Electrical Engineering help

Can anyone familiar with ammeters and voltmeters help clarify what they are?

I know voltmeters are in series while ammeters are in parallel, but I dont't understand the point of them or why they exist.

 

Are you sure is not the other way around, voltmeters in parallel and ammeters in series, if you are talking about the measurement tool, one measures voltage the other current.

 

Voltmeter will measure how much voltage is going through a wire. Making sure you have 120 volts at a socket, for example.

Ammeter measures how much current there is moving through a circuit.

 

I mean when added as resistors to a circuit. Idk I didn't provide a good description of my issue. Let me talk to my professor and reread some text


This is the slide from out lecture

 

If you have a bigger image I can help you out, I can't see the slide its to small.

 

I think you may have that backwards.

A voltmeter measures the potential difference in voltage between two points in a circuit. Measuring DC voltage for instance, is typically done with the black lead on the ground or reference and the red lead on the voltage to be measured.

An current meter is inserted in line as the current must flow through the meter. If the current meter is inserted in parallel to the circuit component, then all the current will flow through the meter and not through the circuit component. Current always flows through the path of least resistance. The leads on multimeters have to be plugged into different holes when measuring current. If not, you'll blow the meter up.

Hope this helped.

 

Actually you post made me think my way through it. The pictures she drew in our lecture were talking about how the Shunt resister in parallel is typically tiny to allow the maximum current to flow through. I am still a little iffy on all the galvanometer/D'Arsonval movement stuff, but she said there wont be any workout problems on the exam tomorrow

 

Sorry, my reply was geared towards the use of a DMM. I didn't realize you were talking about the analog type of meter. DMM's have the shunt built in and the meter compensates for the shunt value in it's readings. I'm sorry I haven't' worked hardly at all with those type meters, always DMM's. It sounds like you would apply a ratio when using the shunt though.

By the way I'm not an EE, so I don't have all the design knowledge. I just repaired stuff for a few years.

 

Ampmeters can also be clamp on type that surround the conductor with a coil to use inductance to read the amperage flowing through the wire instead of interupting the circuit and having the current flow through the meter.
That's how we take readings on large conductors in the electrical business.

 

This guy can tell you ALL about it....
http://www.shealey.org/cooked.wmv

 

yes he can and plus one for you for the visual in your lecture