amp gauge

16 years ago

i have a amp gauge off of a lawn mower.want to put it on my mower.can someone tell me how to wire it up.back of gauge has plus and minus.put hot to plus ground to minus.pegged it out and smoke.thanks.

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Comments (4)

User
16 years ago
Ammeters are wired in series in the B+ wire NOT in parallel to ground like a volmeter would be and what you did.

That smoke coming out of the ammeter was telling you (most likely) to go buy a new ammeter and to find someone who understands wiring and circuits to help you install it.

There is more than enough amperage in the tractor battery to hurt you and way more than enough to burn the harness and start a fire.

As Clint Eastwood said in Magnum Force... "a man' got to know his limitations".

BTW, your tractor has a built-in visual charging indicator... turn on the headlights and watch as you increase the RPM. If the headlights get brighter then the charging system is working.
ollieduke
16 years ago
Also,if you have a volt meters,read the voltage on the battery before you start it,then after starting read the voltage at higher RPMs and the voltage should be higher (at least 1 1/2 volts). If its higher,your charger is working.
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madstabber
16 years ago
Do tractor batteries discharge at low rpm, even with a regulator?
mownie
16 years ago
The rate at which a battery discharges depends on the current being drawn from the battery. Current drawn depends on the electrical needs of components connected to the electrical system.
The rate at which a charging system can charge a battery depends on how much current the the charging system can produce.

If you have an electric PTO clutch (just for example) drawing 3 Amp of current and the charging system is producing 3 Amp of current, the battery would neither gain, nor lose, any of its "charge" (not counting what was drawn by the starter to crank the engine).

If the same PTO was drawing 3 Amp but the charging system was only producing 2 Amp, the battery would discharge given enough time.

Knowing that charging system output increases with an increase in RPM, but decreases with a reduction in RPM, and that engines are designed to operate most efficiently at the "rated RPM", which is usually between 75% and 100% of the governed RPM, it would be a fair bet that most tractor engines will not produce enough current at idle RPM to keep the battery charged if there is any current higher than 2 Amp being drawn from the battery.

But if there is no current being drawn from the battery, 2 Amp would be "Ample".
There is no simply answer, but to say that you have to put more into a battery than you take out or it will discharge comes pretty close.