Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteVS
This spring our AC wouldn’t run. A family friend who’s an HVAC guy stopped by and suspected the capacitor (condenser). You need an ANALOG (not digital) volt ohm meter (VOM). He set the VOM to “resistance” and touched the leads to the capacitor. This pushed a small charge into the capacitor. The meter will swing to the right but then slowly return to zero as the charge builds. He then disconnected the meter, switched to “voltage” and connected back to the capacitor. The needle will quickly go to the right indicating that there is a charge and then drop back to zero as that charge drains. Failure of the charge to build and then drain means the capacitor is shot.
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For the record, you can test a condenser/capacitor with a good digital multimeter, but I agree that if you're picking between a cheap analog VOM and a cheap digital VOM, the analog VOM will give you a more nuanced readout when performing the test as described here.