ORIGINAL: CGRetired
Ummm... if you do it right, you CAN use a regular voltmeter. You simply power everything up and use the system as a load, then connect the voltmeter (digitals work great for this because of their very high input impedance) to the system, maybe use a servo extender cord perhaps.. plug in the digital voltmeter and watch it. As I said, the system acts as a load just as the EXPANDED (ahem) voltmeter would do and as you wiggle the sticks, you can see your voltage change according to the load.
Dick.
CG - you know that the sampling rate on a typical hobbyist DVM is too slow to do this job well. An analog meter would actually be better than a DVM in this application.
Stick with an ESV anyway because it's hard to "wiggle" consistantly and therefore your readings would be inconsistant.