Voltmeter

A voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring the electrical potential difference between two points in an electric circuit.

The voltage can be measured by allowing it to pass a current through a resistance; therefore, a voltmeter can be seen as a very high resistance ammeter. One of the design objectives of the instrument is to disturb the circuit as little as possible and hence the instrument should draw a minimum of electric current to operate. This is achieved by using a sensitive ammeter or microammeter in series with a high resistance.

Note that voltmeters built on this principle show varying input resistance as the instrument is switched through its measuring range. The meter will generally specify a number of "Ohms/Volt" on the faceplate. Multiplying this number by the voltage range the meter is set to gives the input resistance of the instrument.

The moving coil galvanometer is one example of this type of voltmeter. It employs a small coil of fine wire suspended in a strong magnetic field. When an electrical current is applied, the galvanometer's indicator rotates and compresses a small spring. The angular rotation is proportional to the current that is flowing through the coil. For use as a voltmeter, a series resistance is added so that the angular rotation becomes proportional to the applied voltage.

<< Digital voltmeters>>

Digital voltmeters usually employ an electronic circuit that acts as an integrator, linearly ramping output voltage when input voltage is constant (this can be easily realized with an opamp). The dual-slope integrator method applies a known reference voltage to the integrator for a fixed time to ramp the integrator's output voltage up, then the unknown voltage is applied to ramp it back down, and the time to ramp output voltage down to zero is recorded (realized in an ADC implementation). The unknown voltage being measured is the product of the voltage reference and the ramp-up time divided by the ramp-down time. The voltage reference must remain constant during the ramp-up time, which may be difficult due to supply voltage and temperature variations. Part of the problem of making an accurate voltmeter is that of calibration to check its accuracy. In laboratories, the Weston Cell is used as a standard voltage for precision work. Precision voltage references are available based on electronic circuits.