Peter A Forbes wrote in message . ..

We've seen moving iron 'output amps' meters in the ac circuit to the bridge
rectumfrier, thus giving a rather inflated view of the output current....

Don't forget that the available DC output current from a full wave bridge with
smoothing cap is only about 0.6 of the AC current, although the DC Volts is 1.44
X (in theory)

I thought about this as a suggestion but couldn't remember the
relationship for average current in this position. Peak to average
ratio is quite high here so anything measuring rms wouldn't give a
good output DC current indication.

Moving iron meters are pretty rare.

Moving coil meters indicate average current, so the error wouldn't be
large.

RL