need help reading inductance

[Righteous]

Hi, i am trying to measure inductance on a coiltek mono coil for a minelb gp 3000
the inductance should be around 300 UH i believe.
on my multi meter Pictured.my readings are as follows
@20mH reads 0.27
@200mH reads 0.3
@2H reads .001
@20H it flashes between 0 and 1
i realise one is UH and the other is mH as i dont understand this either
can someone please explain
Thank you

[Righteous]

Should i buy a different multimeter

[Carl-NC]

Your meter is fine. As you go to larger settings, you lose resolution. This is true of all meters. Always use the setting that give you the most resolution for what you are measuring. In your case, the 20mH setting gives a measurement of 270uH +/- 5uH. The 200mH setting gives a measurement of 300uH +/- 50uH.

[Seeker]

Should i buy a different multimeter

If you have money for spend, buy only L-meter with more bands , begining from 20uH up to 20H.The price is about 70-100$.

[Righteous]

ok no worries thanks Carl that realy makes sense.

Seeker
If i buy a L-meter with more bands i gather it will give me a more accurate reading eg. instead of 27 it would read 275/273 or are they not that accurate

Thanks Righteous

[Elie]

ok no worries thanks Carl that realy makes sense.

Seeker
If i buy a L-meter with more bands i gather it will give me a more accurate reading eg. instead of 27 it would read 275/273 or are they not that accurate

Thanks Righteous

Whether it would display, at most, two decimal places or three, the important thing is that it would have smaller scales, giving you the abilty to measure smaller inductances. If you tried to measure a 3uH inductor with your meter, using the 20mH scale, it would be like when you used the 2H scale to measure 300uH. This brings up an important question: if they are going to make an inductance meter, why not make it suitable for measuring inductances less than 1000uH (1mH)? Who measures 20H?

[Carl-NC]

ok no worries thanks Carl that realy makes sense.

Seeker
If i buy a L-meter with more bands i gather it will give me a more accurate reading eg. instead of 27 it would read 275/273 or are they not that accurate

Thanks Righteous

Oddly, it depends on the design of the meter. You have what is probably a 3-1/2 digit meter. If the meter is designed to always display a leading zero for e.g. 0.27mH then you effectively have a multimeter with no more than 2 decimal places of precision. This means that even a 2mH setting would read "0.27" and a 200uH setting would display an overrange error. So what you would want to look for is either a 4 or 4-1/2 digit meter or one that drops the leading zero and gives a true 3-place precision. And, one that goes down to preferably a 200uH setting.

Hope that makes sense.

- Carl

[Righteous]

Sorted

Carl yes thats right i have a 3-1/2 digit meter.and it does display a leading zero.I understand whats going on now.Thanks for your help Righteous.

[IBGold]

Righteous I use a **** Smith Electronics Q-1559 on the 2m scale I tryed using the same as yours but it was not good enought for me did you get my email on the other matter. Regards IBGold

[Qiaozhi]

Atlas LCR

I use one of these -> http://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/jz_lcr40.html

[Righteous]

IBGold
yes i received the information i requested from you, thanks very much,i couldn't of sourced it myself. i will ring them on Monday and see how i go.i am also the proud owner of a **** Smith Electronics Q-1559 .A multimeter that doesn't display the leading zero.I will be making coils soon,pumping them out quicker than you can say Jack Russel.i carn’t wait to get my hands dirty.
Your post has been greatly appreasciated .
Kind regards Michael.

Qiaozhi
Thanks also for your post,but I have descided to go for the multimeter