Mega What

NinerBikes wrote:
The every resourceful RJfishing shared with me this link to an amp / volt meter, all in one. Has a shunt, question is would it work in this application?

Volt and amp meter, digital

Yes indeed! Thank you and rjfishing. Good find. I had that old amp gauge laying around so I used it. I had looked at the ones on ebay but I missed that one. The ones I found had a heavy shunt that went in the battery cable. The terminals are small on this one so it would be in line just at the source. Looking at the diagram I'm not sure if it would work but maybe someone else can tell us.

I would like to know what all the amperage's are at different times so I looked at the trimetic type systems but they wouldn't let me monitor my 2 banks separately. Also looked at a hand held but didn't buy yet.

I did a time vs voltage vs SG graph on my Quick Charge but didn't know the amps.

I think that dang vampire got me!

The every resourceful RJfishing shared with me this link to an amp / volt meter, all in one. Has a shunt, question is would it work in this application?

Volt and amp meter, digital

mena661 wrote:
Nice work rjxj! Great attention to detail.

Thank you and I thank all of you for your input along the way. As I have mentioned before, I have worked on electric powered mobile equipment but never had to be my own power supply company and be mobile. Big difference.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
We gonna help make you a genuine

FRANKENCHARGER!

Lol. I'm looking for the parts. Not sure about the resistor.

So far
http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/pp-2ku/precision-3-turn-2k-ohm-pot-used/1.html

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/ppt-1020ku/10k/20k-dual-precision-wirewound-pot-used/1.html

Nice work rjxj! Great attention to detail.

We gonna help make you a genuine

FRANKENCHARGER!

West end
Yes I have used it. I charged a bank of 2 6's with my converter and finished it off with this. I'm not sure about how much to hit it with.

I would say it was warm, not really hot. I was surprised at how much power it put out for being so small.

I also charged a gp 27 that had low sg gravity that didn't want to come up and it seemed to work really well on it.
Nice desolderer, I think I have one of those turkey baster bulb types somewhere. :)


Landyacht
I dont think the meter can be adjusted but it's very close to my fluke. I bought 5 of them and mounted 2 of them near my blue seas switches and one of them always read 1/100 different. Not bad when they only cost $4 or $5

Mexicowanderer
I'm going to go look for those parts now. Thank you for the links and your help.

Me too.
I figure there are a lot of youngsters out there that work with smd (surface mounted devices). They are experts working with PC boards.

Go to the allelectronics.com surplus site and on the front cover you'll see a 3-turn used pot with 1/4" shaft. Don't forget a precision resistor can be used to bridge the pot and narrow the adjustment range to less than hypersensitive status.

Mine gets this tweak plus a gob of GOOP® to strain relieve the wires that are soldered to the board. The wires go to a pass-through terminal strip which is mounted on the case. This allows Indy 500 tire type changes of the pot. There are 10 turn pots out there. And .01 resistors.

The Chinese are just now starting to make bargraph, digital gauges. Digital gauges must be read. Analog gauges need to only be gazed at.

Ergonomics 101

Thats pretty sweet.

What I like about these megawatts is the smaller size than a regular converter. 30 amps is plenty for me, likely too much for my flooded on a regular basis if one believes the 10%manufacturer recommendation which would be 13 amps.

Putting a finger dial voltage pot on them is my hangup. and I fear for the longevity of the included one when adjusted a coule dozen times, as they were obviously not designed for such a task.

I don't quite trust my soldering skills on a circuit board.

Have you checked the voltmeter for accuracy? Does the voltmeter allow calibration?

I got one inexpensive 2 decimal place voltmeter that was 0.2v off(high) and allowed no calibration.

rjxj wrote:

westend wrote:
Nice work! What is the width of one of those supplies?

I think it's about 4 3/4 inches wide, 7 3/4 long and about 2 or 2 1/2 tall.
The Radio Shack project box is 7x5x3

I wasn't brave enough to remove the board and try to remove the pot. I may try to do it this winter when we stay at my sons house. That way I'll be able to say I used it a few times before I ruined it.

Thanks for the dimensions. I'm anticipating getting one of these or similar at my local electro-surplus joint. I have some 6" x 6"-1/8" wall aluminum box that will fit the PS and sundry bits well. I really dig on making these small devices.

Here's a variac I cobbled up out of the same 6X6:



If I really wanted to throw some dough at this, I could use a charge-sense circuit and really make it universal. As it is, it's a good tool for it's purpose, a timed top-charger or equalizing device. Kudos to Mex for the design. Have you used it yet?

Unless they used some crappy 4 layer board with bad traces, the pot should fall out of the board when desoldering. No sweat involved. Of course, that's easy for me to say since I got one of these dandy Hakko 808 desoldering guns.