charging issue

hi, your volt meter is not the same as mine, but, i was getting readings up and own, happened it was just the earth lead to the battery, just check your's and let me know how you get on,this is the meter i have,

No comment.

Mark,
Your clip on ammeter kind of closely resembles the readings you had with your multimeter, so that suggests that one verifies the other.
I am thinking that the clamp meters probably are not as accurate at lower current measurements, say 1A or less. They do work on the electrical field generated by the current flowing in the wire. In retrospect really low current draw will be less detectable by the clamp irons and will also be more susceptible to interference from close by magnetic interference and other electrical circuits.
I usually deploy my ammeter when trying to find electrical short circuits where higher loads are present, it is ideally suited for this job. I am now convinced that anything less than 1000mA would be very hit and miss on the accuracy of my clamp meters readings. Your multimeter should be the bit of kit to trust in this little experiment.
Access to a DC clamp meter is great though and if you know how to use it correctly, you can diagnose some nasty faults very easily on your vehicles, without having to disconnect any wires. Of course anything that you suspect is lower than 10A you can use your Multimeter, I would suggest using a separate in line fuse of about 8 amps with the leads to protect the onboard fuse in your meter, which may be difficult to find a replacement.

Sundance

do you meen a battery lik this one? e 12V 110AH LM110 LEISURE BATTERY HEAVY DUTY LOW HEIGHT 100AH 110AMP DUAL PURPOSE Buy It Now

Interesting using those meters..like to see tests like that instead of just testing voltage output.......maybe you will show us more tests in the future...like those meters you have dave.what is the insulation setting all about?

graham1 wrote: do you meen a battery lik this one? e

12V 110AH LM110 LEISURE BATTERY HEAVY DUTY LOW HEIGHT 100AH 110AMP DUAL PURPOSE

Buy It Now

Wow! Thats a biggun! Yeah if it will fit...need some measurements but its nearly twice the rating of a 60A/h that I currently have.
Nearly two batteries in one!

Sundance

mgtfbluestreak wrote:

Interesting using those meters..like to see tests like that instead of just testing voltage output.......maybe you will show us more tests in the future...like those meters you have dave.what is the insulation setting all about?

I had one of those small Flukes a while back, until someone smashed the screen on it, only binned it a few weeks ago, it was nearly new. Its a good cheap Fluke. Autoranging is one of the main plus points that most Flukes have, so you do not have to mess about guessing the range of readings that you think you need to measure.
Insulation test is a check to see if there is any leakage of current to earth, mainly used in domestic installations, known in the trade as Megger check. It sends a high voltage (between 250 and 1000v) down the wire to be checked and earth, and any "leaking" current can be detected and read displayed on the screen as a resistive measurement to earth - or how good the insulation is as a resistor against current flow to earth.
Good for checking motors, heating elements and also mandatory tests in new building and public buildings where installation certificates have to be issued. All newly installed circuits should now be tested by an authorised and certificated electrician.
In car circuits, the Insulation test would not be advised, as it would probably blow any electronics that are in the car, especially being negative earthed, but could be used for example to test the insulation on a wiper motor or maybe a starter motor once disconnected from the car.

A brief diagram showing how the test works.



This motor has two windings, the picture shows the two windings being tested between each other first, then one lead is connected to the metal case of the motor and one winding is then tested for insulation resistance against the metal case. If the winding was short circuited to the case, the test would show this up and tell you that the motor winding needed to be repaired. Ideally a value of 200Mohm resistance or more is what is good, anything lower than 150Mohm (150 mega-ohm or 150 000 000 ohms) is where you may suspect ingress of moisture or foreign objects that are allowing a bit of current to "leak" . Anything under 2 Mohm is where you really will be thinking of getting the motor repaired or replaced. I have seen circuits as low as 0.5Mohm still up and running, but this would be on a supply without any earth leakage protection such as RCD or RCBO like in your consumer unit at home.
On a 12 volt circuit as in your car, you could probably get away with leakage as low as 50Kohm in your isulation as lower voltages will not tend to jump across insulation faults the same as higher voltages such as in your home.

Sundance

Nice one I can understand that because it was told in a professional manner.🖒

So over the new year I went out and bought a impact gun like mentioned earlier.....I bought a dewalt 899...a nut buster if ever I saw one it has 3 positions for the torque settings....so yo can be nice and gentle with a tf and ruff has a bears rear with the commercial engines and trucks I intend using it on

I bought 2 batteries with it...one was a none genuine dewalt at 4.0ah and the other a genuine dewalt 5.0ah battery...

after doing many tests the genuine dewalt 5.0ah out performs the lesser battery turning the gun into a frenzied beast....so moral of the story even if you uprate the amp hour...go for the best battery you can...has quality shines through in the end..price of my new non gen battery £20 and price of dewalt battery £50...but it was worth paying extra.made my job quicker stripping the heads off this scania in sub zero temperatures. Well happy with it.

Great bit of kit - I am jealous!
We have one at work and it has some awesome shifting capabilities and a friend borrowed me his to remove a drive shaft nut on my TF that nothing else would budge! It flirted it off in seconds.
I have a couple of DeWalt battery drills, a 24v SDS impact drill and a newer brushless motor 18v combi drill and both are excellent, and the modern Lithium Iron batteries just last forever! Since I have a battery and a charger, may look out for a bare bones unit for my own use.
I do have a friend who lives close by in Cheadle who is a service guy for DeWalt tools and often sells many new and refurbished tools, I used to repair battery chargers for him, may just give him a call and see if he can locate one!

Sundance

Anyways back to the topic at hand, not been out in the TF as I have been laid up with a nasty bout of Flu, but it started ok last Sunday.
Tuesday I asked the good Mrs Sundance to fire the TF up again as the cold snap was due to begin, and she duly reported back that it was dead-again!
Thurday I managed to jump start it, but the the only car with enough oomph in it to do that was the big ZT-T and its 110A/h lead acid powerplant. I tried jumping with a couple of other cars first. Left the car running for half a hour to get some charge in the battery, but did not take it for a spin as I was still feeling pretty rough.
Tried it again yesterday and it did not have the power to turn over again, so its definitely a new battery for me now. I am going to go for a 80A/h unit, the alternator will have no problem maintaining that, also I am disconnecting the USB (in fact two USB's) that I have connected to the cigar lighter which on my MY04 model is permanently connected to the battery. These I will move to a switched circuit, probably tapped off the radio, so at least the on board LED's on both units will not add to the current drain.
Then I will be carefully monitoring the battery and if there is any suspicious doubt that extra current is sapping the battery, I will then be looking at either cleaning up or replacing the voltage reg or even replacing the perimetric unit.
The battery is still under warrenty, only just over a year old and is a 63A/h unit, a quality Yuasa one at that, but can I find the original receipt? Can I Borrox!

Sundance

You didn't by any chance have a copy of the receipt sent to your phone...I know when I go there always promoting that.on the other hand when the father outlaw sent a battery back they never even asked for it...another was on the counter...ages after a bright mechanic pin pointed the battery drainage to the radio on his rover 25...once radio was replaced everything was ok.