Hi. Can anyone tell me how to wire up my anp gauge. Ive got a Smiths Amp gauge. It has got two thick brown wires connected to it with ring terminals on the end. Can you tell me what to connect it to. As you can probbably tell,electics are not my strong point.Cheers Steve.

The ammeter needs to go in series with the thick wire from the alternator to the battery: the charge wire.
So, fat wire from alternator to ammeter. Then from ammeter to the positive terminal of the battery.

I would put your amp gauge in the bin and replace it with a much safer volt meter

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Originally posted by tomgregory2000
I would put your amp gauge in the bin and replace it with a much safer volt meter

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The thick charge wire carries a lot of current so it's nice to have it going from A to B without having to call at C behind the dash. An ammeter will tell you if your alternator is charging your battery or if the battery/car electrics is drawing more than the alternator is making. A volt meter won't tell you what current is floating up and down your charge cable, but it will tell you if your battery is trying to overcharge (15v+ish) or if it's not holding charge/been given charge (less than 12v).
If that makes any sense?!

A good analogy is think of all that electricity in terms of water,...



A volt meter lets you see the height of the river, high or low, safely from the bank.


An ammeter makes the river flow through the gauge to measure the flow, not so great if there is a fault,...

hth

I agree with the above statments - unless you use a shunt.

This is usually a calibrated piece of brass, and a millivolt meter.
The shunt is fitted in series with the battery cable to the 'rest of the car' electrical system.
As current is drawn, there is a volts drop across the shunt and this voltage is indicated on the meter.
With the car systems, the volts drop is very small as the curret drawn is usually quite low.
A good setup like this is more expensive than a series ammeter - but safer.

Len.

An ammeter isn't too useful these days you would be lucky if its 30A but you alternator will be 45+A. if your using a dynamo then its of use otherwise not.

Personally wouldn't bother with either, the only time I'll care about the alternator output, battery voltage and current draw is when setting the car up and if there's a breakdown. Once the car is set up the only time I'll care is when there's a fault, and at that point I won't care to read the current at the side of the road and I will know quite happily from a pocket multimeter or even from the brightness of the headlights whether there's a problem I can't deal with at the side of the road. I've been modifying and tweaking road cars for about 15 years now and never once needed to know what current draw I had.

Thanks for all the advice. I will just have it for show.Now its fitted in my dash. Cheers Steve.

Fair enough. Some might say you can never have too many dials!

I like my dials. The more the better.