smoking coming from voltage meter? whoa.. helpppp

[bran_zimm 10+ year member]

huge problem.. hooked up this lil meter i bought from radio shack to tell me the voltage.. like u put the black thing on the ground wire and the red one on the power wire and well... my moms friend showed me how to use it.. hooked it up to the battery when the car was off it showed like 12.3 volts.. well i wanted to see what it was doing while my system played and i did that and smoke started coming out of the gadget but i put the lil metal things on the ground and power terminals on the amp... and now something is going on wiht my system... what the hell happened?

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[SPL140.2 5,000+ posts]

Did you burn your (team gheys) PROBES

 

[Chevillac 5,000+ posts]

Smoke is never good. What is going on with your system after you did that?

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Unless you set the meter range wrong, there's no reason for it to burn out...and there's certainly no reason for anything to go wrong with your system. Take a pic to show how you were measuring the voltage...you should have had the meter in parallel with the circuit, like you described.

 

[bran_zimm 10+ year member]

i think i found out my problem.. would having the meter set for ac instead of dc cause it to smoke?

 

[Chevyaudio 5,000+ posts]

I have a craftsman volt meter and at night when i cant see sh*t when im testing stuff sometimes i accidentally set it to AC instead of DC and mine doest short out and smoke.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

i bet as stated up there you had it set for amps...thats about the only way to cook it. if you read the warnings on the unit or in the instructions im about 99.9999999% sure it will tell you the samething..also if there is loose metal inside the unit.

 

[Chevyaudio 5,000+ posts]

Yeah having the probe in the wrong outlet will definatly fry a volt meter.

 

[SPL140.2 5,000+ posts]

I still think he burnt the wires with the probes. A dmm has internal fuses and should protect the unit. Did you check the internal fuse??

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

how about you gimme a fluke and ill do the samething to it. you could have 656564 fuses on it it will still fry. you measure current in series.... if you dont what happens?