Can You Discharge a Capacitor Using a Volt Meter?

June 28, 2018 HVAC School No Comments

I got a lot of comments that many of you discharge run capacitors with a volt meter. I test this method vs. the capacitor discharge tool I created.

Obviously many of you use needle nose pliers or a screwdriver. While this is widely practiced it could result in an arc, shock and/or damage to the capacitor.

Others have also mentioned that some meters have a Low-Z mode which is used for low impedance voltage measurement. This mode would discharge the capacitor more quickly than the volt meter shown.

Click the video to see the result.

–Bryan

HVAC School

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