DIODE CHECKING; a must for an electronic enthusiast and hobbyist!
A diode is a two terminal device that conducts current in one direction. It is also considered as one of the basic components of electronics. For electronic enthusiast and hobbyist, diode checking is a must skill to acquire because most all of electronic circuit has a single diode. And also, before you understand the operations of some electronic components you must have a strong foundation on diode because it is the basic building block of semiconductor devices.
This is what a diode looks like and its schematic
These are the materials/devices needed for diode checking; the diode to be check and a multimeter. You can use digital or analog multimeter, any will do, but, I will prefer using digital multimeter because its more convenient for me.
Using multimeter you can check diode in these two methods;
- Diode resistance checking
- Diode checker function of multimeter
Things to consider when your using diode resistance check;
- Diode must be taken out from circuit to avoid false reading.
- It only provides the resistance of diode and does not always identify if the diode is bad or good.
Diode resistance checking
- Select the dial of multimeter to resistance mode
- Connect the leads of the multimeter in forward bias manner (cathode of diode to negative lead of multimeter). Record the measurement.
- Reverse the connection to the diode. Record the measurement. (sometimes will result in infinite resistance)
- Compare the measurement. (procedure 3 must have a greater value than procedure 2)
Diode checker function
- Select the dial of multimeter to resistance mode and select diode checker function.
- Connect the leads of the multimeter in forward bias manner. (Good diode has a voltage drop of 0.4 – 0.8 volts for silicon diode, 0.2- 0.4 for germanium diode).
- Reverse the connection of diode. ( multimeter will read OL or no connection).
- Bad diode (opened) has no reading in both directions of diode.
- Shorted diode has reading in both directions of diode.
Coool tutorial, following for more!
thanks bro!
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STOPthanks for sharing a very useful engineering tutorial @thinkingmind :) this is a great post, upvoted and followed !
Thank you for the informative information @thinkingmind. You walked us through the world of Diode. Though I already learned this topic, it brought back the memories.
Deserving piece :)
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