just one (or two) cell(s).
This more expensive design of LED torch has become cheap enough now that lower Lumen output versions can be bought in Pound shops (just make sure it uses no more than one or two AA cells to guarantee that it's not an early cheap design relying on a dropper resistor).
The electronically ballasted LED torches react to battery (cell) exhaustion in a far more elegant fashion[1] than the old fashioned filament torch bulb types. A LED torch can still provide useful illumination (map reading lamp brightness) even with only a milliamp or two of drive current whilst a half amp torch bulb will be emitting only infra-red once the filament current drops to two or three hundred milliamps.
In fact, a filament lamp will accelerate the rate at which its Lumens output drops in response to declining battery voltage due to the high positive temperature coefficient of resistance of tungsten which decreases the filament resistance in response to reducing voltage as the battery resistance rises significantly towards the end of it's service life.
As many have already pointed out to the OP, if AAA cells are down to 1 volt each on load (a 1v open circuit state would restrict their use to negative grid bias voltage duty alone), they're pretty well exhausted and best slung into the box or bag of used batteries awaiting the next trip to any of the many retail stores that provide battery recycling bins (Sainsburys and Aldi to name just two).
Even if the OP has a suitable AAA cell powered remote controller, if they've caused a LED torch to go dim, this may not offer much, if any, service life extension even in such a low power demand application as this.
[1] The same applies with the cheap resistor ballasted LED torches - the dimming light curve with battery voltage drop in this case is just a steady decline from totally fresh to totally exhausted without the constant illumination phase over the first 80 to 90% of useful life of the battery or cell that only an electronic ballast circuit can provide (which on its low light output setting when the battery (or cell) is getting near to exhaustion, will act as a particular form of "Joule Thief" circuit).
Think that's about it in practice. One to measure AC is cheap as chips. DC current clamp meters are around, but most seem very coy about their accuracy, except at hundreds of amps.
Apart from the Kodak alkaline cells I buy from Poundland, I've found lots of cells where one has much less capacity that the others so you put 4 in a radio, say, and the performance starts to deteriorate much earlier than expected, then goes rapidly down hill.
On checking the battery pack it only measures 3V! On further investigation, three cells are still close to 1.5V but the fourth is -1.5V!
Obviously it exhausted quickly and then became reverse charged by the current through them.
I once threw out a perfectly good 3-cell doorbell because of this - which happened twice - but I assumed it was the bell developing a fault that made it draw excessive current.
It was only when I had the same problem when the replacement bell started playing up in the same way and the radio in the bathroom was also wilting badly that I found a reverse charged cell in both of them!
These were from a box of 100 Maplin cells - which I took back with the evidence. At first they only wanted to refund the price of the unused cells but I persisted and the manager refunded the full price. Still left me a doorbell down, though ...
This was several years ago and I've since found this with other makes.
I've never had a problem with the Kodak cells, though, and never had one leak.
I think Poundland claim to sell more cells in the UK than anybody else.
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