Using a multi-meter; I'm a klutz at...?

[bobstad]

I've been impacted lately with problems probably from my Festiva's alternator; which FestYboy suggested reasonably, I might in the future avoid and/or be able to better diagnose myself with a multi-meter.

I have had one a long time in one of my tool boxes; though only use the thing upon necessity, in rare occasions.

I wish I could find a good general text covering their use, as well as enough of the general theoretical electronics of automobiles applicable to things a multi-meter is handy for testing; so that I'd be able to make myself good at understanding, what for me is my weakest area of auto mechanics...electrical things.

I always am aware most of my mechanical abilities stem besides friends & family, from good seventh and eighth grade shop classes. Required then during the mid '60s at Colin Kelly Junior High in Eugene, OR of boys; with wood shop the first year and metal shop the second.

If I'd of followed through in high school with an auto shop class I'd probably never have worries with cars; though of course those classes were ones they tried to limit to vocational students.

[Larry Hampton]

I forgot where to plug the black wire in on mine for 230V.....

All the magic smoke came out of it.....

REALLY FAST!!!

[CharlieZ]

Google "How to use a multimeter." You'll find all you need to know and then some.

[bobstad]

Now I need a meter maid, no?

Google "How to use a multimeter." You'll find all you need to know and then some.

Well, I stored that page in my browser's bookmarks menu. Tanx!

[zoom zoom]

haha, just to be an (expletive deleted)

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+use+a+multimeter

[georgeb]

Make sure the leads are plugged into the ports marked COM and VOLT/OHMS. Black in COM and red in VOLT/OHMS. Don't use the AMP port until you get some training. Set dial to 20V DC to check voltage on vehicles (black probe on ground or neg batt terminal and red on hot terminal of component). To check continuity, unhook circuit at both ends, set to 20K ohms and look for 0 (continuity) 1 (open), or something in between (resistance). Make sure that the instrument is not completing a circuit to a load or damage to instrument could result.

[Movin]

Here is how its done, really, the american way, all across the country!
You buy the best Snap-On multi-meter that does all kinds of stuff, even
has a wide band o2 and sniffer, for $1100 bucks. Then later you buy a new
Snap-On meter, faster than all the rest to catch the tiniest computer glitches.
only $2100 bucks. Shortly later a entire system of mutimeter - scanner -
special tool box comes out. $10,000 and you are again playing ball with the
big boyz. But, you hate to scratch one of these really pretty red and black
electronic wonders, and they sure are bulky and cumbersome, so in the moment
of good ole american ingenuity you glue a magnet on the back of a HF $3.99
meter and its the best ever!, use it every day!

[jjk1224]

Here is how its done, really, the american way, all across the country!
You buy the best Snap-On multi-meter that does all kinds of stuff, even
has a wide band o2 and sniffer, for $1100 bucks. Then later you buy a new
Snap-On meter, faster than all the rest to catch the tiniest computer glitches.
only $2100 bucks. Shortly later a entire system of mutimeter - scanner -
special tool box comes out. $10,000 and you are again playing ball with the
big boyz. But, you hate to scratch one of these really pretty red and black
electronic wonders, and they sure are bulky and cumbersome, so in the moment
of good ole american ingenuity you glue a magnet on the back of a HF $3.99
meter and its the best ever!, use it every day!

Off topic, but I witnesses the destruction of a $5K Snap on MODIS scan tool in college. One of my classmates ran it over with a trailblazer and the screen sort of just exploded. The same guy also lifted a Buick 7 feet in the air by its gas tank and muffler, sad day.

Back on topic, basic automotive electrical systems can be simple once you get past all of the fancy colors and pictures on a diagram. Once you get the concept of powers and grounds down and how they work in the vehicle, you are golden.

[bobstad]

everything was liquid flow; until I ______my pants

Off topic, but I witnesses the destruction of a $5K Snap on MODIS scan tool in college. One of my classmates ran it over with a trailblazer and the screen sort of just exploded. The same guy also lifted a Buick 7 feet in the air by its gas tank and muffler, sad day.

Back on topic, basic automotive electrical systems can be simple once you get past all of the fancy colors and pictures on a diagram. Once you get the concept of powers and grounds down and how they work in the vehicle, you are golden.

I used to have the electronics of my '66 VW "square-back" Type III pretty well figured out, the dozen years we were together from '82-'94; and had used as my intellectual model the same dynamics as water flow, I figure electronics actually mimics exactly on some basic level.

I'm the type of mechanic though, who only works on my own cars and then only from necessity; one of the habits of my youth, when the only way a person of modest if any means could afford a car; expected of everyone as their male and/or sometimes even female right of passage into adulthood if you were poor enough. Or you'd of been left to walk, I'm often now wondering if perhaps a wiser course; if you'd not come up with some sort of alternative means of financing and/or finagling, getting someone else to do your dirty work.

I did opt for the "college prep" idea of making myself solvent enough, to never have to dirty my hands again; though that fell flat on the face of things, in ways far too numerous to detail here. Except to mention I now don't think too much of that philosophy; particularly as access to a college education I did manage to acquire, now seems to be becoming the rapidly increasingly remote province of an ever more select few, who also have to sell their souls monetarily for such a questionable privilege. Where probably those "ivory, or is it ivy covered towers," I forget for sure, have long been such; while the phenomena currently continues to morph at the will of those most empowered and wealthy in the world-as their needs of academia.

Way off-topic, except for my lead off paragraph about electronics mimicking water flow; though also off the top of my head today.

Daylight Savings Time; starts tomorrow I just heard on the radio the first time I've turned that on in a couple weeks. So turn your clocks ahead an hour the next time you think about that and get the chance.

Wow, I even knew this was a leap year without getting caught unawares. My pants are often down; but, not while anyone is looking...unless they've gotten me on surveillance, as my paranoid mind can sometimes imagine; of the sort of society able to come up with The Patriot Act for instance, and the sort of overpaid idiots the government must have to keep busy doing something, right?

Well, not only off-topic; but, likely arena bound. So, for the record; I was only joking!!! Except about water flow & electronics; and daylight savings time.

.