I have a question about ammeters.
I read somewhere that I should hook the ammeter in
serial between the Alternator (brown wire) and the
battery (starter solenoid terminal). And this might be
my whole problem that I'm having.
I had a sunpro ammeter on my truck that I wired in
line on the hot wire to the accessory feed (ign.
lights, wipers, lighter, etc. everything but the
starter). And it registered just slightly +, except
when the lights were on (somewhere in the 10-15 amp
range with lights on).
The Lucas Ammeter has a range of -30 to +30. But with
the meter hooked in serial between the alternator and
the battery, won't the ammeter always read a positive
voltage? The Alternator will never deliver negative
amps to the battery. Right?
At idle speed, I'm registering about 5-10 amps(+). If
I increase RPMs, the ammeter momentarily spikes (+30),
but then drops back to almost 0 output after a second.
If I turn on the lights, I register about 20 amps on
the meter.
So the questions are, what should I have wired the
ammeter to? And secondly, what should the readings be
on this thing?
-Terry
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