Moving-coil meters
• Inside a meter, a tight coil of copper wire, wrapped round an iron core, is
mounted in between the poles of a permanent magnet. The coil has
connections at either end so you can pass an electric current through it and
it has a long pointer stuck to it that runs out across the meter dial. When
you connect the meter into a circuit and turn on the current, the current
creates a magnetic field in the coil.
• The field repels the magnetic field created by the permanent magnet,
making the coil rotate and turning the pointer up the dial. The more current
that flows through the coil, the bigger the magnetic field it creates, the
greater the repulsion, the more the coil turns, and the further up the dial the
pointer goes. So the pointer gives you a measurement of how much current
is passing through the coil.
Contd..
Moving-iron instruments
• There are two general types of moving-iron
instruments namely:
• Repulsion (or double iron) type (figure 1)
• Attraction (or single-iron) type (figure 2)
Repulsion type moving–iron instrument
• In repulsion type moving–iron instrument consists of two cylindrical soft
iron vanes mounted within a fixed current-carrying coil.
Contd..
• One iron vane is held fixed to the coil frame and other is free to rotate,
carrying with it the pointer shaft. Two irons lie in the magnetic field
produced by the coil that consists of only few turns if the instrument is an
ammeter or of many turns if the instrument is a voltmeter.
• Current in the coil induces both vanes to become magnetized and repulsion
between the similarly magnetized vanes produces a proportional rotation.
The deflecting torque is proportional to the square of the current in the
coil, making the instrument reading is a true ‘RMS’ quantity Rotation is
opposed by a hairspring that produces the restoring torque.
Voltmeter,Ammeter & Ohmmeter
voltmeter
• A voltmeter measures the change in voltage
between two points in an electric circuit and
therefore must be connected in parallel with
the portion of the circuit on which the
measurement is made
Ammeter
• An ammeter is an instrument for measuring the electric current in amperes
in a branch of an electric circuit. It must be placed in series with the
measured branch, and must have very low resistance to avoid significant
alteration of the current it is to measure.
Ohmeter
• A more accurate type of ohmmeter has an electronic circuit that passes a
constant current (I) through the resistance, and another circuit that
measures the voltage (V) across the resistance. According to the following
equation, derived from Ohm's Law, the value of the resistance (R) is given
by: R=V/I
Wattmeter
• As shown, The current coil is connected in series with the load so that the circuit current
flows through [Link] to the voltmeter circuit, the voltage coil is connected in parallel with
the load.
• Both voltage and current coils will produce magnetic fields.
• These fields interact to each other and produce a deflecting torque on the voltage coil.
• The interacting fields are proportional to the circuit voltage(V) and current(I) respectively.
• So the produced deflecting torque is proportional to the product of circuit voltage and
current. ie, VI in case of dc voltage and current which is nothing but circuit power.
• Restoring torque is provided by spiral springs, as in the moving coil meter.
• For AC power, current and voltage may not be in phase, owing to the delaying effects of
circuit inductance or capacitance. On an ac circuit the deflection is proportional to the
average instantaneous product of voltage and current, thus measuring true power, P=VI cos φ.
Here, cosφ represents the power factor which shows that the power transmitted may be less
than the apparent power obtained by multiplying the readings of a voltmeter and ammeter in
the same circuit.
Energy Meter
• The electromechanical induction meter operates by counting the
revolutions of a non-magnetic, but electrically conductive, metal disc
which is made to rotate at a speed proportional to the power passing
through the meter. The number of revolutions is thus pr The disc is acted
upon by two sets of coils, which form, in effect, a two phase
induction motor.
• One coil is connected in such a way that it produces a magnetic flux in
proportion to the voltageand the other produces a magnetic flux in
proportion to the current.
Contd..
• The field of the voltage coil is delayed by 90 degrees, due to the coil's
inductive nature, and calibrated using a lag coil.[16] This produces
eddy currents (are loops of electric current induced within conductors by a
changing magnetic field in the conductor)in the disc and the effect is such
that a force is exerted on the disc in proportion to the product of the
instantaneous current, voltage and phase angle (power factor) between
them.
• A permanent magnet exerts an opposing force proportional to the
speed of rotation of the disc. The equilibrium between these two
opposing forces results in the disc rotating at a speed proportional to the
power or rate of energy usage oportional to the energy usage.
Extension Of Instrument Range
• The range of an electrical measurement is limited by the current, which can
be carried by the coil of the instrument safely. For example the moving
coil and the spiral springs used as coil connections can be designed for a
maximum current of only about 50 milli-amperes and a potential drop of
about 50 milli-volts. Hence for measurement of large currents or voltage
or power, some means for increasing the range of the instrument is to be
adopted.
• There are four common devices employed for extending the range of
instruments; these are shunts, multipliers, current transformers and
potential transformers. When instruments are supplied with such external
devices the instrument is calibrated and its scale is correspondingly
marked, over the range of associated shunt, multiplier or transformer.
Multiplier