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Use DC settings on your meter. The AC signal should average to zero.
If you add a RC low pass filter on the input of a low cost meter it will read the DC level.
Where the RC time constant is long compared to the AC frequency.
Every week I hear this fight. "I need to measure........".I mentioned this back in post #6 of this thread, but note the exception i also warned about.
Every week I hear this fight. "I need to measure........".
"For $0.03 I can get you within 3%."
"Three percent...no good."
"You are at 100% now."
"How much for 0.01%?"
"$12.50"
"How about 2%"
The question was measuring only DC in the presense of AC. So, he wants an average AC meaurement, not RMS. For example, a sine wave on a DC level would average to zero, leaving only the DC level.
try to measure the average DC value of a full wave rectified waveform without a smoothing capacitor with some meters and you'll see a display that bounces all over the place. I know this because i've tried it several times.
Hi again,
Any meter that uses digital averaging will see this same problem because it cant sync to the waveform. Could be the cheaper ones because that's what i was referring to, one Radio Shack and one Velleman.