A question for you electrical guys

[msmith10]

I was checking the resistance through my coil, and a couple of spare coils, a few days ago, and got a nice comfortable 4.4-4.6 ohms on the various coils. It then occurred to me that I should check my multimeter to see what the baseline resistance (lead tip to lead tip on low, 200 ohm, scale) was. I got about 1 ohm. I have several low-medium priced multimeters ($35-50 range) and found this was true with all of them.
Should I subtract this from the measured result, like the tare on a scale? If so, my coil resistance is a little low and I'll need to add a resistor.
The alternative explanation is that the lead wires on the meter do have some resistance, but it's too low for the ohmeter to measure accurately and it's just spitting out a "1".

[Mark Millbauer]

Yes indeed. You must subtract the base measurement from the actual measurement of the coil's resistance measurement.
in my own observations of this over many years I have found less expensive meters to have more internal resistance and more expensive meters to have less. Either will work for our purposes, just do the math.

Mark

[JOHN COOKSON]

Try cleaning the battery contacts.

TRUE GRIT

[Tim]

Follow this link for some light reading on the overall resistance/impedance of your coil. Just substitute "coil" for "inductor".

http://electricianeducation.com/theory/inductive_reactance.htm

[msmith10]

Thanks, Tim, but I think that looks like mental self-flagellation.