Electrical Instruments and Measurements (Electrical Engineering Department) Lab.

Manual

Reg. # 2014-EE-422
Name Ahsan Ijaz
Marks

EXPERIMENT #1
Measurement and Errors
Objectives:
To study that why our ideal system calculated values of electrical parameters
are always different from our measurements taken in different experiments. To
learn about various analytical techniques available to quantify data and its
analysis on base of error and dispersion (standard deviation).

Lab Tasks:

 Build a circuit with dc supply, one resistor (R1) and one variable resistor
(R2) connected in series.
 Determine circuit variable like voltage across resistor, current across
resistor.
 Determine resistance (R2) using ohm meter and ohm’s law to calculate
percentage error between them.
 Calculate standard deviation and make histogram.

Required apparatus:

 Power supply
 Bread board
 Fixed resistance
 Potentiometer
 Digital multi-meter.
Procedure and Theory:

1. Take 12V dc power supply, one fixed resistor (585 ohm) and one variable
resistor and make series connection between them.
2. Make circuit functional and determine VR1, VR2, and current across series
network.
3. Calculate R2 using ohm’s law V=IR.
4. Calculate R2 using ohm meter.
5. Calculate percentage error between calculated and determined values.
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Electrical Instruments and Measurements (Electrical Engineering Department) Lab. Manual

6. Calculate standard deviation of percentage error and draw histogram.

Percentage Error: The difference between Approximate and Exact

Values, as a percentage of the Exact Value.

|Approximate Value − Exact Value|

× 100%
|Exact Value|

Standard Deviation: In statistics, the standard deviation (SD, also

represented by the Greek letter sigma σ or the Latin letter s) is a measure that is
used to quantify the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of data values. A
low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be close to
the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, while a high standard
deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a wider range of
values.

Histogram: A diagram consisting of rectangles whose area is

proportional to the frequency of a variable and whose width is equal to the class
interval.

Circuit Diagram:

Figure 1

Result:

# Vs VR1 VR2 IR R2(V=IR) R2(Ohm meter) %age Error

(V) (V) (V) (mA) (ohm) (k-ohm)

1 12 11.91 0.255 20 0.0125 0.0128 -0.3937

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Electrical Instruments and Measurements (Electrical Engineering Department) Lab. Manual

2 12 11.91 0.254 20 0.01245 0.0125 4.8708

3 12 11.61 0.56 19.9 0.02819 0.02677 3.5151

4 12 11.61 0.561 19.9 0.1545 0.0272 8.1176

5 12 9.61 2.55 16.5 0.1548 0.142 4.6141

6 12 9.59 2.579 16.7 0.6879 0.15 13.1968

7 12 5.55 6.62 9/6 1.52413 0.633 45.07421

8 12 3.32 8.84 5/8 9.9224 1.323 44.9527

9 12 0.652 11.52 1/161 11.989 5.45 25.4112

10 12 0.545 11.63 0.97 13.3888 6.6 2.4138

11 12 0.12 12.05 0.9 12.16 10 2.3026

12 12 0.159 12.16 1 12.282 11.8312 1.6323

13 12 0.008 12.16 0.99 15.2828 12 0.3355

14 12 0.043 12.13 0.76 15.9605 15.7 0.9934

15 12 0.247 11.92 0.44 27.09821 27 0.9234

16 12 0.003 12.16 0.149 81.6198 80.8 10.6601

The standard deviation of percentage error is calculated to be: 13.9428

Histogram:

Histogram
50

40

30

20

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
-10

Figure 2

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Electrical Instruments and Measurements (Electrical Engineering Department) Lab. Manual

Use of MS Excel for Numerical Calculations

Figure 3

Observations and Conclusion:

 There is always a minor difference between calculated and measured

values.
 Small value of percentage error indicates more successful measurement.
If value is large one must recheck the experimental and calculated
measurements.
 The difference between calculated and experimental value can be due to
personal error, due to series resistance of DMM which affects the voltage
of variable resistor, resistor tolerance, systematic limitations,
environmental and systematic variations.
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Electrical Instruments and Measurements (Electrical Engineering Department) Lab. Manual

 Standard deviation indicates how spread out numbers are, and it is square
root of the Variance.
 Using data presented in the histogram, you can determine statistical
information. This includes the mean value – the average across all the
blocks; the maximum value – the highest block; and the minimum value –
the lowest block. The number of blocks determines the number of items
you are measuring, such as months in a year. The top of each block lines
up to a number on the vertical line and may determine frequency.

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