multimeterresistance
I have a brand new multimeter, but any time I set it to resistance mode (any setting) according to the user manual, it shows 1 in the leftmost digit, and the decimal point will move around based on which setting I chose (but the remaining digits will never set to 0.
I've connected the positive lead to the VΩmA jack and the negative to COM. The output does not change when I connect the leads to opposite ends of a resistor.
Am I doing it wrong, or is my meter defective?
The Fluke meters I am familiar with are specified as +/-(given percent of measurement + given number of least significant digits). For the given info, using the 400 ohm range, this yields +/-(0.004 * 0.22 + 2 * 0.1) = +/-0.20088 or approximately +/-0.2 ohms, if the meter is accurately calibrated.
When measuring low resistance values, especially at the sub 1 ohm level, you will need to consider the impedance of your probes and the connections to the meter and the resistor. If you make a resistance measurement with your probes shorted together, you can get an idea of the resistance of you probe connections.
To more accurately measure sub 1 ohm resistors without using a Wheatstone bridge or other indirect measurement methods, I would recommend using a bench DVM with a 4-wire (Kelvin) resistance measurement capability. This will remove the resistance of your probes from the measurement.
The relevant part in the manual is
200 Ohm range can show 000.0 - 199.9 Ohms
2K Ohm range can show 0000 - 1999 Ohms
20K Ohm range can show 00.00 - 19.99K Ohms
200K Ohm range can show 000.0 - 199.9K Ohms
20M Ohm range can show 00.00 - 19.99M Ohms
Regarding your results, they should be interpreted as:
2000 ohms: 1025-1030 Ohm
20k ohms: 01.02K - 01.03K Ohm
200k ohms: 001.0K Ohm
20M ohms: 00.00M Ohm
Best Answer
The display with the 1 in the left most digit is normal.
It indicates that the connected resistance is too high to measure on the selected scale.
If you plug in the leads but don't connect them to anything then the resistance is (as far as the meter is concerned) pretty much infinite, which it shows with the 1 in the left most digit.
Connect the leads to the proper jacks (sounds like you have, red to the Volts and Ohms jack and black to the Common) and short the ends of the probes together. You should get a value very near zero.
If you don't get that zero reading then post a picture of your meter as you short the leads together showing the meter (and its settings,) the connections of the leads and how you shorted them. You may be doing something wrong. If everything looks good, you may have a bad lead or a meter with a bad jack. More likely, though, is that you are doing something simple wrong.
From the answer you've now posted, it appears you were doing something simple the wrong way. An incorrectly connected lead is an operator error.