Computing for Amperage and Wattage Through the use of a Meter
Article Source: HealthSnare.com
Ohm's law states that the current is directly proportional to the electrical pressure and is inversely proportional to the circuit resistance. To state this relationship in a formula, we can say the electrical current is equal to the electrical pressure, divided by the resistance. To give you a more simplified version of this formula, we can say that amperage is equal to voltage, divided by ohms.
Though the ohm's law, we have a formula that we can use to compute for the amperage and wattage of a device by using a meter. The meter that we will use for our computation is the multimeter.
The fist thing that we need to do is to turn off the power supply of the appliance's circuit. After wards, you will now use your auto ranging multimeter. Before using it, you have to set its knob to the resistance setting which is symbolized by the Greek letter omega.
We will then use the multimeter's negative probe to touch one of the terminals of the device. Then we will touch the other terminal with multimeter's positive probe. Afterwards, we will wait for the multimeter's read out. This read out is the value of the circuit's resistance in terms of ohms.
You will now measure the voltage of the equipment. You need to set the multimeter to the voltage setting. Before you start measuring the voltage, you must first determine how is the device being powered. If this device uses battery, dynamo, solar cell, solar panel, or transformer, then you have to put the multimeter's voltage to direct current or DC. If the device uses an outlet or generator, set the multimeter voltage to alternating current or AC.
The next thing you need to do is to turn on the power source of the equipment. Then you have to place the mulitimeter's positive probe to the positive terminal of the power supply. Afterwards, you have to place the negative probe of the multimeter to the negative terminal of the power supply. The multimeter will then have a reading, the value of the reading is the electrical pressure in terms of volts.
We will now apply ohm's formula on the data we have measured. We will divide the value of the voltage by the value of the resistance and we will get the amperage. The amperage is the value of the energy consumed by the device.
To compute for the value of the wattage, we will just multiply the amount of the amperage to the value of the voltage. The resulting product of these values is the wattage which is the energy requirement of the device. That is how we compute for the values of amperage and wattage by using a meter. You can now use this information for future reference.
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Gladys White
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Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2011 Time: 3:12 AM
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