Multimeter Help

[sr71p38]

I am not an electrical guy but I am very confused about something and I hope the community can help. I am trying to get my multimeter to read the amps out of my wind generator.  I have done a bunch of online research and I can't seem to get it to work.  I am sure it is something very simple but I am at a loss. 

I have placed the multimeter in line with the generator and the battery, I have even tried to put in a 10ohm resister at one point in-line and took out the bridge rectifier.  No matter what I do I can't get an amp reading with the multimeter.  I have tried both meters I have as well, thinking maybe something was wrong with my meter. 

I can get a voltage with the meter.  I have a bayite DC 6.5-100V 0-100A LCD Display Digital Current Voltage Power Energy Meter Multimeter Ammeter Voltmeter with 100A Current Shunt which when I hook it up I get all the necessary readings I just don't believe them. 

[bigrockcandymountain]

I have pretty much the same meter.  Are you sure your turbine is producing amps? Do you have all 4 wires hooked up in their correct places? Is the shunt on the battery side of the rectifier in the negative line? Did you try the 2 shunt sensor wires both ways? It can be unclear which one goes where i think.

[sr71p38]

bigrockcandymountain

Thanks for getting back to me.  I am getting a reading when I use the Bayite, I am just not currently sure it is correct in the Watt and Amps it is showing.  It seems really low.  I was trying to run a test to verify that it was showing the correct information by hooking a multimeter up and I get nothing from it when I set it to Amps. 

David

[MagnetJuice]

David, what are you using for a load, and what is the resistance of the load?

It is also possible that the fuse in your multimeter/ammeter is blown.

Ed

[sr71p38]

I was using the battery which is a 24volt battery.  I then used a 10ohm resistor.  The output from the generator at 1000rpm is supposed tob be 0.5amps.  I thought about the fuse, I need to pull the meter back apart to check but since I was not using the millamp port I didn't think it should matter. 

[ruddycrazy]

In order to read amps one must break the circuit and put the multimeter probes on each side of the break, now this could be simply done by taking say the ground lead off the battery and placing the meter on the cable and the negative terminal on the battery. If no reading is present either no cirrent is going in or the fuse in the meter is shot

[bigrockcandymountain]

A 100a shunt will be very inaccurate at 0.5a. That is probably the problem.  Mine worked good at 20a to 50a. 

It would be best to use the milliamp port if it has one.  0.5 amps is definitely milliamps  range i would think.

[sr71p38]

Seems a couple of you have blown the fuses in your meters as well.  I guess sometimes the simplest solution is the correct one.  Didn't think that it was possible to pop both fuses in this meeter but I guess it is.

I appreciate all the help!

[Scruff]

Yet another good reason to have two meters..you can continuity check the fuse with the second meter.

Never use a meter to continuity check it's own ammeter measure it's own battery voltage...it'll brick a lottov them.