I'm very new to these breadboards and such, so go easy on me

I'm using an NI myDAQ, and my multimeter is the DMM from NIelvis. Just using the probes from the myDAQ. Power source is 5V digital from the myDAQ.

I'm doing a lab that involves setting up some circuits and taking measurements. After a few hand-calcs to check on the data accuracy, I figured out I'm doing SOMETHING wrong.

Go back to as basic of a circuit as you can get. A single resistor.

I'm using a 5V digital to ground, one 1KOhm resistor. The 5V and 1KOhm are both verified with the DMM.

I'm getting nearly a 1/4 amp across the resistor

5V / 1000 Ohms = 0.005 A, or 5mA. I'm getting 50 times that


Help!

How are you measuring the amperage?  Do you have your multimeter in series with the circuit, for that is how the multimeter measures current directly.  If you are trying to measure current on either side of the resistor, you have your multimeter circuit parallel to the resistor.  In this case you are then measuring the capability of the power supply minus the resistor circuit.

DOH!

I should've known that . Now that I'm in series, measuring 4.8 mA, like it should

Thank you!

Isn't that a 100 ohm resistor a 1000 ohm would be brown, black, red

It is brown, black, and red. You might need a monitor adjustment

I've never heard of digital voltage. Do you mean DC? Oh, and your resistor is in backwards as well.

No, I don't mean DC. It's hooked up to a data acquisition board.

It's a 5V supply on the digital side, as opposed to the output on the analog side. It only matters in signal generation, which obviously doesn't apply here. Just wanted to clarify for anyone familiar with the myDAQ in the original problem.

It was sort of a new thing for me, and I had not yet figured out HOW the myDAQ measures current (by measuring voltage across resistor). I was trying to measure in parallel

I hate circuits. The one class I failed and tried so hard.
Download the program P-spice.

Life saver for checking labs like that.

PSPICE is just a simulation tool.

It will never produce more accurate answers than the number of test cases you run.

Learn how to actually analyze circuits.

See Kirchhoff's voltage and current laws.