Understanding "OL" on Your Multimeter
1. What Does "OL" Really Mean?
Ever stared at your multimeter screen and seen "OL" staring back? It can be a little perplexing, especially when you're expecting a nice, neat resistance value. "OL" stands for "Over Limit" or "Overload." Think of it like this: your multimeter is saying, "Hey, whatever you're trying to measure is too big for me to handle!" It's hitting the upper limits of its measurement range. So, is OL less than 1 ohm? Absolutely not. It's quite the opposite, actually.
When you see "OL" while trying to measure resistance, it means the resistance is higher than the multimeter can accurately display. It's essentially an open circuit or a resistance so large it's beyond the instrument's capabilities. Imagine trying to weigh a truck on a kitchen scale; you'd get an "error" message, right? "OL" is the multimeter's version of that.
It's easy to get confused. You might think, "Well, maybe it's just really, really low resistance, almost zero!" But that's usually indicated by a reading close to zero ohms, not "OL." A very low resistance reading might show up as something like 0.1 ohms or even lower, depending on the precision of your multimeter and the quality of your probes.
So, to reiterate: "OL" means the resistance is too high for your meter to measure, indicating a break in the circuit or a resistance value that exceeds the meter's maximum range. It's not a tiny resistance; it's a huge one... relatively speaking, of course!
