so i have all my parts put togeather and there in a plastic prject box and i got 2 large caps one on the out of the ajustable regulator and one on the in and another on the ac out side with a 2696 regulator chip and a pot with a printer power cord short curcit it was pushing a bout 1.6 amps and is at 17volts free of load on the other end i made a cap of 13.01 out put down to 1.24 volts and im kinda werry of wither to do a short curcit amp test i dont know if that will fry my caps or my lm regulator but i want to know what im geting on the out side ... i cant aford a scope tester has any one done that use ing arduino yet ? maybe some one would be willing to test it for me ?
any input would be great thanks for reading my post !
Simply utilise a Multimeter Analog/Digital to know what you are getting on the outside.
yeah thats what i have been useing... 
but to get a load amp reading do you short it out on the meter and im not sure if it will handel shorting out with out burning some thing up ? should i try to come up with a fuse in there some where that will portect the curcit ? becuz the amp seting on my meter just applys a dead short to the + - and tells you what you have i built it but im not sure how i should be testing it to see if i did good . !
thanks for replying
If you are looking for shorting out (sorry, its hard to understand your language flow dn;t mind it 
) why do not you check out for the continuity, just telling you what i was able to deduce from your statements.
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Nishant
oh yes im not sure kind of new to the fourm thing and talking and spelling are not my strong points soo its my bad im sorry ... and not to mention im useing my phone to post on the fourm whell at work..
i was merrly looking for ideas for further testing of my newly built power supply that would prove that its a good source for power and that includes any use of a multi meter or beyond meter testing i realy do apresheate your feed back dont take me the wrong way ..
Out of idle interest why do you want to know how much current your system will deliver when you apply a short circuit to it. That's a bit like sticking a needle into a filled balloon to see how much air comes out.
To conduct a "proper" test on your power supply, plot a graph of output voltage versus load current (using a selection of resistors or light bulbs). You will then get meaningful data and you will be able to evaluate how well it performs under the conditions it will be expected to operate under.
Performing a potentially destructive test really won't give you meaningful data.
printer power cord short curcit it was pushing a bout 1.6 amps and is at 17volts free of load on the other end i made a cap of 13.01 out put down to 1.24
Sorry, i don't understand what you are saying... I assume this is a variable-voltage power supply?
im kinda werry of wither to do a short curcit amp test i dont know if that will fry my caps or my lm regulator but i want to know what im geting on the out side
Shorting won't hurt the caps, but you need to make sure the 2696 is rated or short-circuit operation, or the regulator could burn-out. It might have short-circuit protection, and in that case the current will likely "fold back" (reduce the current) with a short.
If the chip is not supposed to be shorted, you can use a fuse or some other protection circuit/device. or, you can just be careful.
If it is short-circuit protected, you don't need a fuse on the ouput (DC) side. A fuse is often used on the AC side for safety... To prevent a fire just in case something goes "horribly wrong".
If you simply switch your multimeter to "AC", you can measure the noise & "ripple" under no-load, and under whatever load you happen to have.
A good test would be to get some power resistors and make a "dummy load". You would calculate the resistor values (Ohm's Law and the power formula) to draw the maximum-rated load-current at the test voltage. If it's variable supply, you might want to get/make dummy loads for the maximum voltage as well as common voltages like 12V and 5V, and for whatever minimum voltage your supply is "spec'd at". You probably won't find the exact resistor values you need at the right power ratings, but you can wire resistors in series/parallel to get what you need.
once you have some dummy loads, you can check the load regulation (The output voltage should change much when you attach the load). And, you can meausre the noise & ripple under load.
becuz the amp seting on my meter just applys a dead short to the + - and tells you what you have i built it but im not sure how i should be testing it to see if i did good . !
Yes. That's how ammeters work. You have to be a bit careful when measuring current without a load (or resistor) in series to limit the current. You can blow the fuse in the meter, or you can blow whatever you are testing if the thing you are testing cannot survive a short.
Just a thought on a large load to test with.
A cars headlight will draw several amps. You could stress it with that.
It should be far more than you'd use with most Arduino projects, yet still not a dead short.