I decided try the calibration procedure, with much anxiety and trepidation but also ending in success, and now I'm really happy.
Thank you so much everyone (especially Kean!)
Calibration: The story1. Dilemma: what to use for the calibration?I have two meters, one newish generic
Vici VC97 and I'm also very lucky to have a (admittedly 30-year old and only version 1)
Fluke 89.
Voltage? For voltage it didn't really matter, both meters pretty much agree and voltage measurements even in cheap meters generally tend to be pretty accurate anyway. It might be old, but I was previously able to calibrate it against my 2.5V ref, and I have a copy of the relevant service manual so was able to run through the various tests, and I knew can turn on the slow-but-precise option, and it's served me well, so I stuck with the
Fluke.Current? Hmmm. This was harder. I do not have a current reference, nor do I have a relevant resistance reference. Both meters mostly agree in the mA range, but slightly less so on the A. Obviously the shunts in a new Fluke would have been made to a greater accuracy than a no-name meter, but what about it's age? I did a few experiments measuring resistances and measuring the voltage across them under load (whilst trying to avoid starting a fire) and it looked like the Fluke was probably giving the most consistent results. I guessed the mA range was still good as the mA range fuse test procedure measures the resistance of the mA shunt and the fuse, which came to a nice round figure offset by only the smallest amount aka the fuse. Reflecting, I imagine A range shunt in the Fluke won't have suffered too much from age anyway, especially as it didn't get much use anyway until recent years? I knew it's voltage readings were good too,
so I settled on the Fluke again.
2. Doing the calibration!At first I wondered why the display wasn't changing, then realised that was by design and it'll be the figures on the meter moving, doh.
The at the end, I did have some drama doing the full-scale current calibration! I was trying to use a 3.3ohm load resistor in series with the meter, rather than actually following the instructions, panicked and pressed M1 (meaning the current presently being read is now gonna be considered 3A by the PSU going forwards.)
So, I'd now completely messed the current measurement up by about a factor of 2! Aargh.
Hmmm, time to actually follow what it says in the calibration procedure and remove the load resister and just drop the meter set-up in A mode directly across the PSU and trust it wasn't going to blow the idiot-tax in the meter. I did briefly get a little startled sorting it out as the values on the PSU were now changing
But soon it was done.
Mission success!
- Julie