multimeter cautions

["Grant Lenahan" <glenahan@notes.cc.bellcore.com>]

Osman,

Your question is so open-ended it scares me.

Here are a few tips that will go a long way.

(1) keep the multimeter on "volts-DC" almost always
in this mode, you will be hard pressed to hurt anything.

(2) Use the "com" lead for ground whenever possible

(3) If you need to test continuity (ohms), be VERY careful that
you have no voltage present between the 2 things you are testing.
If in doubt, measure volts first, and only switch to ohms if the volts reading
is damn close to zero.

All you really need to do for your job is find the lead where the
voltage varies with the dimmer.  Hook the black lead to ground and
clip the red lead, set on Vdc, to whatever you are testing.  No need
to move the balck/common.

Grant