There are actually three ways you can measure voltage in an ac circuit.
Ac current measurement.
This is known as the peak or crest value of an ac waveform.
Another way is to measure the total height between opposite peaks.
Using a multimeter to measure current is often discouraged due to the difficulty of disconnecting a part in the circuit then placing the meter in line properly so that damage does not occur.
It s the maximum voltage that the ac voltage attains.
The acs712 measures current in two directions.
Ac current is an extremely important quantity to learn in the case of industrial.
The differences in the measurement result from the fact that the multimeter has to rectify the alternating waveform to enable it to measure ac current.
It means that if we sample fast enough and long enough we sure to find the peak in one direction and the peak in another direction as the acs712 have 5 μs output rise time in response to step input current.
In most ac voltages the peak to peak voltage is double the peak voltage.
Analysis of ac voltage measurements.
Generally speaking voltage measured in ac power systems should be within 10 and 5.
The three ways are.
Although the same basic steps are used for taking the ac current measurement as when a normal dc measurement is taken there are a few additional points to note.
The difference between the highest and lowest peaks of the ac voltage.
It s certainly a valuable function on the meter but it is worth emphasizing the greater risk than for measuring voltage or resistance.
In general all ac voltage sources vary from fluctuation in ac voltage over power distribution systems.
For a digital multimeter the main difference is that the measurement type switch must be set to measure ac current rather than dc current.
When different from an expected measurement voltage is more likely to be lower than normal.
One way to express the intensity or magnitude also called the amplitude of an ac quantity is to measure its peak height on a waveform graph.
Figure below peak voltage of a waveform.