This may be way too easy for you folks, but it would sure help me if someone could answer.
I have a generator at an off-grid cabin hooked to a charger/inverter system with 4 golf cart batteries. Works great to get 110v 24x7 only running the generator ~2 hours daily.
Recently I upgraded my charger to a unit that has tighter power quality tolerances.....specifically, it requires input AC voltage to be within 5v of
120v and frequency to be within 5Hz of 60Hz. The diagnostic on the charger is telling me my generator has "bad AC" and is putting out 67Hz.I have the generator at home now and want to measure frequency with my multimeter....it is a Radio Shack 22-812. Bear with me now please, because I don't understand electricity and electronics all that well. The user instruction manual is very cryptic but I think that I set the main control on one of the V (voltage) settings, probe the 110v outlet with red on hot and black on neutral (not on ground, right?), and then after I get the voltage reading, I press the Hz/Duty/Width button to cycle thru the various settings, specifically here to get the frequency from the Hz option.
Does this seem right? There is also another option on the main (round) control that says Logic/Hz, but I am reading an ambiguous comment in another place in the manual that that setting should not be used for any circuit with significant voltage (maybe that option is for getting frequencies say off of an audio signal, or ?).
I have searched all over the internet to try to understand how to make this measurement, but I ham having problems figuring it out. Can someone help?
Also, on the main control, for the voltage options, there are two given. One says 1) dBm~V, while the other says 2) C/F_V, where in the latter, the _ is a flat bar with three dashes below. One place in the manual says these options mean 1) "selects AC voltage measurement in dBm or volts", and 2) displays temperature and measures DC volts. It seems quite obvious that if I want to measure AC frequency I should select option 1), but in the part of the manual that advises the procedure for "measuring AC voltage frequency", the intro says "The meter can measure the frequency of an AC voltage, with or without a DC source bias", and then in the first subpoint it says "If you are measuring AC voltage with a DC source bias, set the function selector to dBm~V. Otherwise, set the function selector to C/F_V". (it then proceeds to advise to press the Hz/Duty/Width button, etc). This seems backwards to me, like a typo. I don't really know what "DC source bias" means, but I think 110v power from my gene or from my outlets in my home should not be "DC source bias". IE, I SHOULD use the dBm~V function, right?
I hope someone here can help me so I don't blow up my new $70 multimeter.
Thanks,
Tim