Understanding analog voltmeter calibration

[Nik_2213]

Upside of 'Analog' is you may see needle twitch. No substitute for well-handled 'scope, but often a ''Huh ??'

Analogue or digital, you must be aware of wave-form, ripple etc etc and how instrumentation responds..

Sadly, this is a big problem with wannabe 'Over Unity' inventors: They embrace inappropriate readings...
FWIW, I was banned from a fun hobbyist electronics site for suggesting their resident 'Over-U' guru dispense with his wondrous array of mismatched instruments and simply attach a festoon of incandescent lights.
Given he was site's major sponsor, I was 'run out of town'...

 

[Baluncore]

For service work, I use moving coil multimeters in preference to a digital multimeter.

With a DMM, the position of the decimal point is most critical, but is the least visible. Intermittent faults are very hard to find with a DMM. Servicing PWM systems with a DMM is fraught with sampling problems.

For 12V and 24V motor vehicle service, where there are connectors, moisture, dirt, salt, and vibration, a test lamp with a filament will be more honest and produce quicker results, than a high resistance DMM.

A DMM is only needed for setting up power supplies and calibrating instruments.
They are now so much cheaper than a moving coil meter, that DMMs are ubiquitous, and so will lead many beginners into trouble, wasting a lot of time.

 

[berkeman]

For service work, I use moving coil multimeters in preference to a digital multimeter.

My last couple Fluke DMMs at my last couple EE jobs had bargraph LCD displays in addition to their numeric displays. I usually found them to respond quickly enough to satisfy my need to see quickly changing numbers (well below oscilloscope needs). Have you used any DMM bargraphs like those?

 

[Baluncore]

Have you used any DMM bargraphs like those?

Yes, but the lower-cost non-fluke meters have slower bar-graphs, while unattended Fluke meters tend to go missing.

Bar-graphs also do silly things while range-switching induced by on-off intermittent signals. There are workarounds, but I am more interested in solving the problem than solving the test instruments.

It's horses for courses, I have low-cost versions of both types of meter at each workbench, and in each vehicle toolbox.

Everything is a compromise. If I need precision, I will use a reference grade meter, but it will not remain lying around, or being shaken in a vehicle.

I do appreciate the John Fluke Manufacturing company differential voltmeters, but I originally learned to read an AVO-8, so I guess moving coils are just an extension of my personality.