Posted by Sherman in Idaho [24.32.202.166] on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 21:09:53 :
In Reply to: Solved the Charging Problem posted by Dave Horvath [76.125.248.166] on Tuesday, August 20, 2013 at 20:37:56 :
They do tend to be jumpy with a mechanical regulator, because the regulator points are always vibrating open and closed so the current is jumping around. I prefer an ammeter range that's on the low side, so I can actually see what's happening. With a +/- 60 amp range, turning on the headlights and heater barely moves the needle to the left, and the needle only moves anywhere near full scale to the right for a second or two after a hard start. Better to "amplify" the middle of the range so you can see currents in the range of what is normally there. If once in a great while, the needle gets pegged during some hard charging, so what? At that point, it's enough to know it's charging at, say, more than 20 amps. "D" and "C" isn't any better, because again the new ones are usually set up for ~60 amps full scale, which means the needle barely moves during normal operation.