Please help me.
I wanted to mesure the voltage in the wall socket, and when I inserted the probes of the multimeter I saw a spark and heard a small booooom There was a black layer on the red probe. Now the socket is not working, as well as all the sockets that are on the same cable
What did i do wrong, what did i short, and how to fix the situation ?
I have no clue what went wrong but as for how to fix the situation:
You almost certainly popped the breaker for that branch. There will be an electrical panel somewhere in your house with a bunch of what look like switches. These are actually resettable fuses that protect the wiring from overload (a short circuit in this case). One of the switches will look like it's not quite in the on position. To reset it you need to switch it to the off position, then back to the on position.
Now the socket is not working, as well as all the sockets that are on the same cable
You blew the circuit breaker. Find your "fuse box" (breaker box) and turn it back on. (Unless you're in a country where there is no main breaker-box.)
In any case, it's very-unlikely that you damaged any wiring in your house.
Does the meter still work (when you check with a battery)? If the black marks are near the probe it could just be incidental "smoke damage" rather than the probe/wires overheating.
Is the first time you used that meter? In the voltage-mode it will draw almost no current (assuming it's working correctly) and nothing should happen, except you should get a voltage reading.
In the current mode the meter will present a near short-circuit and it will draw the maximum current available until something blows. Usually, there's a separate "Amps" probe connection so you can't do that accidently. And usually, there's a fuse in the meter and that fuse should blow before any (other) damage happens.
Thanks a lot for the fast replays !
OK, i fixed all.
As you said, there was a breaker that was in the off-position. I returned it to the previous state , and now everything works perfectly
I am familiar with using the multimeter with some simple DC electronics, but this was the first time i wanted to measure the voltage in the wall socket.
The multimeter was set at "ACV 750". Here in Serbia we have 2 hole electric sockets. When i pushed the probes in the socket, i knew that the multimeter configuration was right. I didnt know if the probes should be in a certain position. I was thinking - if i inverted the probes, i would just read a negative voltage.
WOooooooooooooowww , i think i just found the problem.
The red probe was in the "10ADC" hole in the multimeter
That was the mistake, the red probe was in the 10ADC (10A max unfused).
I tried again, with the right configuration ,and it worked perfectly.
235V in my wall socket Thanks guys again ! I really appreciate your responses !
Cheers !