Measuring commanded servo position, is this a no-no?
I'll start by saying I know just enough about radios and electronics to be dangerous. I am in the process of fine tuning the setup of the pitch and throttle curves on my heli. I have an 8UAFs installed. I went out the other day and set the head speed and pitch for a decent hover. I noted that hover was just below half stick. I am wanting to set up per Ray's manual for hover at 3/4 stick. My first thought was an old device I no longer have called a Datamaster. It would display the pulsewidth commmanded by the TX. I thought that with one of these I could set my stick to where I was actually hovering at and note the PW for both collective and throttle. Then I could move the stick to where I wanted (3/4) and adjust my curves till the PW read the same as before. Unfortunately, I no longer have my Datamaster and don't have the money to spend on anything that will read this PW. I got this bright idea this morning that maybe the vaying PW could be read as just a voltage change on a DVM. I hooked up an extra servo plug I had to my DVM. I hooked the black wire to negative and the white wire to positive. I plugged it into my rx,(aileron) prayed for no smoke, I set the dvm to 2000mv and it read 227mv. I moved the stick full left and it read 280mv and full right read 170. It appears that it's doing what I want to see. So, aside from accidental shorts etc, am I putting my rx at risk? Is it not really doing what I think it is? The Datamaster gave an actual PW measurement, but I'm thinking that as long as I have a reference number that's all I need.
Thanks for you input, Like I said, I know just enough to be dangerous.
,,,basmntdweller