Voltmeter is an instrument in use to test voltage from voltage source and or potential difference within a circuit. Different voltage source include battery, alternator, solar cells and various transducers. And the transducer may be at the input or at the output of a device or circuit.

The voltmeter could stand alone or as part of a Multimeter. In a Multimeter, we have ohm meter, voltmeter and ammeter together in one test instrument. However, to check a voltage from a voltage source you need to follow this instructions:

How To Use a Voltmeter In Multimeter

1. Switch the knob or button of the Multimeter to Voltage
2. Connect to DC voltage range, or AC voltage range. However, this depends on the voltage source
3. However, consider how much voltage you expect from the source
4. But, choose the higher range of the voltmeter compare to what you expect
5. For DC Voltage, locate the positive and negative connection of the source
6. In fact, positive of the meter is usually red, while negative is usually black.
7. Or, positive has +VE sign and negative has – VE sign respectively
8. Then, find the negative and positive probes of the meter
9. Connect positive probe to positive of the source, and negative probes to negative of the source
10. But for ac voltage source, there is no permanent positive or permanent negative. Therefore, you can connect the positive or negative to any point of the source

A Multimeter, could be digital or analog. Digital Multimeter is easy to use than analog Multimeter, but analog has its on advantage, Obviously, with the digital meter, you can read the value of measure voltage as figure on the display. But analog meter does not display its value as figure, which you have to read the figure the pointer display to.

In order to use voltmeter to measure potential difference within a circuit, locate the two points of interests. Then follow the list 1 to 8 above for DC volt. But for AC volt, follow the how’s 1 to 7 and 9.