Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An early D'Arsonval galvanometer showing magnet and rotating coil. A galvanometer is an electromechanical measuring instrument for electric current.Early galvanometers were uncalibrated, but improved versions, called ammeters, were calibrated and could measure the flow of current more precisely.
The galvanometer does not need to be calibrated, as its only function is to read zero or not zero. When measuring an unknown voltage and the galvanometer reads zero, no current is drawn from the unknown voltage and so the reading is independent of the source's internal resistance, as if by a voltmeter of infinite resistance.
The Galvani potential difference is not directly measurable using voltmeters. The measured potential difference between two metal electrodes assembled into a cell does not equal the difference of the Galvani potentials of the two metals (or their combination with the solution Galvani potential) because the cell needs to contain another metal-metal interface, as in the following schematic of a ...
A moving coil galvanometer can be used as a voltmeter by inserting a resistor in series with the instrument. The galvanometer has a coil of fine wire suspended in a strong magnetic field. When an electric current is applied, the interaction of the magnetic field of the coil and of the stationary magnet creates a torque, tending to make the coil ...
Ideally the measuring device should not affect the circuit parameters i.e., the internal impedance of the ammeter should be zero (no voltage drop over the ammeter) and the internal impedance of the voltmeter should be infinite (no current through the voltmeter). However, in actual case, ammeters have a low but non zero impedance and voltmeters ...
At that time, the volt was defined as the potential difference [i.e., what is nowadays called the "voltage (difference)"] across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power. The "international volt" was defined in 1893 as 1 ⁄ 1.434 of the emf of a Clark cell.
The meter movement in a moving pointer analog multimeter is practically always a moving-coil galvanometer of the d'Arsonval type, using either jeweled pivots or taut bands to support the moving coil. In a basic analog multimeter the current to deflect the coil and pointer is drawn from the circuit being measured; it is usually an advantage to ...
Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension is the difference in electric potential between two points. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] In a static electric field , it corresponds to the work needed per unit of charge to move a positive test charge from the first point to the second point.