Cabling

NI Digital Multimeters

Cabling

To reduce variations on the system parasitics, NI recommends using coaxial cable or shielded twisted pairs, with the shield used as the current return path and connected to the LO input of the DMM. This configuration makes the OPEN/SHORT compensation more practical and helps to reduce the noise pickup.

For manual probing of surface mount parts, you can use a pair of tweezers. The NI 4072 can compensate for the impedance introduced by the test fixtures. Refer to the OPEN/SHORT Compensation section for more information. Reduce the mechanical variations (for example, movement or flexing of cables, or changing fixturing) between two consecutive measurements to maintain repeatability.

Use a high-quality cable, such as Belden 83317E available at www.belden.com. NI recommends cables with Teflon, polypropylene, or polyethylene insulation. For more information about cabling requirements, refer to Interconnects and Cables. Very good performance has been achieved using up to 25 feet of this cable in both capacitance and inductance measurements by performing OPEN/SHORT compensation prior to the measurement.