Question

How do you test an inductor?

Answer 1

1. A passive electrical component known as an inductor stores energy as a magnetic field. An inductor is basically just a coil or loop of wire. The number of turns in the coil directly relates to the inductance. The radius of the coil and the kind of material it is looped around both affect inductance.
2. The least inductance is achieved with air cores for a given coil radius and turn count. For the purposes of inductor winding, dielectric materials, such as wood, glass, and plastic, are fundamentally the same as air.
3. Iron, laminated iron, and powdered iron are ferromagnetic materials that increase the inductance that can be obtained with a coil of a certain number of turns. This growth can be thousands of times greater in some instances. Another important aspect of the core is its form. For a given core material and turn count, toroidal (donut-shaped) cores offer higher inductance than solenoidal (rod-shaped) cores.

An inductor is also known as the choke, coil, or reactor. An inductor is a two-terminal electrical component that stores energy in a magnetic field when electric current flows through it. An insulated wire wound into a coil around a core forms an inductor.

For Inductor Test, test the inductor's resistance which determines the inductor's health, Put a multimeter set to the ohmmeter setting.

By calculating the inductor's resistance, we can check whether the inductor is good or not.

1. Take the probes of the multimeter and plug them across the ends of the inductor. The direction of the inductor doesn't matter, as resistance isn't polarized.
2. If the inductor's resistance is very low across its terminals which is only a few ohms greater than $1\Omega$and normally less than $10\Omega$, then it is a good inductor.
3. If an inductor's resistance is high, then it is defective and it must be replaced in the circuit.
4. If an inductor reads very, very small resistance, less than an ohm (very close to $0\Omega$), this may be a sign that it's shorted.
5. Outside the range of $1\Omega$ to $10\Omega$, an inductor is generally bad.

Therefore, a resistance check is a simple and very effective test for determining whether an inductor is defective or not.