A major early use for galvanometers was for finding faults in telecommunications cables. They were superseded in this application late in the 20th century by time-domain reflectometers.
Probably the largest use of galvanometers was the D'Arsonval/Weston type movement used in analog meters in electronic equipment. Since the 1980s, galvanometer-type analog meter movements have been displaced by analog to digital converters (ADCs) for some uses. A digital panel meter (DPM) contains an analog to digital converter and numeric display. The advantages of a digital instrument are higher precision and accuracy, but factors such as power consumption or cost may still favor application of analog meter movements.
Galvanometer mechanisms were also used to position the pens in analog strip chart recorders such as used in electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs and polygraphs.[citation needed] Strip chart recorders with galvanometer driven pens may have a full scale frequency response of 100 Hz and several centimeters deflection. The writing mechanism may be a heated tip on the needle writing on heat-sensitive paper, or a hollow ink-fed pen. In some types the pen is continuously pressed against the paper, so the galvanometer must be strong enough to move the pen against the friction of the paper. In other types, such as the Rustrak recorders, the needle is only intermittently pressed against the writing medium; at that moment, an impression is made and then the pressure is removed, allowing the needle to move to a new position and the cycle repeats. In this case, the galvanometer need not be especially strong.[citation needed]
Galvanometer mechanisms were also used in exposure mechanisms in film cameras