I bought a cheap 12$ Actron multimeter today to peform a test on my TPS. I am trying to measure 0.5 volts at idle and 4.5 voltages at WOT. My question is, what DC setting do I set the multi meter to (2.5, 50, 250, 1000) and what am I looking for on the multimeter face? I know Im looking at the black numbers.
Theres 3 sets of black #'s, the top set with a range from 0-250, a middle set with range from 0-50, and a bottom set from 0-10 (I just now saw these numbers). I assume I'd be reading the bottom set of numbers that range from 0-10?

If someone can help me out I'd greatly appreciatte it!! Oh yeah, do I connect the negative terminal of the multimeter to the negative battery terminal?

 

Your best bet is to use the 2.5v setting with a resistor bridge.

Your TPS will have two wires. There's the signal wire, and the ground wire. In between the signal and ground, connect TWO 5k resistors, in series. Measure the voltage between the two resistors and ground, and multiply by two.

-o---- TPS
|
<
> resistor
<
|
+----- measure here
|
<
> resistor
<
|
-o---- Ground


(hopefully that ASCII art turns out okay)

 

you should use the 2.5 setting for atleast the first test. the needle should deflect only a little bit. for the 4.5 volts test, you can either fudge it and use 2.5 volts and peg the needle to the other side, or you can set it to 50 volts and it will only deflect a little. either way with those settings its not gonna be terribly accurate, but its better than nothing.

 

you can use the ground on the tps itself, although it doesnt matter, you can use the negative at the battery too.

thats an awful range for a meter to have. youll have a lot of trouble getting acurate readings. whats posted above is very clever and will work, but do you really want to have to line up resistors everytime you need to check something with a varying voltage? no way.

i presonally use a fluke, it was expensive, but i use it all day. for 8$ more you should have gotten the craftsman. digital display, and basically an on and off setting, default 12 volts, unless you want to measure for ohms.

id say get your money back and use it towards a real one: gotta think ahead, theyll be other wiring stuff youll want to do in the future!

 

awesome, thanks guys, and i have no clue how to od the resistor thing even though your art work was terrific!

and yes i think i will return this cheapy multimeter and grab a crafstmen. thanks for the help.