| Electronics > Beginners |
| I feel I should know this but I don't |
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| Discotech:
Say I want to reverse engineer a circuit and figure out what everything is, if I start probing around with my DMM trying to find continuity, voltages, resistance etc while the circuit is powered on do I run the risk of shorting the circuit and killing components ? I'm trying to figure out a 10 pin header, I know 1 pin is for pwm signal, and I know there's a 5v and ground in the pins but I do not know which pins are the 5v and ground as I can't find a schematic I just don't want to poke around with the risk of breaking things and it's not something I've actually needed to know until now |
| eKretz:
If you aren't careful. Shorting the wrong pins together by bridging them with a single probe (which is easy with the tiny ones) while they're under power can do damage. Just correctly probing pins with a multimeter is unlikely to hurt anything. |
| Discotech:
Yep I knew bridging with a single probe would be bad I just wasn't sure as I've never actually used a DMM on a circuit I didn't already understand so the thought has never occurred until now :palm: |
| IanB:
--- Quote from: Discotech on July 20, 2018, 10:01:34 pm ---Say I want to reverse engineer a circuit and figure out what everything is, if I start probing around with my DMM trying to find continuity, voltages, resistance etc while the circuit is powered on do I run the risk of shorting the circuit and killing components ? --- End quote --- --- Quote from: eKretz on July 20, 2018, 10:16:14 pm ---Just correctly probing pins with a multimeter is unlikely to hurt anything. --- End quote --- As long as you are trying to measure voltages. Probing for resistance or continuity is not so safe... |
| eKretz:
Yeah, forgot to mention that. Really don't need to be doing that with power applied to the circuit anyways for the most part. Mainly checking under power is usually for voltage or signal. |
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