Voltmeter or ammeter in the headlight.

I'm fixin to re-wire my Norton and can't decide whether to put an ammeter or a voltmeter in the head light bucket. I'm leaning towards the voltmeter for two reasons. It's easy to wire and it tells me the voltage before I try to to start it.

Comments please

For factory look Ammeter, but for useful function voltmeter but to resolve the split brain conflict Ammeter in shell and one of the useless indicators like the one that reminds ya the key is on but not running replaced with a single LED v color changer. My un hooked up ammeter needle does not vibrate but when wired it bounces enough not sure which side needle stays on most for sense of battery drain or not.

The ammeter will tell you right away when you're charging or not, if you can read it. The voltmeter will tell you the same but later, and does have the advantage of knowing what the battery condition is when you start and end. Up to you.

Dave
69S

Voltmeter.

As noted - the ammeter is correct; the voltmeter is more useful PLUS all the system elec current doesn't go through it!

BUT if I still had my old '71 I'd probably put an ammeter in the shell just because that's what was originally there…

Voltmeter. If you find one small enough let me know.

There are different thread length for 750 an 850 nuts so be careful if you replace what you currently have. I have bronze nuts which most owners recommend as the best for staying put they are from RGM and are of there own design and use there own type of spanner (which is made in short section so you can sort it in bikes toolbox) an once they have been retightened a couple of times when hot then they just stay put they just (touch wood) with no further need to worry about them.

I have one of those Signal Dynamics multi-color single LED voltmeters stuck in the yellow lens which was meant for the turnsignal indicator. There are 5 indications possible: blinking red, red, yellow, green, and blinking green.

I like ammeters if you only have one hole. I think it is a better indicator of what is going on.

Russ

Commando's but maybe the earliest one didn't have ammeter hole so its just for us and to fool others with the quaint factory look of inaccurate needle bouncing. Most need of volt or amps is going slowly when its most important to be watching around traffic off road etc so a glance at the color tells ya if can expect to need a charger for next start up or must spend valuable time trying to guess what the ammeter is trying to indicate.

I happen to be one of those rare individuals that likes an ammeter. The ammeter is a pretty good indicator of the charging system as well as the condition of the battery. If the ammeter shows a continuous high rate of charge that tells you that you have either too many volts coming out of your charging system or that your battery is on its way out. Either way your battery would be boiling and spewing acid out through the breather. Conversely a voltmeter would not tell you anything about the condition of the battery.

I installed an ammeter in my Norton which was supplied by Wassel and the gauge says it is made in England. I had that gauge installed in my headlight for about a year and the bike had not even been running during that year and the plastic case had cracked in a couple places where the chrome bezel was crimped. If I had left it that way the whole case would have eventually fallen down into the headlight shell.

Instead of buying another ammeter I decided to make a new case out of aluminum alloy. Of course when I had the gauge all apart I was not impressed with the quality of the meter movement. I was really wondering whether to go ahead and buy a Lucas brand ammeter. So I did a Google search on Lucas ammeters and did a check on all of the images within the search. The Lucas ammeter cases are made of a clear plastic and in one of the pictures I was able to look through the clear case and see the actual meter movement. I could see it has exactly the same meter movement as the Wassel unit. The meter movement on both of those gauges leaves a lot to be desired. After finishing my aluminum case for my meter movement and installing it in the bike, I was tightening one of the wire studs and heard a clicking sound. Later when I turned the ignition switch on nothing happened. I ended up taking the gauge apart and discovered that the coil of wire within the meter movement was cold soldered to the brass screw head. So I ended up replacing both studs with a larger screw, drilling the heads of the screw so that the coil wire would fit down into the heads of the screw and gave them a good solder job after that. Not a very good gauge. So if I was to choose between the Wassel and the Lucas, I guess the Lucas has a better case.

There is a Chinese knock off of the Lucas that looks to be a pretty good copy of the old style Lucas gauge. I have never seen one in person. However the old original Lucas ammeters weren't that great either. They weren't dampened well and flopped and bounced all over the place just like the new ones.

Back in the 1970's the ammeter on my BSA 650 failed. So I asked my dad if he could find an ammeter for me. He used to work at Bell and Howell in the avionics department. He scrounged around and came home with a small milliamp meter. He said that should work and all I needed to was use a length of wire as a shunt for the ammeter. What I did was cut the back of the Lucas gauge off and throw away all the old Lucas guts. I bonded the small milliamp gauge inside the original Lucas case using silicon seal (RTV). I just coiled the shunt inside the headlight shell. Now that gauge worked beautifully and didn't bounce around at all. It told you exactly what was going on. I still have that gauge in my BSA 650 and I need to take it apart and find out what kind of gauge it is and see if I can order more milliamp gauges.

Voltmeter, BSM or similar. I have just had a battery fail on me, Volts good, current good but the Bosch battery was just not storing the charge. At least with a voltmeter you know the alternator and rectifier is working irrespective of what the battery is doing.

mike996 said:

As noted - the ammeter is correct; the voltmeter is more useful PLUS all the system elec current doesn't go through it!

Click to expand...

I had a faulty (brand new) ammeter that shut down the bike every 20 minutes until it cooled off. I now run a volt meter.

I had a faulty (brand new) ammeter that shut down the bike every 20 minutes until it cooled off. I now run a volt meter.

Click to expand...

I bet I know what happened to that ammeter. It probably had a cold solder joint on it as mine did. The truth of the matter is a voltmeter does not tell you the whole story. An ammeter doesn't tell the whole story either. The airplane I used to own had both a voltmeter and an ammeter. That would be the ideal situation.

I got the right size voltmeter out of a package set of gauges at the cheapo auto store. Turns out the gauges were cheapo as well because it lasted 6 months if that. I am more happy having the power for the bike more directly linked rather than going through the ammeter. This was on my Triumph though as my Norton does not have the hole for a gauge in the headlight shell.

Or, How about a fake one.
http://www.ebay.com/cln/redivy16/Black- ... %26pos%3D1

See last gauge on the right. NORTON

For those monitoring Norton power stations



video selection
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... meter&sm=3

Like that. Only from the good ol' U.S.A. !

Marine grade?

[quote="PeterJoe") Back in the 1970's the ammeter on my BSA 650 failed. So I asked my dad if he could find an ammeter for me. He used to work at Bell and Howell in the avionics department. He scrounged around and came home with a small milliamp meter. He said that should work and all I needed to was use a length of wire as a shunt for the ammeter. What I did was cut the back of the Lucas gauge off and throw away all the old Lucas guts. I bonded the small milliamp gauge inside the original Lucas case using silicon seal (RTV). I just coiled the shunt inside the headlight shell. Now that gauge worked beautifully and didn't bounce around at all. It told you exactly what was going on. I still have that gauge in my BSA 650 and I need to take it apart and find out what kind of gauge it is and see if I can order more milliamp gauges.quote;

I’m no electrical expert but I am amazed that you got away with fitting a milliamp gauge.
It must have been quite considerable range to cope with 10 amps
Re; “all I needed to was use a length of wire as a shunt for the ammeter.”
What exactly does this mean :?:

Bernhard said:

I’m no electrical expert but I am amazed that you got away with fitting a milliamp gauge.
It must have been quite considerable range to cope with 10 amps
Re; “all I needed to was use a length of wire as a shunt for the ammeter.”
What exactly does this mean :?:

Click to expand...

Meter shunt. The current mostly goes through the wire and only a small amount goes through the ma meter.