Hi, guys. I'm new to the forum. I'm working on a project where I'll be installing an analog panel meter. During my search for a suitable meter, I saw meters with accuracy of 10%, 2% and 1.5%. Question: What is the internal difference between, say, the meter with 10% accuracy and the one with 1.5%? Obviously, the meter with 1.5% accuracy is a better meter, but why?

Thanks for any inputs

Patrick

 

You did not mention whether you are looking to use the meter as an ammeter or a voltmeter.

Here is a discussion on how to build your own shunt. This will give you an idea of some of the things that you may need to consider in setting up your meter.

If you are not using the meter directly in the circuit, you should be able to add a bit of circuitry to minimize the error and in some cases null the error associated with the meter.

You are on the right track by using the meter that has the greatest accuracy to begin with.

hgmjr

 

There are 2 reasons for using different meter accuracies:-

The first is the most obvious and is cost - the more accurate you want it the better the manufacturing process has to be and hence the greater cost.

However the less accurate electromechanical meters are often more robust regarding mechanical shocks and electrical overloading. In fact many portable instruments with sensitive analogue meters have circuitry arranged to apply a short circuit to the meter terminals when in transit - this uses the swinging meter coil to provide regenerative braking to itself.

Moving iron type meters are very robust but have a non-linear scale and about a 5% accuracy limit - often used in the power industry and on battery chargers.

Steve.