Is It Possible To Make the DVM Portable?

[Mhz1]

I ask this because it appears that it takes more than the average battery supply to power this project.. Is there a way to make it use less power for portability? Thanks In Advance..

 

[MP1]

Which project? The one on our site or another one?
The biggest hog for current is always in the display, so if you add a circuit to turn off the display after x amount of seconds, you will save some there.

MP

 

[audioguru2]

Going another step further, you can also save display current if you add a circuit to flash the display briefly, and keep it blinking for a while. If the "on" time is 20mS, and the "off" time is 480mS, the display will brightly flash twice per second and use an average of only 1/20th of the current. Use a big capacitor across the battery to smooth its voltage.
If you want to stay with using an LED display, instead of a low-power LCD one, choose a modern LED display that is ultra-bright and reduce its current.

 

[Mhz1]

Thanks for the Replies.. Yeah, I was particularly speaking of the one within this forum. I guess I asked the question because I have a DVM that uses the LCD display and its terrible in low lighting, that is why this project is very interesting to me.. My LCD meter uses 6 AA bateries and it is portable. Therefore, I was trying to see if I could find a way to get by with so many AA, AAA or 9v batteries..

 

[audioguru2]

My LCD meter runs for years on a little 9V battery. It even shuts iself off when unattended. Newer ones have a backlighting button that probably also has a timer.

 

[Mhz1]

Yeah, I bought this thing from Radio Shack some years ago and unfortunately it's without the backlight.. I had a Green LED meter years ago, Loved It, only for my brother to make it dissappear! I just real prefer those LEDs over the LCDs but the ones I see now days tend to be quite expensive for some reason...