Hook up amp gauge

Dating > Hook up amp gauge

Click here: ※ Hook up amp gauge ※ ♥ Hook up amp gauge

Insert the spade terminal on the battery end of the black wire into the space between the bolt head and the battery terminal. I've had car fires, and they fuckin suck.

With a volt ga. Then noticed this little black line sweeping across the front of the book. AMP gauges at the note are troublesome. Auto voltmeters came into being because they were cheaper than an ammeter and wiring costs were less. If you only have one single amplifier, then the total value you found in the first step is all you need. If something happens that causes this print to go to ground, the link will pop and no harm is done. Ignition, lighting, heater fan, accessories, and electrical power in general flows through the connector. Or keep a fire extinguisher handy. We welcome your comments hook up amp gauge suggestions. When the power load exceeds the level that these civil component can support, any electronic device without an inline fuse of some sort will most likely burn up. The plastic cover at this gauge was only distorted by heat—but some Dodges have sizable holes burned in the dash where the AMP gauge used to be. The amp prime actually held up pretty good under that catastrophic load.

With your positive battery terminal now connected to the ammeter, you are ready to connect the next wire. Also seen in Diagram A. GM vehicles built with the gauge option also had a more modern design of AMP gauge at the dash.

how do i wire AMP gauge after 12V coversion?? - The longer or the thinner a wire, the higher its electrical resistance.

Decide if you really need one. Also, you need to size it properly. You don't want to use a 60 amp meter on an 80 amp alternator peg the needle, make smoke, burn down garage. If you're doing it for nostalgia purposes, just stick it in, and don't wire it up. What you really want to know, is if the battery is charging. You can see that with a volt-meter. If you use a GM alternator that has the 3-wire OK, so I'm not calling it a one-wire anymore, ha , you can make a nice idiot light that comes-on when the alternator stops making juice belt, or alt bad. To make the ammeter actully display current entering or leaving the battery, which is what they normally do, you need to connect it series in the wire that connects the battery to the rest of the car's electrical system EXCEPT the big wire connecting the battery to the starter or starter relay Be careful with the wire size, routing, clamping, and grommets, there's the potential to make the car melt down with sloppy ammeter wiring. Didn't this bit start with Wireworks? I see it repeated now and then, but in my experience I've never seen an ammeter fail. Perhaps true with a cheap-o offshore gauge, but never with a US made quality one. Has anyone seen or been directly involved in a car where the ammeter burned up. Auto voltmeters came into being because they were cheaper than an ammeter and wiring costs were less. Don't know the answer to your first question, Jay, but the second is PERSONAL experience... Amp gauge shorted across causing mass hysteria as I was traversing the bridge into Long Beach... Will not own nor install an Amp gauge, US made or any thing else... R- Click to expand... I rewired a 56 chevy big window that had a fire under the dash. The guy said he was just driving down the road when it sounded like a MIG welder went off, and smoke came pouring out. You could see where the ammeter arced over and set the harness to burning. Once the ammeter blew, the circuit was open, and the fire extinquished itself. Modern wires are hard to get burning. They do melt, which is expensive, but not as hazardous. I think if you clear out the area behind the ammeter and make sure nothing is flammable, it can be pretty safe. I think one of the problems, is that a lot of schematics in books and old cars didn't fuse this circuit. The ammeter was the fuse. I probably wouldn't worry much if you put a fusable link at the alternator, so that melted first. Plus today they have a lot of maxi-fuses that can handle what some of the larger alternators produce. If you have air conditioning, and a high power stereo system, then you might have a lot of current on this wire. You can weld with it Imagine don't do it taking two 10 wires and connect them to a battery, and then touching them together. Nice flame, gets hot. For me, it's easier to wire the alternator +bat wire to the starter through a fusable link wire to the solenoid, then it is to bring it into the interior, and then back out to the solenoid. Most of the radars I worked on built in the late 50's were designed to measure amps indirectly. They used what we call today, a clamp-on ammeter. You put a loop around the wire and measure the amps remotely. Large currents were kept out of the instrument panel, away from the hu-man. You just have to ask yourself if reading amps is necessary, when a voltmeter will tell you if the battery is getting charged. Only 50-100 milliamps through the meter. That left the entire load of the car's electrical system going thru the gauge which was designed for the milliamp current. Sure was exciting until I got the battery unhooked! The shunt looked like an old style ballast resistor. Chevrolet changed the design in 1965. I once had an old ammeter from a 50's mopar product which just had the wire passing thu a loop on the back of the gauge. You did not have to break the wire. No way the gauge could cause a problem. That said, I wouldn't use an ammeter on my worst enemy's car! Didn't this bit start with Wireworks? I see it repeated now and then, but in my experience I've never seen an ammeter fail. Perhaps true with a cheap-o offshore gauge, but never with a US made quality one. Has anyone seen or been directly involved in a car where the ammeter burned up. Auto voltmeters came into being because they were cheaper than an ammeter and wiring costs were less. All you have to do is add a fusible link or a circuit breaker somewhere in that wire for those rare failures that probably are NOT the fault of the amp gauge. I did have a 70s GM alternator short out in traffic. Something inside the alternator broke shorting out the 10 ga. All the amps of the battery traveled up that wire through the amp meter in the dash out to the ground in the alt. The amp meter actually held up pretty good under that catastrophic load. It was toast but so was the alternator. Yes the cabin filled with smoke and it wasted the wiring. A voltmeter would not have changed a thing except for the smoke in the cabin. I was able to reach up behind the dash and yank the wire breaking the circuit and possibly saving the truck. With a volt ga. So from then on I've added a fusible link in the 10 ga. If something happens that causes this wire to go to ground, the link will pop and no harm is done. People love to blame the amp meter because it is in that wire but in reality they are not the cause. Most every car made before 1955 used an amp meter that carried twice the amperage of a 12V system without any pattern of car fires. A simple fuseable link and I bet you'll never have to replace your amp meter. They are the easiest ga. If the wire leaving the ga. In my case both sides were distroyed eliminating the ga. It was ruined by the alt. If the melting continued past the ga. IMHO Just wire it up, I did, and don't be lazy about it. Pardon me guys but you know damn well you're going to be EXTRA cautious now right? Well so should everyone else after hearing your experience. Double, or triple insulate everything, use lock washers, make sure none of the wires are showing, they're all very good and tight and ya know maybe even install a quick disconnect under your dash. Which I know leads to more extremely hot wires running inside the car. It's really all whatever you want to do. Me, I just wired in my Ammeter and did it carefully, I insulated every damn thing and when I was done I used some strips of black duct tape to cover the back of the thing. I've had car fires, and they fuckin suck. Don't blame it on the meter though, it's not the meter's fault, it's the electrician's. Drtoner and Tommy bring up the most basic yet important points to consider here... Either via vibration, loose connections, metal edges chaffing through wires, poor routing and poor planning. I like to go overkill when it comes to insulating and isolating wires, something learned from my days spent messing with 4x4s and off road vehicles. I came up with some habits that have served me well when wiring my cars: 1. Wire it like a fiberglass car. That is to say, run dedicated ground wires to every component that might normally just be grounded to the body or chassis. I like to run new ground wires of the proper gauge back to a common bulkhead on the firewall usually that is in direct contact with a heavy gauge battery cable going to the engine block and meeting the battery's ground cable. It's overkill, for sure, but it virtually eliminates any problems caused by bad grounds. I use various pieces of rubber hose as well as rubber grommets to insulate all wires and harnesses that pass through or lie next to anything metal. It isn't always pretty, although you can spiff it up with a little extra effort. It provides positive assurance that no 'hot' wires will get chaffed and cause a short. Cars use fuses and fuseable links for a REASON! To provide a fail-safe in the event of a component failure or short that leads to excessive amperage being forced through the harness! Fuses are cheap insurance against BIG problems such as fried components and fires! You'd be surprised at how many shorts, fires and even explosions I've seen that were caused by a battery that was able to flop around hitting everything in sight or better yet... Your old shoestrings or bungee cords are poor choices... I've seen some nice, high dollar cars with batteries held down by nothing more than gravity! Bolt that sucker DOWN! You won't get far in a lifted rig on a bumpy trail with a wandering battery... Corrosion and loose connections account for many mysterious electrical problems. On my cars, I make sure every connection is tight, and I use this incredible stuff called No-Ox-Id that looks and feels kinda like ear wax, but once you put a light coat on every connection, it'll protect it against moisture and corrosion and insure a good connection for years to come. I'm sure there's other products out there that do much the same thing, but the stuff I use comes from YEARS ago when my Dad worked for Detroit Edison... I've installed ammeters in my cars before and never had a problem with one. Of course, I didn't just pop it into the dash and drape the wires over the headers and stick them through jagged holes in the firewall... Like most any other component, it's only as good as the installation... Being the wiring guy at an auto dealership, I've seen a few burn jobs. It happened as people replaced generators with alternators and alternators with larger output models. If the vehicle has a 30 amp gauge and you add a 60 amp or higher alternator, bad things happen. The wires weren't designed to handle 60 amps and most of the time they don't as the current draw balances the input. When accessories are connected that draw more current than the system was designed for, the wires get hot and melt into the other wires in the harness. Cars had amp meters for decades with minimal problems. The reason cars are burning up now, is that the generators that put out 20 or 30 amps at full charge, have been replaced with alternators that have an output of over 100 amps. The original gauge in the car only goes up to 30 amps, so the first time the battery gets low and the alternator starts to put out more then the gauge was designed for, you have a fire. Also a 50 year old, mouse eaten, oil soaked, sun baked, original wiring harness is a fire waiting to happen. So in any car that came with a generator originally, and now has an alternator, use a volt meter, NOT an amp meter. And if building a car, just use a volt meter. Didn't this bit start with Wireworks? I see it repeated now and then, but in my experience I've never seen an ammeter fail. Perhaps true with a cheap-o offshore gauge, but never with a US made quality one. Has anyone seen or been directly involved in a car where the ammeter burned up. Auto voltmeters came into being because they were cheaper than an ammeter and wiring costs were less. Generators and alternators work differently, so the type of gauge you need to monitor them is different too. If you're running a generator, an ammeter will give the most useful information as to charging system performance. Alternator, you want a voltmeter. Vintage generators are also rarely found with more than a 40 amp output the largest I've ever seen was a 50 amp unit , with most common units limited to only 30 amps, so finding a gauge with enough current-carrying capability shouldn't be hard. You still need to exercise care when installing one with wire routing and so forth, but the OEMs used them for years on generator-equipped vehicles with few issues.