Digital Multimeter UT33C+

A Digital Multimeter UT33C+ or a Digital Multitester UT33C+, also known as a VOM (volt-ohm-milliammeter), is an electronic measuring instrument that combines several measurement functions in one unit.

A typical Digital Multimeter UT33C+ can measure voltage, current, and resistance. Analog multimeters use a microammeter with a moving pointer to display readings.Digital Multimeter UT33C+ have a numeric display, and may also show a graphical bar representing the measured value. Digital Multimeter UT33C+s are now far more common due to their lower cost and greater precision having obsoleted analog multimeters.

A Digital Multimeter UT33C+ can be a hand-held device useful for basic fault finding and field service work, or a bench instrument which can measure to a very high degree of accuracy. Multimeters are available in a wide range of features and prices.

The first moving-pointer current-detecting device was the galvanometer in 1820. These were used to measure resistance and voltage by using a Wheatstone bridge, and comparing the unknown quantity to a reference voltage or resistance. While useful in the lab, the devices were very slow and impractical in the field. These galvanometers were bulky and delicate.

The D’Arsonval–Weston meter movement uses a moving coil which carries a pointer and rotates on pivots or a taut band ligament. The coil rotates in a permanent magnetic field and is restrained by fine spiral springs which also serve to carry current into the moving coil.

It gives proportional measurement rather than just detection, and deflection is independent of the orientation of the meter. Instead of balancing a bridge, values could be directly read off the instrument’s scale, which made measurement quick and easy.

The basic moving coil meter is suitable only for direct current measurements, usually in the range of 10 μA to 100 mA. It is easily adapted to read heavier currents by using shunts (resistances in parallel with the basic movement) or to read voltage using series resistances known as multipliers.

To read alternating currents or voltages, a rectifier is needed. One of the earliest suitable rectifiers was the copper oxide rectifier developed and manufactured by Union Switch & Signal Company, Swissvale, Pennsylvania, later part of Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company, from 1927.

Multimeters were invented in the early 1920s as radio receivers and other vacuum tube electronic devices became more common. The invention of the first multimeter is attributed to British Post Office engineer, Donald Macadie, who became dissatisfied with the need to carry many separate instruments required for maintenance of telecommunications circuits.

Macadie invented an instrument which could measure amperes (amps), volts and ohms, so the multifunctional meter was then named Avometer. The meter comprised a moving coil meter, voltage and precision resistors, and switches and sockets to select the range.

The Automatic Coil Winder and Electrical Equipment Company (ACWEECO), founded in 1923, was set up to manufacture the Avometer and a coil winding machine also designed and patented by MacAdie. Although a shareholder of ACWEECO, Mr MacAdie continued to work for the Post Office until his retirement in 1933.

His son, Hugh S. MacAdie, joined ACWEECO in 1927 and became Technical Director. The first AVO was put on sale in 1923, and many of its features remained almost unaltered through to the last Model 8.

A Digital Multimeter UT33C+ is the combination of a DC voltmeter, AC voltmeter, ammeter, and ohmmeter. An un-amplified analog multimeter combines a meter movement, range resistors and switches; VTVMs are amplified analog meters and contain active circuitry.

For an analog meter movement, DC voltage is measured with a series resistor connected between the meter movement and the circuit under test. A switch (usually rotary) allows greater resistance to be inserted in series with the meter movement to read higher voltages.

The product of the basic full-scale deflection current of the movement, and the sum of the series resistance and the movement’s own resistance, gives the full-scale voltage of the range.

As an example, a meter movement that required 1 mA for full-scale deflection, with an internal resistance of 500 Ω, would, on a 10 V range of the Digital Multimeter UT33C+r, have 9,500 Ω of series resistance.

For analog current ranges, matched low-resistance shunts are connected in parallel with the meter movement to divert most of the current around the coil. Again for the case of a hypothetical 1 mA, 500 Ω movement on a 1 A range, the shunt resistance would be just over 0.5 Ω.

Moving coil instruments can respond only to the average value of the current through them. To measure alternating current, which changes up and down repeatedly, a rectifier is inserted in the circuit so that each negative half cycle is inverted; the result is a varying and nonzero DC voltage whose maximum value will be half the AC peak to peak voltage, assuming a symmetrical waveform.

Since the rectified average value and the root mean square (RMS) value of a waveform are only the same for a square wave, simple rectifier-type circuits can only be calibrated for sinusoidal waveforms. Other wave shapes require a different calibration factor to relate RMS and average value.

This type of circuit usually has fairly limited frequency range. Since practical rectifiers have non-zero voltage drop, accuracy and sensitivity is poor at low AC voltage values.

To measure resistance, switches arrange for a small battery within the instrument to pass a current through the device under test and the meter coil. Since the current available depends on the state of charge of the battery which changes over time, a Digital Multimeter UT33C+ usually has an adjustment for the ohm scale to zero it.

In the usual circuits found in analog multimeters, the meter deflection is inversely proportional to the resistance, so full-scale will be 0 Ω, and higher resistance will correspond to smaller deflections. The ohms scale is compressed, so resolution is better at lower resistance values.

Amplified instruments simplify the design of the series and shunt resistor networks.

The internal resistance of the coil is decoupled from the selection of the series and shunt range resistors; the series network thus becomes a voltage divider. Where AC measurements are required, the rectifier can be placed after the amplifier stage, improving precision at low range.

Digital Multimeter UT33C+, which necessarily incorporate amplifiers, use the same principles as analog instruments for resistance readings.

For resistance measurements, usually a small constant current is passed through the device under test and the Digital Multimeter UT33C+ reads the resultant voltage drop; this eliminates the scale compression found in analog meters, but requires a source of precise current.

An autoranging digital multimeter can automatically adjust the scaling network so the measurement circuits use the full precision of the A/D converter.

In all Digital Multimeter UT33C+ , the quality of the switching elements is critical to stable and accurate measurements. The best DMMs use gold plated contacts in their switches; less expensive meters use nickel plating or none at all, relying on printed circuit board solder traces for the contacts.

Accuracy and stability (e.g., temperature variation, or aging, or voltage/current history) of a meter’s internal resistors (and other components) is a limiting factor in long-term accuracy and precision of the instrument.