Proper car maintenance also includes checking your car battery and the values associated with it. It is necessary to know these measurements to be able to tell the status of your car battery. A multimeter serves as the proper tool for this purpose for measuring the current flowing into electrical devices. One of these values measured by the multimeter is the ampere. The electrical current is often described as amperage by professionals and measured in amps. In its unit, it’s called SI which is the amount of electrical charge that travels through conductors at a time. A coulomb is a charge that contains a certain amount of electrons that runs per second.
In essence, electricity is fuel to electrical circuits as much as gasoline is fuel to vehicles. Comparing the pressure of the water to the voltage, the flow of water at a given point is the amperage. Maneuvering the water pressure will enable less water to pass through a narrow pipe than a much larger one so we can say that the pipe size compares to electrical resistance. If a device has a much higher electrical resistance, the current flowing will be lower. The opposition will depend on the size of the appliance wiring.
Ways to measure Amperage
Amp meter readings are done properly using a multimeter. The steps below will guide you on how to do an amp reading when you’re a beginner at using the measuring device.
- The first thing to do is to set the function of the multimeter to ohms as a means to check the meter if it’s fully functional. Touch the tip of the leads. The multimeter should only read zero. When they’re separated, the reading should be at 1. Otherwise, it would be good to check the batteries.
- When the multimeter is through testing, turn the dial to the “Current” setting. To test the circuit, select a high enough current range. Let’s say if the circuit undergoing testing has an estimated five amperage or so, turn the dial to “10 amp” instead of leaving it to just 1. A lower setting could cause the multimeter to overload.
- Use the lead connectors and attach them to the part with the label “current.” The lead with the red indicator connects to the current range port and the black on a regular port. Depending on the type of multimeter, such arrangement will differ which is why it’s important to familiarize yourself with the labeling first to figure out any configuration.
- Position the multimeter leads appropriately using a particular configuration into the circuit. To accurate reading, the placement of the leads must be proper to be able to redirect the electricity into the multimeter. The correct route of the current should be into the red lead connector and out to the black one.
- To read the amperage measurement correctly, keep in mind that it would depend on the current range that selected in the beginning. It means if the number showing at the display is at “10.00” this could easily read into ten amps. But if it’s in milliamps, it will only read into 0.01 amps.