Ampere Meter Reading

[Moliver]

Another question:

When driving without lights, the amp meter shows approx 7-8 Amps. When swithing the lights on, it will fall back on "0".

Never payed too much attention but have never realized in the past... Any advice which readings should be considered normal ?

I should mention, that I have had the generator and regulator checked together by an expert who said, that the regulator needed some readjustment. Although I  have no reason not to trust the expert, it would not be the first time, that touching a running system has not been a good idea ....

 

[RobH]

The ammeter should only show current going into or coming out of the battery.  (Unless you have connected some other load to the battery side of the ammeter that is.)    The ammeter should only register a charge immediately after starting. That should reduce to zero after a couple of minutes running and for the rest of the trip it should read zero except when idling with the ignition light on when it may show a small discharge in daylight and a larger one at night if the lights are on.

If the wiring is standard, a constant charge with no load means either the dynamo is producing too much voltage or the battery is on its last legs.  Supposing the battery is OK, a constant over-charge of that size is not good for it and will cause the electrolyte level to drop through electrolysis.  

The reduction to zero current when the lights are on means the dynamo output voltage has dropped due to the load.  That shows that the regulator is not working properly as it should be able to maintain a fairly constant output voltage from the dynamo.

 

 

Edited April 28 by RobH

[Z320]

57 minutes ago, Moliver said:

Another question:

When driving without lights, the amp meter shows approx 7-8 Amps. When swithing the lights on, it will fall back on "0".

Never payed too much attention but have never realized in the past... Any advice which readings should be considered normal ?

I should mention, that I have had the generator and regulator checked together by an expert who said, that the regulator needed some readjustment. Although I  have no reason not to trust the expert, it would not be the first time, that touching a running system has not been a good idea ....

 

RobH wrote a lovely post about.

General Technic, pinned on top, 3rd thread

Edited April 28 by Z320

[Moliver]

very helpful post - Thanks a lot Rob!

Will further investigate  and as well just realized, that the needle seems to be stuck sometimes (knocking at the gage will "motivate" it to show the correct reading....