Truth Or Consequences?

[MEXICOWANDERER]

http://www.solar-electric.com/mkb-500-50.html

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/lcd-panel-meter-pm-328.html


Provide circuit power from a nine-volt lithium battery and this ammeter will offer unparalleled accuracy for verification of ammeter accuracy.

Amperage is read as millivolts on the meter. 75 millivolts is full scale for the 500-amp shunt.

The resolution down to microvolts allows near lab grade precision readings. Once your regular instruments are verified against this meter you can compensate regular meter readings, and take the guesswork out of things. Use it meter versus meter direct without shunt on a 1-1/2 volt battery to qualify your digital multimeter voltage.

DMM Resistance (ohms) verification...

.5 ohm
100 ohms
10K ohms

Assortment is perfect for the hobbyist. Add 10 Mohms for the nerd.

http://www.precisionresistor.com/files/PDF/PRC-WEB-CATALOG-ISSUE-NO-42.pdf

I cannot even BEGIN to count the number of badly connected shunts, psychotic amp hour meters, dizzy volt meters, and other assorted cruiser's nightmares these verification tools have caught red-handed. When I board a sloop or ketch the instrumentation comes 2nd right after verifying there is or isn't a battery or charging issue.

Belief in a lying instrument has caused more wasted money and migraines than I would ever care to try and count. The only instrument I trust is my Tektronix and it gets calibrated and certified every 5-years.

How bad is "bad"?

It is commonly found an error of 3-6% in an amp hour meter. A lot of the errors are meter to shunt connection faults.

[Flotsam]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/yJIwTpzl.jpg[l.IMG]
Image back side of 4.5 digit panel meter.
note: the very small sized connectivity pin openings.

another test this time on laptop, not Ipad


preview function worked.
sure hope this works

[NinerBikes]

Flotsam wrote:
Once more


Can't get preview to work

I can't get it to work either.

[debraindi]

This is really funny what just happened with Truth or Consequences.

[Flotsam]

Once more


Can't get preview to work

[Flotsam]

Darn, wrong image. That's my modified Meanwell. Used many of Landys mods.
In the morning will try again. Computer says "internet connection timed out."

[NinerBikes]

[Flotsam]

http://i.imgur.com/lWhgre4.jpg
Hope this works.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Preferred Products at Lawrence Livermore, Hanford, Sandia National Laboratories, GE, you name it. Plant 42 in Palmdale uses it, Skunk Works. Amazing stuff
Boeing Company

We have been using CAIG products on switches, contacts and edge connectors and they are considered “Preferred Products” at Boeing.


Bose Corporation
General Electric
Hewlett Packard
Honeywell Inc.
News/Studio Sessions Editor, Radio World
Rane Corporation
Tektronix
Xerox Corporation

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Interesting
My DVMs has pigtail 22 gauge wires.
Can you shoot an image of the connector on your meter and post it?

For slip-fit connections DeOxit D100 fluid works wonders to correct micro errors in resistance. Whenever feasible solder wires.

[Flotsam]

Ok Mex I have the digital panel meter & shunt.
Need some help. Don't know much electronics, learning more every day.
Which wire electrical connectivity pins should I order? To connect the wires to the 41/2 digital meter. Local Radio Shack is of no help. I see that they are made of different alloys. Preferred alloy? Thanks for sharing this calibration tool idea. Will be of great value.

[Harvey51]

Most of the time you don't need an expensive voltmeter, but anyone counting on a battery voltage to reflect the state of charge knows that a tenth of a volt means 20% of the useful upper half of the charge. I have cheapo multimeters but they do have a calibration potentiometer on the circuit board. Now, where to find an accurately known voltage? A new Duracell AA cell is supposed to be 1.65 volts. The fully charged lead acid battery is supposed to be 12.65. I bought a voltage reference source on eBay for ten dollars and I think it is sufficiently accurate. My cheapo meters seem to retain their calibration well over 6 months. They are a thrifty man's Flukes.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Is my calibrated $14,000.00 Tektronix oscilloscope accurate? Being two or three thousandths -+ is a hell of a hot better than one or two tenths of a volt. I ran lab grade tests on an amp hour meter in Las Penas and nearly fell out of my chair. FIVE PERCENT ERROR.

Least significant digit error say four counts, is trivial in a 4-1/2 digit non-loop powered meter. Of course a person has to ACTUALLY TEST some of these meters in order to not err in judgement. I also own 7-1/2 digit bench DMM that I qualify on the oscilloscope.

Loop powered panel voltmeters are a WORLD APART less accurate than divorced powered meters. LED meters consume a vastly greater amount of energy hence this is why I recommend L C D non loop powered meters. Yes accuracy degrades as a function of time spent in operation. How many MINUTES would you guess an LCD panel meter would spend in TEN YEARS when used for amp hour meter / volt meter corroboration? My stuff stays enclosed in a military box, scope and all, with 2 pound packets of silica gel. Salt air and condensing humidity degrade both monitoring and verification (qualification) instrumentation.

I have seen far too many cruisers being driven bug nuts trying to figure out anomalies between amp hour meter data and what the batteries are reflecting with a hydrometer. ERROR IS CUMULATIVE unless the meter resets to zero automatically declining from a plus total. Seesaw the reading to almost zero, back and forth, up and down, and wuwee what do you think happens with an overage or underage error?

MERELY KNOWING AND ACKNOWLEDGING an under or overage allows the user to compensate. My Cruising Equipment amp hour meter has a 1.7% underage. I compensated via the Peukert adjustment. I have a kWh meter that I rely on a lot more.

Yes a four digit Fluke is quite accurate. But not suitable for everyone because they are a pricey instrument. An accurate reasonably INexpensive panel meter is a more intelligent option. Some monitors have a voltage adjustment pot.

Like NASCAR racing, bow hunting or ALLIGATOR WRESTLING MONTHLY which I utterly ignore, if this thread has no significance to someone it too can be successfully ignored.

[Salvo]

Not quite cleared up yet.

The meter isn't as accurate as the OP thinks. You still need to twiddle a pot to achieve accuracy. It is not a calibrated instrument!

lanerd wrote:
As Jack Benny use to say....welllll, I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Ron

[debraindi]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
These are meter calibration tools. I'm afraid some of you mistake them for a swizzle stick.

Too many meters, WAY AND THE HELL FAR GONE too many meters are inaccurate to the point of making them a joke.

I don't stare at meters when I boondock either. I also don't fumble for flashlights in pitch dark when a meter is screaming "DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY"

In order for a voltage measuring device to be useful it should be accurate to .08 WAIT! eight hundredths of a volt plus or minus. The only way to tell if a meter is accurate or not is to VERIFY it.
If you don't care - I don't care. But if you do care, the recipe is before you.

And I was disappointed when I finally did pass through Truth or Consequences New Mexico in 2005. A shabbified section of scrub - much like Quartzite.

Whaddya gonna do?
Give 'em a book and they eat the pages








Pfffttt! 🙂 🙂

It has changed a lot in the last 5 years since I retired. The new RV park at the lake is full till April of 2016.