Coil Reading Information

[sundownz 197]

I use a ~$300 DMM to measure our coils here at the shop... why ?

Well I'll show you...

* Our Dual-1 coil on a cheap meter.

* On our meter - factory spec is 0.84 ohms +/- 12%. This thing is dead on.

* Our Dual-2 on a cheap meter.

* On our meter - factory spec 1.85 +/- 12%. Again... 12% variance allows up to 2.07 and the meter only reads to the tenths place so it is dead on.

So. Keep that in mind when reading your coils on a cheaper meter.

[Adrian_D 520]

Might have something to do with the resistance of the test leads ?

As far as I know some meters 'subtract' the resistance of the test leads and others don't.

[sundownz 197]

Indeed - and people will immediately assume the coils are wrong.

The cheap meter also jumps around ALOT reading the coil - where mine stays quite steady.

[Adrian_D 520]

Indeed - and people will immediately assume the coils are wrong.

The cheap meter also jumps around ALOT reading the coil - where mine stays quite steady.

x2 on jumping around. I have to keep the leads in place for ~20seconds to get a good reading

[NDMstang65 403]

Touch the leads together and make note of what they read and then subtract the difference.

It'l still read the same once you do the math

[sundownz 197]

Indeed - high lead resistance is a problem on the cheap ones. The cheap ones I have jump around alot too - whereas my big one stays quite constant.

[Earsplitter 4]

Touch the leads together and make note of what they read and then subtract the difference.

It'l still read the same once you do the math

nice, never thought of that

[JustinT 0]

My DMM jumps around alot but I believe its a nice one. SPERRY i believe.

Guess I need an extech

[~DIGITAL~BASS~ 0]

Yup test lead resistance. My DMM usually is about 0.1 most of the time. Jumps around slightly but not to much. Usualy only within 0.2 at the most. No such thing as overkill on test equipment.