i got a new volt meter and got a ? about hooking it up. i dotn just wanna hook it up to a 12v source cuz that would be pointless i wanna hook it up so it tells me how many volts are goign through the charging system. how can i do it?
I dunno I dont think that will tell you much about the charging system. I work at NTB and we use a pretty nifty little computer that tells you in 30 seconds how good your battery,alt, and starter is. Just stop by any shop im sure they'll check it right there like we do
If you hook it up to a 12v source that is the voltage that your charging system is putting out, If you want to know the amp of the charging system or the "draw" you will need to get an amp gauge, however installing an amp gauge can be hard to do and sometimes will not give and accurate reading, depending on how it is installed. Install the volt gauge to the battery and it should read aprox 11-12 volts with the car off and 13-14v with the car running. This will vary with rpm and the amount of things that you have on such as lights, ect. That is the only way that I know to install one. Best to you.
I would source a good clean key-on 12 volt source (the yellow ignition wires under the column work well IMHO). The issue with dippier circuits is that if the wiring has a voltage drop, your gauge will read lower than what is showing at the battery.
The entire electrical system (sans computer controlled stuff with a ref voltage, etc) gets the same juice (think of an underground sprinkler system under a lawn. The furthest, smallest lines will not see quite the pressure as lines right next to the spigot. Think of that like voltage drop). So a good key-on source with clean connections works well.
Follow the diagram for instillation, you should have a source, ign, and ground input into the gauge. Wire the source to the batt and the ign to a key on 12v source such as behind the radio. That way the gauge isnt on all the time