Multimeters for the Dummy Electrician

analog multimeter scale

If you were to ask anyone here at the Antisocial Network how to build a blast furnace or manufacture a golf ball, chances are pretty good that the answer would be "I have no idea, but I can probably find someone who knows." If you were to ask the enormous pool of Dumbass of the Day candidates around the eHow.com water cooler, the answer would be... well, chances are it would be wrong, incomplete, or both. We aren't sure which is less useful, but today's candidate comes from the school of "any information is better than none." We respectfully (not really) disagree with Kendra Dahlstrom, who pretended to have "Simple Instructions for Using an Electrical Multimeter."¹ 

Kendra's wrote arguably simple instructions; the problem being that they weren't for a multimeter. That's because she tells her readers junk like

"Insert the correct probes into the correct connection holes. Some multimeters only come with two probes, but some come with low voltage probes and high voltage probes. Make sure you use the right probes for the anticipated voltage level." Ms Dahlstrom, that's unlikely unless the reader's a professional in the utility industry (in which case he or she already knows how to use a multimeter). We did, however, find the term "connection hole" amusing... did you happen to notice the notation COM on your multimeter? Of course you didn't – you've never seen one...  Kendra continues by instructing her readers to Select the proper voltage range Use the red and black probes Read the voltage Disconnect the meter and turn it off Ummm, Kendra, first, you didn't differentiate between AC and DC voltage. Oh, you didn't know there was a difference? Oops! Second, did you notice that the tool's name is Multimeter? And that you only provided instructions for measuring voltage? In other words, you only provided (fairly poor) instructions for using a voltmeter. Multimeters include an ohmmeter and an ammeter, so they also measure resistance and current flow. How would someone use one for those functions? No idea? That's what we thought.

No, Dahlstrom has no idea how to use a multimeter and has probably never seen one; rendering her advice completely worthless. In other words, she is a typical recipient of our Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_8749894_simple-instructions-using-electrical-multimeter.html

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