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Microcontroller Voltmeter or Ammeter with LCD

Microcontroller Voltmeter or Ammeter with LCD

This multimeter was designed to measure output voltage and current in a PSU, where the current sense shunt resistor is connected in series with load at the negative voltage rail. It needs only one supply voltage that can be acquired from main PSU. An additional function of the multimeter is that it can control switch on and off an electric fan used to cool the main heatsink.
When pushing this button the shunt resistor value appears. If the resistor value is known, repeat button pushing until correct value reached. If resistor value is unknown (e.g. self made resistor), short PSU output by ammeter, set some current by PSU current limit regulator and then, push button, lead to equal current indication on ammeter and multimeter.

After resistor value setup, button must not be pressed for about 5 seconds. The next parameter to set up is fan switch-on power threshold. It is not the real power loosed on output transistor (transistors), because multimeter has information on voltage drop on transistor and driving current. To avoid instability switch-off threshold is automatically set to 20% less than switch-on one.



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R9 Fine voltage circuit regulation potentiometer.
To reduce ADC conversion errors like un-linearity, gain factor etc. measuring range is divided into two sub-ranges 0-10V and 10-30V (switch threshold can be between 7-13V depend on sourcing current and elements tolerance).
To regulate fine sub-range connect voltmeter to PSU output, set up voltage at about 9V and turn R9 until voltmeter and multimeter indications are equal.

R10 Coarse voltage circuit regulation potentiometer.
There is over-sampling applied in multimeter software, so measuring resolution is the same in fine and coarse circuit and is 10mV. Because of the reason described above multimeter has two measuring circuits.
To regulate coarse sub-range connect voltmeter to PSU output, set up voltage at about 19V and turn R10 until voltmeter and multimeter indication are equal. (If you posses 4.5 digit voltmeter, you could regulate at voltage 30V)

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