Continuity Test

[RoachForLife 10+ year member]

A few dumb ones...

On the meter, which setting (picture) do I use?

And the process is to touch each speaker wire end to the pos and the car ground to the neg of the probes;. What should the reading be if its good? and if its bad?

Click to read more...

 

[qkassidyw 10+ year member]

A few dumb ones...On the meter, which setting (picture) do I use?

And the process is to touch each speaker wire end to the pos and the car ground to the neg of the probes;. What should the reading be if its good? and if its bad?

Are you referring to my other post? What kind of meter do you have? As long as it isn't one of those really old analog meters yours should have a picture of what looks like sound waves coming out of it.

http://www.hmcelectronics.com/cat/115.jpg

In that picture it is the symbol after the Ohm's symbol.

You are correct with the method, i think, you wrote it kind of confusing, but you want to touch one probe to the cars ground, and the other end to one of the speaker wire (testing each of them one at a time). If the meter beeps at you then the wire is grounding out which is bad and you should run new wire.

Also make sure the amp ground is a good ground, read the sticky on grounding and read the first and last post.

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

A few dumb ones...On the meter, which setting (picture) do I use?

For continuity thier is usually a speaker symbol, because it will make a beep sound when you have continuity. Beep= speaker

And the process is to touch each speaker wire end to the pos and the car ground to the neg of the probes;. What should the reading be if its good? and if its bad?

I have no idea what that means, but I think you will not determine anything usefull.

If your trying to find if the speaker is good or bad, then you want to select OHM test, which looks like an upsidedown horse shoe. (Greek Omega symbol). Test both the positive and negative leads of the speaker, not the cars ground. Make sure the amplifer is OFF before you do this or you could damage your meter and the amp.

 

[qkassidyw 10+ year member]

For continuity thier is usually a speaker symbol, because it will make a beep sound when you have continuity. Beep= speaker
I have no idea what that means, but I think you will not determine anything usefull.

If your trying to find if the speaker is good or bad, then you want to select OHM test, which looks like an upsidedown horse shoe. (Greek Omega symbol). Test both the positive and negative leads of the speaker, not the cars ground. Make sure the amplifer is OFF before you do this or you could damage your meter and the amp.

I told him to do this in another post to check if the speaker wire was grounding out.

Also make sure the speaker wires are disconnected from the amp.

 

[RoachForLife 10+ year member]

if i set this to the cont test on meter, and touch 2 probes together should it beep? someone told me it should but my digital meter did not.

Thanks guys, you are life savers for this newb =P

 

[RoachForLife 10+ year member]

http://images.hardwareandtools.com/P/0715714.jpg thats the one I have, dont see a speaker symbol. I do have a thing with an arrow point right and a plus sign intersecting with it. LOL.

Also I can put the red probe in either 10A DC or V(omega)mA. Maybe my shit is still advanced for what Im doing and its confusing me.

 

[edzy 10+ year member]

well, if it didnt beep, did it show 0. thats means it has continuity.

on this meter, its the red symbol at the bottom. the dot with "waves"

You link is NG...

403 - Forbidden

 

[RoachForLife 10+ year member]

http://www.hmcelectronics.com/cat/ss/3410-0117.jpg ahh a blown up version of the one you posted shows me that the ->+ is the cont. tester. yay =P

 

[RoachForLife 10+ year member]

On my meter when its ->+ (cont)... when probes are not touching anything its = 1, when i touch them it goes to 0. Not instantly but within a few seconds. Not audible though. So in this case, which is a bad thing, 1 or 0? (when testing speaker + ground)?

Thanks again!

 

[qkassidyw 10+ year member]

0 means bad...for this test.

 

[edzy 10+ year member]

its the hourse shoe looking one on the top right. and when you get a zero, that means that there is no resistance across the connection. like zero ohms of resistance. if you probe a 1" pice of wire, it should read 0, but if you probe 1000' of wire, there should be a high reading. also make sure both probes are plugged in on the right side of that meter.

Looking at that pic again, it may be the one under it ....not sure.

 

[RoachForLife 10+ year member]

great info. So since I have your attention, eventually when this is all working I want to do the voltage test to set my gain (probe goes to speaker output on amp while playing a CD to make sure voltage output is at right power output). Which should I set it to?

Heres what I have...

-V with horizontal line and 3 dots under

-V with tilde (~) next to it, like V~

-A with horizontal line and 3 dots under

-Ohm

Im thinking its the first (V with hor. line and dots)

Then I have some measurments in terms of the decimal places.

V - ...

-600

-200

-20

-2000m

-200m

V~

-500

-200

A-...

-200u

-2000u

-20m

-200m

Ohm

-2000k

-200k

-20k

-2000

-200

Wow. Ok thanks, ill try to make this my last one but chances are it wont be. Thanks!

 

[edzy 10+ year member]

for speaker output you need to measure with ac scale. thats this. on the 200 setting

V~

-500

-200

To test bat voltage and stuff, you would use dc setting. on the 20 setting.

V - ...

-600

-200

-20

-2000m

-200m

 

[qkassidyw 10+ year member]

great info. So since I have your attention, eventually when this is all working I want to do the voltage test to set my gain (probe goes to speaker output on amp while playing a CD to make sure voltage output is at right power output). Which should I set it to?
Heres what I have...

-V with horizontal line and 3 dots under

-V with tilde (~) next to it, like V~

-A with horizontal line and 3 dots under

-Ohm

Im thinking its the first (V with hor. line and dots)

Then I have some measurments in terms of the decimal places.

V - ...

-600

-200

-20

-2000m

-200m

V~

-500

-200

A-...

-200u

-2000u

-20m

-200m

Ohm

-2000k

-200k

-20k

-2000

-200

Wow. Ok thanks, ill try to make this my last one but chances are it wont be. Thanks!

You want the setting to be on V~ and at the 200 setting (Volts AC with maximum at 200) And when measuring make sure you are using a test tone thats constant and measure on the outputs with nothing hooked up.

V=sqrt(P*R)

V= Volts (Reading on meter that you want)

P=Power in watts RMS that the speakers can handle

R=Resistance of the Speakers

 

[DidUHearThat? 10+ year member]

I told him to do this in another post to check if the speaker wire was grounding out.
Also make sure the speaker wires are disconnected from the amp.

lol! That makes sense. His post made it sound like he was testing the speaker. I read it twice and I was thinking, "that won't tell you shit about the speaker".