DC will not work

westend wrote:

Malcal wrote:
I have been working on this all afternoon different things on the forum that people have recommended me to do, didn't get everything done but all the sudden it has started working?? Can someone explain this? I haven't unhooked anything just checked everything with a meter.

Probably a loose connection.

I'd say it's almost certainly a loose connection.

Check in particular the ground wire attachment and the attachment of the wires to the terminals that connect to the battery post. In my limited experience, those seem to be the most common culprits of bad connections. (Sometimes the wires at the battery connection can appear to be well attached to the rings or clamps for the battery attachment, at least at first glance, but are actually internally loose or corroded to the point of not working well or at all.)

If you use clamps on battery posts (as opposed to ring terminals under a bolt or nut), check that the clamps are tight on the posts. There are some slight variations in battery post sizes, and some combinations require a shim to connect solidly. These shims are pretty readily available at e.g. auto parts stores, or you can improvises and use a bit of copper flashing for roofs cut to an appropriate size, or carefully and neatly wind a layer of thin copper wire around the battery post, or whatever. I've even heard of a strip of aluminum can being quite serviceable (presumably well-cleaned and polished down to bare metal).