Multimeter confusion

[milomonkey]

Hello,

I received the excel xl830l multimeter from ebay for testing ohms of the coils I will be rebuilding. However when I turn the setting to OHMs 200 and touch the pins onto the original spare 2.5 OHms kangertech coil head the display of the multimeter reads: 05.0

I am not sure if this is doing it properly... What do you guys think? This is the item I got: Excel XL830L

[seniorphil]

Make sure your leads are plugged in firmly. Then touch the two leads together. This will tell you the resistance of the meter. The one I use is .2 ohm.
Any looseness or dirt on the leads could affect the reading.

[milomonkey]

when I touch the two leads together it shows between 1.5 - 2.0... So I guess I subtract this number from the result I get on the coil head.

[Mev]

I've found depending on the prongs used on the cables some can be almost useless for measuring resistance and others great, I am not 100% sure why this is but it seems the more expensive leads work better. Before having a better multimeter myself I made some leads up with fine wire croc clips for testing my coil wires, they worked much better than the supplied ones.

[seniorphil]

Jan 9, 2014 0:10:56 GMT milomonkey said:

when I touch the two leads together it shows between 1.5 - 2.0... So I guess I subtract this number from the result I get on the coil head.

That does seem a high reading for the internal resistance of the meter, but yes that's the idea subtract that from your coil reading. That still leaves you with a high reading.
I am a bit spoilt, as I do my recoiling at a proper electronics bench. If I don't trust a meter I grab another one and double check.

[mafkees1233]

I bought this nifty little thing...works like a charm
link

[giles]

I have to say that I find my multimeter (different from yours but another cheap one) pretty useless except for telling me if I have a short or no connection. Trouble is that the last digit thrashes around so I can't read it. So I don't really know what the res is until I put it on the vamo or svd.

[giles]

mafkees1233 does that also have probes or croc clips? If not, then if you are spending that much might it not be worth spending a bit more & getting a vamo or similar?

[mafkees1233]

It doesn't have any probes or croc clips...but all I wanted it for is to check my selfmade coils. I've been fiddling for a week (and failing miserably) at making them and with this little thing I can see how I did (without burning or vaping dry wick)
A vamo is a little to big to carry around...and I just got started with vaping; I'm using ego batteries and an evod.
Maybe in time (and money) I will expand my vaping gear ;-)

[giles]

I guess my question was really for the lurkers. It is nice to be able to check the resistance of your coil before you connect it to the 510 connection (which is a bit of work you don't want to do if the resistance is way out or you have a short somewhere). Once you have connected it to the 510 connection, you can check the resistance if you have a vamo (or vtr or whatever), and I suspect that if you are building your own coils, you are likely to wind up with something like that sooner or later anyway.

I got shot down last time I said this in a post, but I think it is a pity that the cheap multimeters have a lowest range that is 0 to 200 ohms, when what we need is 0 to maybe 5. If it was 0 to 5 the least significant digit could be maybe 100th of an ohm, and it wouldn't matter if it kept changing so you couldn't read it.

Probably I should try Mev's way and put croc clips on mine - should make it more stable.

[seniorphil]

I use a couple of meters with lower ranges 0-50, and they do look and feel like expensive bits of kit. They do seem more accurate, and used with croc clips waver less.

[Carpe Vapor]

Ive been thinking of getting one, but is it worth it for me as I currently use my provari

[newdawn]

Nice to know I can use the VTR for checking them. Next week begins the fun of learning to build coils. What could possibly go wrong?

[giles]

Jan 9, 2014 8:06:10 GMT Carpe Vapor said:

Ive been thinking of getting one, but is it worth it for me as I currently use my provari

If you are talking about an ordinary £5 multimeter then I don't normally use mine when building for an RBA, but if I'm rewicking a protank or whatever then I use it to check it is roughly OK before cutting the tails - otherwise it's too late to do anything about it.

A couple of times I've had a short or break on an RBA and got the multimeter out, but I could probably have spotted it without.

[apostle51]

Make sure the probes are plugged into the correct ports in the meter too.