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ammeter to test current
By boomer, Section Homebrewed Electricity Posted on Fri Sep 26th, 2003 at 02:20:10 PM MST
to many words check story

can i use my ammeter to test a coil and get an idea how much current would be going into a battery as long as the voltage is high enough?

ammeter to test current | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: ammeter to test current (none / 0) (#1)
by troy on Fri Sep 26th, 2003 at 03:09:01 PM MST
(User Info)

If you hook the coil up directly to the ammeter, your coil will see that as a dead short and produce maximal amps, but at low voltage. It's a useful test to compare coil A to coil B, but it's not so useful to predict what any given coil will pump into a real battery. I think Dr.D suggested testing the coil with various resistance loads, while simultaneously measuring volts and amps (volts x amps = watts), which is a much more realistic test and would make some useful predictions about output into a real battery.

Perhaps others could comment here as well. I don't think we have a nice coil testing protocol yet, using commonly available loads or resisters. A resistor box would sure be handy.

Hope this helps,

troy

Re: ammeter to test current (none / 0) (#2)
by boomer on Sun Sep 28th, 2003 at 02:47:09 PM MST
(User Info)

what would be a good load to use as a test ? I am a littel confused abot how to get a good estimate of what will happen going into a battery, I have never charged a battery with anything but a battery charger that you plug into a wall. I am trying to figure what is the best coil. I am going to use this mill to charge a 6 volt battery for an electric fence i am hoping to get enough power to add some light i am thinking of using L.E.D. lights will that work?

[ Parent ]

Re: ammeter to test current (none / 0) (#3)
by jubalearly on Tue Sep 30th, 2003 at 09:48:00 AM MST
(User Info)

Batteries have very low resistances. I'd use a 0.10 OHM resister for the convenience of calculating amps based on voltage drop across the resistor. But any fractional resistance would work for comparison purposes as long as it's big enough for the amps. A .1 OHM, 10 watt would be good for 100 amps max.

ammeter to test current | 3 comments (3 topical, 0 editorial)

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