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Can you attach multimeter to battery terminals while car running/charging?

Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Asked on February 13, 2021

I cannot remember how but recently I blew the fuse on my multimeter.

All I remember was the car was running when it happened.

Can I attach the multimeter to battery terminals to check voltage while it is trying to be jump started, while it is running, and while charging battery directly on terminals from another car? Or would any of these scenarios cause the multimeter to blow its fuse and you should switch cars off first?

Thanks.

2 Answers

Yes, obviously, otherwise how would you measure the charging voltage.

The most likely error was having the multimeter leads connected to the current measuring terminals on the multimeter, when they should be connected to the voltage measuring terminals on the multimeter.

Make sure the leads are corrected to the correct terminals and select the desired range - unless you have one of the higher quality (ie more expensive auto-ranging meters), then measure the voltage as normal.

Answered by Solar Mike on February 13, 2021

Yes you can multimeters have high input resistance , so their load is insignificant on the battery/car.Also if you trying to measure voltage note not all DMM's are the same , some are slower so it may not register transient voltage data fast enough.

Answered by binaryOps20 on February 13, 2021

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