I'm curious about the behavior of common digital multimeters. I understand the concept of meter loading on a circuit, but I never noticed before now. my multimeter seems to be creating a current path between the cathode and anode of my circuit when it is reading voltage. Enough current that it will visibly dim an led when measuring the voltage drop across the diode. it will also even cause enough current to light up an led. I noticed this when I removed a wire connecting the cathode of the led I was examining to my surprise it stayed lit albeit very dim, the only current path was the meter.
This isn't a high quality fluke meter or anything, just a hardware store branded multimeter. is this normal behavior for cheapo meters?
edit: I never noticed before because I will commonly use a series resistor(10-15 ohm) and measure the voltage drop across the resistor to determine current in a circuit. for some reason I never trusted its ammeter functionality. now I'm questioning if it is even useful as a paper weight.
This isn't a high quality fluke meter or anything, just a hardware store branded multimeter. is this normal behavior for cheapo meters?
edit: I never noticed before because I will commonly use a series resistor(10-15 ohm) and measure the voltage drop across the resistor to determine current in a circuit. for some reason I never trusted its ammeter functionality. now I'm questioning if it is even useful as a paper weight.
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