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Testing a Cheap Multimeter
It's been years since I had an expensive meter. These days, I have meters in the $5 to $20 range. Usually they're accurate enough for my purposes, but what if I want to be really certain? Is there a way without a pricey meter to test em? Perhaps calibrate the meter by checking v coming out of a v regultor. Would that be accurate? Perhaps the 7805 regulator which is supposed to output 5v. y?n? M?
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5 years ago
Cheap meters have their place. In my experience they work well enough for measuring voltage and current-- just set the correct range. I fried one; glad it wasn't a fancy meter. If you're worried about yours, then maybe test a USB port or a wall USB power supply (both would be regulated).
They fall flat for small resistance values (<15 ohm), though. Not really made for accurate measurements at that end of the scale. When testing in that range I use more than one meter and compare with a known resistance value (a 1% resistor). I figure that gets me within 20% of an accurate reading...