Volt meter

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Romney1
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Volt meter

Post by Romney1 » Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:34 am

I have mounted a digital led volt meter to
My bike to keep an eye on the charge rate i as just wondering does anyone know a pick up wire i can use , dont wont to take from battery directly , colours location etc

Cheers

magg
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Re: Volt meter

Post by magg » Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:47 am

Why not take it directly from across the battery.

Romney1
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Re: Volt meter

Post by Romney1 » Sun Feb 04, 2018 3:33 pm

Wouldnt that drain the battery when left running all the time ?

jamesrm
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Re: Volt meter

Post by jamesrm » Sun Feb 04, 2018 9:14 pm

I run one directly from the battery, I could'nt find anywhere else without cutting into the wiring, Just run it through a switch so you can turn it off to save the battery.

magg
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Re: Volt meter

Post by magg » Sun Feb 04, 2018 9:27 pm

The voltmeter load current should be of the order of milli-amps which should not significantly discharge the battery, check specs for the voltmeter. How often do you ride your bike. If laid up for long periods it would be advisable to trickle charge the battery. Red with black stripe is switched power for both NC30 and NC35. Connection at a point closest to the ignition switch will give the most accurate reading but it will not be the actual battery voltage.

Neosophist
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Re: Volt meter

Post by Neosophist » Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:07 pm

As a few others have pointed out it's not always simply just bodging a volt-meter anywhere, depend on where it is in the circuit you can get false readings due to wiring load / losses.

As Magg said across the battery will give you the voltage at the battery which is most important, unless you are specifically trying to measure any other voltage which id imagine would be better done with a multimeter rather than a permanent installation.

You could have it switched via either a manual switch (most simple) or something like a mechanical relay that switches in the live to the VM triggered by an ignition live so its only active when the ignition is on and theres no need to switch something manually, current on a VM is minimal so even the chepeast automotive relays shouldnt be under any significant load.
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