The Differences Between Digital Panel Meters And Analog Panel Meters

Although it may seem like everything is digital these days

, there are still a number of applications where analog panel meters aren't just as good be even better than digital alternatives.

Differences Between The Two

People throw around these terms but often don't really know what they mean. They may know a digital panel meter has numbers while an analog panel meter has a gauge, but what does that mean in terms of actual operations?

A digital signal is a series of discrete steps, although it may seem continuous if the steps are small enough. As a metaphor consider a three-way lamp. It has four discrete states: three levels of brightness and off. An analog signal is continuous and even the smallest change can be measured and displayed by the meter. To continue the metaphor, a dimmer switch can set lighting to any level between maximum brightness and off and the user can make nearly infinitely small changes.

Digital Advantages

Digital panel meter numeric displays allow operators to get precise readings. This can be important if you have a signal that varies by only a small amount within a large range. An analog meter needle would technically detect the changes but if it hardly moves, operators won't be able to detect the changes.

Digital meters work to smooth out noisy signals. For example if you have a signal that will be either 0v or 5v, adding noise would just send a needle bouncing all over the dial. However a numeric meter designed to read only those two extremes will give a clear picture of signal modulation without the noise.

Counting is another application not suited to needles and gauges. A gauge can tell you what the signal is at now but not how many times it has passed a certain threshold.

Analog Advantages

Although we just said digital meters are better for some noisy signals, other kinds of noise are better handled with analog panel meters. A pulsing voltage will cause numeric displays to constantly change, making it hard for operators to actually see the range of pulsing. A needle will swing back and forth between the two voltages and show the range of the pulse.

Analog systems are often simpler and less expensive. To give the appearance of continuous response, digital systems have to be capable of extremely find detection steps and that drives the cost up. This is particularly true in high-voltage systems since digital sensors are meant to read a fairly narrow range of voltages so those capable of processing high voltages are much more expensive.

Analog is far from dead and analog panel meters are still in widespread use in a number of industrial applications.

by: Christine Harrell

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