Problem with voltage

[bouchandre]

So I wired my battery and regulators and everything, but when I turn everything one, something odd happens. also I checked and there are no shorts or anything.



Sorry for the crappy camera work

 

[Prog]

You're using your multimeter wrong.

 

[bouchandre]

Really? What am I doing wrong? But out doesn't change the fact that I can't get any kind of response from my board, or even the regulators.

 

[Prog]

Well, things tend to not work right when you are trying to use them while shorting out their power source.
You're supposed to put it in series with what you're running off of batteries. Post the voltage draw and the amp draw you get from that.

 

[Hermaphroditus]

Prog, you're wrong. You put a voltmeter in parallel with what you want to measure the voltage of. When modeling an ideal voltmeter you assume infinite resistance. Real voltmeters have some real resistance, but the current flow is minimal, so he's not really shorting the batteries with the meter. Unless you are saying a ~.1 microAmp current to constitute "shorting." Now, if his mutlimeter probes were shorting with each other that would, of course, short the batteries. But I didn't see that happen. Plus things would have gotten hot and I'm sure he woulda noticed something was wrong.

If he was measuring current then yeah, that's in series, but he was measuring voltage. Hence the "V" seen in the video.

As for why it's doing this, I can't really be certain without a better look at everything.

 

[Prog]

Oops.
Does it work off of other power sources?