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역사

1920s Pocket Multimeter

Avometer Model 8

최초에 지시계가 이동하는 전류 감지장치는 1820년에 개발된 갈바노미터 였다. 휘스톤 브릿지를 사용하여 알고있는 전압과 전류로 미지의 양을 비교하여 전압과 전류를 측정였다. 실험실에서는 유용하였지만, 상용환경에서는 매우 느리고 비현실적이었으며, 무겁고 다루기 어려웠다.

The D'Arsonval/Weston meter movement used a fine metal spring to give proportional measurement rather than just detection, and built-in permanent field magnets made deflection independent of the orientation of the meter. Instead of balancing a bridge, values could be directly read off the instruments's scale, which made measurement quick and easy. By adding a series or shunt resistor, more than one range of voltage or current could be measured with one movement.

Multimeters were invented in the early 1920s as radio receivers and other vacuum tube electronic devices became more common. The invention of the first multimeter is attributed to British Post Office engineer, Donald Macadie, who became dissatisfied with having to carry many separate instruments required for the maintenance of the telecommunications circuits. Macadie invented an instrument which could measure amperes ( amps), volts and ohms, so the multifunctional meter was then named Avometer. The meter comprised a moving coil meter, voltage and precision resistors, and switches and sockets to select the range.

Macadie took his idea to the Automatic Coil Winder and Electrical Equipment Company (ACWEEC, founded in ~1923). The first AVO was put on sale in 1923, and many of its features remained almost unaltered through to the last Model 8.

Pocket watch style meters were in widespread use in the 1920s, at much lower cost than Avometers. The metal case was normally connected to the negative connection, an arrangement that caused numerous electric shocks. The technical specifications of these devices were often crude, for example the one illustrated has a resistance of just 33 ohms per volt, a non-linear scale and no zero adjustment.

Any meter will load the circuit under test to some extent. For example,a microammeter with full-scale current of 50 microamps, the highest sensitivity commonly available, must draw at least 50 microamps from the circuit under test to deflect fully. This may load a high-impedance circuit so much as to affect the circuit, and to give a low reading.

Vacuum Tube Voltmeters or valve voltmeters (VTVM, VVM) were used for voltage measurements in electronic circuits where high impedance was necessary. The VTVM had a fixed input impedance of typically 1 megohm or more, usually through use of a cathode follower input circuit, and thus did not significantly load the circuit being tested. Before the introduction of digital electronic high-impedance analog transistor and field effect transistor (FETs) voltmeters were used. Modern digital meters and some modern analog meters use electronic input circuitry to achieve high-input impedance—their voltage ranges are functionally equivalent to VTVMs.

Additional scales such as decibels, and measurement functions such as capacitance, transistor gain, frequency, duty cycle, display hold, and buzzers which sound when the measured resistance is small have been included on many multimeters. While multimeters may be supplemented by more specialized equipment in a technician's toolkit, some multimeters include additional functions for specialized applications (temperature with a thermocouple probe, inductance, connectivity to a computer, speaking measured value, etc.).