Continuity Tester

After wiring a new electronic project or troubleshooting an old one, it is often good practice to make several continuity checks to be sure that certain connections in the circuit are correct. In the days of vacuum tubes this was accomplished with an ohmmeter, but for today’s solid state circuitry you can’t use most ohmmeters for several reasons. Some ohmmeters have far too much battery voltage and deliver as much as hundreds of milliamperes into a short circuit. This can easily damage expensive solid state devices. Also, the ohmmeter is an unreliable method to measure circuit continuity, since it will read through an emitter-base or diode junction.

This continuity checker is a handy accessory for troubleshooting circuits, and is safe to use on any solid state device or circuit. The maximum voltage at the input terminals is about 40 millivolts, and negligible current is passed through the circuit when continuity is indicated. The circuit will not indicate continuity for resistance values of about 35 ohms or greater, and will not register through an emitter-base junction or diode. The circuit is powered by a standard 9 volt transistor battery and draws about 1 milliampere when the input leads are open. Shorting the lead causes an audio tone to be generated and draws about 15 milliamperes of battery current.