Just wondering - I'm sure some here have destroyed analog meters in the past. I'm curious as to how much overcurrent is needed to destroy these things.
I accidentally left my 20KΩ/V analog meter in the 10mA range trying to monitor a solar cell. The solar cell was in subdued lighting at the time (twilight/dusk) and was getting 1mA or so. However I had forgotten about it and later the full sun shone on it...
In full sun, or typically when it's sunny, the cell delivers 100mA (it should be more than this as far as I know, possibly age related decay, dunno, hence me testing this to begin with.) The meter slowly pegged when the sun came up. The meter was resting against the peg for a while, maybe less than an hour but quite some time.
Once I noticed, I turned it back down to the 500mA range. Luckily the meter still seems to work!
How much of an overload is needed to destroy these meters by mistake? Apparently I had subjected it to a 10x overload...
I accidentally left my 20KΩ/V analog meter in the 10mA range trying to monitor a solar cell. The solar cell was in subdued lighting at the time (twilight/dusk) and was getting 1mA or so. However I had forgotten about it and later the full sun shone on it...
In full sun, or typically when it's sunny, the cell delivers 100mA (it should be more than this as far as I know, possibly age related decay, dunno, hence me testing this to begin with.) The meter slowly pegged when the sun came up. The meter was resting against the peg for a while, maybe less than an hour but quite some time.
Once I noticed, I turned it back down to the 500mA range. Luckily the meter still seems to work!
How much of an overload is needed to destroy these meters by mistake? Apparently I had subjected it to a 10x overload...
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