Hi All,

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

Everything seems to be digital these days and whilst I could build a
little monitoring panel showing current (shunt resistors etc) I think
an analogue meter would be more suitable (in an analogue watch or rev
counter sorta way).

Cheers, T i m

[1] The charge controller I'm using has LED's indicating battery
voltage (red, amber green) and solar panel charging or not. I could
put a 0-5A meter on the input side but that wouldn't also show the
battery discharge rate (handy when experimenting with different types
of light).

On Nov 11, 8:54*am, T i m wrote:
Hi All,

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

Everything seems to be digital these days and whilst I could build a
little monitoring panel showing current (shunt resistors etc) I think
an analogue meter would be more suitable (in an analogue watch or rev
counter sorta way).

Cheers, T i m

[1] The charge controller I'm using has LED's indicating battery
voltage (red, amber green) and solar panel charging or not. I could
put a 0-5A meter on the input side but that wouldn't also show the
battery discharge rate (handy when experimenting with different types
of light).

And btw notice how digital watches were not that popular. Most seem to
have gone back to the tradional round dial face!

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember T i m saying
something like:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

http://tinyurl.com/5ez266

And shunt it.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Grimly Curmudgeon
saying something like:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

http://tinyurl.com/5ez266

And shunt it.

Here's another option, without ****ing around shunting, but it costs a
bit more, http://www.norbsa02.freeuk.com/goffyelectrex.htm look about a
third of the way down the page.

In article ,
Grimly Curmudgeon writes:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember T i m saying
something like:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

http://tinyurl.com/5ez266

And shunt it.

I did something similar many years ago, building a sort of
poor man's UPS. I had an old 50uA movement, and the shunt
was to simply connect the two terminals to the battery lead
about 30cm apart. A bit of experimentation was necessary to
get the calibration to match the meter scale.

I opened the meter up and changed the zero setting, so it
became a 5-0-20 ammeter. You have to be very careful opening
moving coil uAmmeters though -- sort of need a clean room
mentality as they're very susceptable to tiny dust particles
getting in and making the movement stick, especially anything
magnetic.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

In article ,
T i m wrote:
I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

Everything seems to be digital these days and whilst I could build a
little monitoring panel showing current (shunt resistors etc) I think
an analogue meter would be more suitable (in an analogue watch or rev
counter sorta way).

Cheers, T i m

[1] The charge controller I'm using has LED's indicating battery
voltage (red, amber green) and solar panel charging or not. I could
put a 0-5A meter on the input side but that wouldn't also show the
battery discharge rate (handy when experimenting with different types
of light).

Do a search on Ebay and store it - they then send emails when stuff turns
up.

As you've found they're not that common these days - everything is
electronic.

You can still buy new car ones which would be perhaps 60-0-60 and you
could make a new shunt so it reads to what you want. They'll cost nearer
30 quid, though.

--
*Change is inevitable ... except from vending machines *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

T i m wrote:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

A cheap car or motorbike ammeter off eBay?

Seem to be plenty to choose from, including some 8-0-8 ones.



--
Kevin Poole
****Use current date to reply (e.g. )****

"T i m" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

Everything seems to be digital these days and whilst I could build a
little monitoring panel showing current (shunt resistors etc) I think
an analogue meter would be more suitable (in an analogue watch or rev
counter sorta way).

Cheers, T i m

[1] The charge controller I'm using has LED's indicating battery
voltage (red, amber green) and solar panel charging or not. I could
put a 0-5A meter on the input side but that wouldn't also show the
battery discharge rate (handy when experimenting with different types
of light).

Have you tried Rapid? http://www.rapidonline.com/ They have a lot of
components at reasonable prices. Just type in your search and you might get
something that fits your requirements.

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:23:47 +0000, Owain
wrote:

T i m wrote:
I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

RS has a 100-0-100?A meter for £22 + VAT etc. RS 348-8835, currently out
of stock

Alternatives might be RS 220-790 220-740 220-706 or 220-661. Other
suppliers might be cheaper than RS.

Or maybe you could use two of 244-856 one for charge and one for
discharge. They're a couple of quid each.

I can't see a straightforward 5A-0-5A meter but other might be able to.

Owain


Thanks for all that Owain.

As you say, the first examples are a bit pricey (for this project
anyway) but I like the idea of the two meters. ;-)

So that would be each meter in series with a suitable diode in reverse
/ parallel with t'other? I'm not sure if the .6V or so I'll lose
across the diodes with affect anything?

Cheers, T i m

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:05:04 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon
wrote:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Grimly Curmudgeon
saying something like:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

http://tinyurl.com/5ez266
And shunt it.

Hmm, that's quite neat .. and as I'm really not looking for actual
values (I'd use my DMM for that) I can calibrate it to suite whatever
charge / load combination I end up with (without having to remember
that 8A actually = 5A etc). And I like the red / green bit .. very
'obvious'. ;-)

Here's another option, without ****ing around shunting,

Shouldn't be a real problem as I think I still have some Eureka wire
left over from my racing EV project (and I even know where it is in
the workshop!). ;-)

but it costs a
bit more, http://www.norbsa02.freeuk.com/goffyelectrex.htm look about a
third of the way down the page.

Now that's a handy link, ta.

I was actually looking for such things on eBay this morning but didn't
come up with much.

Remember the days when we bought and fitted such things in our cars
.... paneling over glove boxes. What were they, Volts, charging Amps,
rev counter, manifold vacuum, engine temp anything else? ... and who
typically made them ... began with a 'Y' was it? (I had the set in my
Moggy Minor van). ;-)

I really miss a temp gauge in Daughters Ka (especially as we know
there's a small water leak (we have a new water pump waiting). :-(

All the best ..

T i m

On 11 Nov 2008 16:43:04 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Grimly Curmudgeon writes:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember T i m saying
something like:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

http://tinyurl.com/5ez266

And shunt it.

I did something similar many years ago, building a sort of
poor man's UPS. I had an old 50uA movement, and the shunt
was to simply connect the two terminals to the battery lead
about 30cm apart. A bit of experimentation was necessary to
get the calibration to match the meter scale.

I did similar with a DVM on my electric racing 'motorbike'. So many
inches of the main battery feed cable gave me enough volts to feed the
meter via a trimmer and to be able to calibrate it easily.

I opened the meter up and changed the zero setting, so it
became a 5-0-20 ammeter.

Very specialised. ;-)

You have to be very careful opening
moving coil uAmmeters though -- sort of need a clean room
mentality as they're very susceptable to tiny dust particles
getting in and making the movement stick, especially anything
magnetic.

I bet!

Well, I'll keep that idea in mind if I can't find anything off the
shelf.

Cheers, T i m

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:04:55 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:


Do a search on Ebay and store it - they then send emails when stuff turns
up.

Ok ..

As you've found they're not that common these days - everything is
electronic.

Well, they are about (it now seems) but just more expensive than I
remember? This was the sort of thing I think I remember picking up
from Tandy for £1.99 .. ;-)

You can still buy new car ones which would be perhaps 60-0-60 and you
could make a new shunt so it reads to what you want. They'll cost nearer
30 quid, though.

Which I think is a little rich for this 'economy' project I'm afraid
Dave. In reality anything I add in-cct isn't going to make the system
more efficient so would only be there to give me a better feel of how
things are performing.

Like: This morning I wired up a 15W panel to my eBay 10A charge
controller [1] (pretty neat unit for £16), a fairly good ex UPS sealed
12V / 17AH battery and 8W test lamp. I stood the solar panel in a
South facing window and the 'solar charging' LED didn't go off for
most of the day. What I didn't know though was how *much* charge I was
getting and how much difference things like a change of angle of the
panel made or how much better it was not behind the double glazing
etc.

A mate also picked up 3 more of those caravan / camping 8W fluro lamps
for me today and I'll jury rig them and the rest of the kit in the
workshop tomorrow.

Cheers, T i m

[1] If you leave the load on the controller it won't allow you to turn
it back on until the battery voltage is above 12.5 and will allow it
to come back on automatically once at 13.1V (if you left it on etc).
Open / short cct protected, LED's for panel, battery and load, built
in load on/off switch.

[2] How do they make and include the tube, electronics, rubber end
caps, ciggy lighter plug, pair of crock clips, 3m of cable and a stand
for £6.99.

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:13:30 +0000, Kevin Poole
wrote:



T i m wrote:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

A cheap car or motorbike ammeter off eBay?

Seem to be plenty to choose from, including some 8-0-8 ones.

Hmm, I had a look this morning and couldn't find much and I've looked
again a found a few more this time.

There are some reproduction 12-0-12A ones (made in India) for about a
tenner and although they would certainly do I don't suppose I would
see much movement on the needle with my existing setup (I may expand
it later so ... ).

The 8-0-8 ones aren't cheap either and for the same money I could go
for a 0-10A digital and shunt (in light of the cost of some of the
analogue ones may be a second option). Not as 'nice' to read but
actually displaying specific (calibrated) info.

Ok, well thanks anyway and I'll put it all in the pot. ;-)

T i m

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:05:53 GMT, "BigWallop"
wrote:


"T i m" wrote in message
.. .
Hi All,

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

Everything seems to be digital these days and whilst I could build a
little monitoring panel showing current (shunt resistors etc) I think
an analogue meter would be more suitable (in an analogue watch or rev
counter sorta way).

Cheers, T i m

[1] The charge controller I'm using has LED's indicating battery
voltage (red, amber green) and solar panel charging or not. I could
put a 0-5A meter on the input side but that wouldn't also show the
battery discharge rate (handy when experimenting with different types
of light).

Have you tried Rapid? http://www.rapidonline.com/ They have a lot of
components at reasonable prices. Just type in your search and you might get
something that fits your requirements.

No I hadn't and thanks for reminding me.

They do do quite a range and at very good prices but I can't seem to
see any centre zero models? :-(

Another link added to my bookmarks though. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:16:29 -0800 (PST), terry
wrote:


And btw notice how digital watches were not that popular. Most seem to
have gone back to the tradional round dial face!

Yep, and are there still cars with digital rev counters or have they
also gone back to analogue (even if they are electronically
displayed)?

I did try an LCD digital watch for a bit but you can't just glance at
it and get a 'feel' of the time like you can with the old pointy hands
eh. ;-)

T i m

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:58:09 UTC, T i m wrote:

I did try an LCD digital watch for a bit but you can't just glance at
it and get a 'feel' of the time like you can with the old pointy hands
eh. ;-)

The sight in my remaining, properly working, eye does not allow me to
read a digital watch with my glasses off. When lecturing, I can't see
the audience with my glasses on!

So I have a nice clear analogue one...

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

In message , T i m
writes

Remember the days when we bought and fitted such things in our cars
... paneling over glove boxes. What were they, Volts, charging Amps,
rev counter, manifold vacuum, engine temp anything else? ... and who
typically made them ... began with a 'Y' was it? (I had the set in my
Moggy Minor van). ;-)

Yaeger? Smiths, too. I had an Anglia (105E) with a complete fibreglass
dash, that fitted over the original dash, complete with moulded areas to
house meters. I'm sure there were moldings for three meters above dash
level, plus three more below. Speedo and rev counter behind the
steering wheel, then, top right and bottom right some combination of
fuel gauge, volts, amps, manifold vacuum, water temp and oil pressure.

The fuel gauge was the standard Anglia unit, butchered to fit inside a
round housing, so all the meters matched. Oh, happy days, but all
fairly pointless :-)
--
Graeme Eldred

On 11 Nov 2008 23:51:44 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:58:09 UTC, T i m wrote:

I did try an LCD digital watch for a bit but you can't just glance at
it and get a 'feel' of the time like you can with the old pointy hands
eh. ;-)

The sight in my remaining, properly working, eye does not allow me to
read a digital watch with my glasses off. When lecturing, I can't see
the audience with my glasses on!

So I have a nice clear analogue one...

Good point,

Since I reached 50 I've needed reading glasses (ready specs) for
closer work and a stronger pair for real fine stuff. Without glasses I
can easily 'see' [1] the time on this 20 yr old Seiko but there's no
way I can read the day / date. :-(

But hey, the days seem to pretty well follow on anyway so it's not a
problem. ;-)

T i m

[1] As in you glance and get a rough idea of the position of the hands
and the rest seems to happen subconsciously. It seems different when
someone asks you the time and you try to give an accurate answer?

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:43:43 +0000, Graeme
wrote:

In message , T i m
writes

Remember the days when we bought and fitted such things in our cars
... paneling over glove boxes. What were they, Volts, charging Amps,
rev counter, manifold vacuum, engine temp anything else? ... and who
typically made them ... began with a 'Y' was it? (I had the set in my
Moggy Minor van). ;-)

Yaeger?

Hmm, I think it was more Japanese sounding than that (and it may not
have begun with a Y).

Smiths, too.

Yeah, I had quite a few Smiths bits at some time.

I had an Anglia (105E) with a complete fibreglass
dash, that fitted over the original dash, complete with moulded areas to
house meters. I'm sure there were moldings for three meters above dash
level, plus three more below. Speedo and rev counter behind the
steering wheel, then, top right and bottom right some combination of
fuel gauge, volts, amps, manifold vacuum, water temp and oil pressure.

Ah, that was another, oil pressure!

The fuel gauge was the standard Anglia unit, butchered to fit inside a
round housing, so all the meters matched. Oh, happy days, but all
fairly pointless :-)

;-)

I guess it was like most things they *could* serve a purpose (like
indicate when yer oil or big end shells needed changing) but as you
say, for most of the time they just looked good.

My favourite (and most expensive if I remember correctly) was the baby
rev-counter.

The good thing about meters though (assuming you knew how to read
them) was they did give you advanced warning of a problem. The
Daughters Ka doesn't have a temperature gauge so the first and only
warning you would get of a problem in the cooling system is when the
red light came on by witch time it could be too late?

A hose split on my old Rover 218SD the other day and I did the
remaining 25 miles home using the temperature gauge as a speed limiter
(max speed was about 50 mph, pretty good with no water I thought) ;-)

T i m

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:26:44 +0000, Owain
wrote:

T i m wrote:
[2] How do they make and include the tube, electronics, rubber end
caps, ciggy lighter plug, pair of crock clips, 3m of cable and a stand
for £6.99.

£6.99 incl VAT and retailer's profit.

Yup ..

Average Chinese wage of US$0.57 per hour probably has something to do
with it.

Well yes, indeed, I still think that is good value compared with some
other mass produced stuff you get from the same source. I guess this
doesn't have the fancy badge or leisure / luxury / trend appeal as
it's just a functional light so they can't push the price up for those
reasons. I can't see mention of country of origin or whatever on the
sparse paperwork, just they are sold by/via PurpleLine?

http://www.purpleline.co.uk

T i m

p.s. I put the 12V lamp on again this morning and just noticed the
battery indicator on the change controller go to amber. The battery
voltage measured at the controller terminals is 11.95. I can just see
the sun coming up over the horizon so it will be interesting to see at
what point the solar panel kicks in. I'm going to leave the single
light on (they draw just under .5A) and so see if the 14W panel (still
indoors in the window) can cope with that load and take the battery
indicator back to green.

In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:43:43 +0000, Graeme
wrote:
In message , T i m
writes
and who
typically made them ... began with a 'Y' was it? (I had the set in my
Moggy Minor van). ;-)

Yaeger?

Hmm, I think it was more Japanese sounding than that (and it may not
have begun with a Y).

I think my Yaeger should have been Jaeger? Then there were Smiths, and
Lucus. Yazaki?

fuel gauge, volts, amps, manifold vacuum, water temp and oil pressure.

Ah, that was another, oil pressure!

I always wanted, but never had, a clock.

The fuel gauge was the standard Anglia unit, butchered to fit inside a
round housing, so all the meters matched. Oh, happy days, but all
fairly pointless :-)

;-)

I guess it was like most things they *could* serve a purpose (like
indicate when yer oil or big end shells needed changing) but as you
say, for most of the time they just looked good.

Indeed - foot down, and watch the manifold pressure. I think it was the
water temp. gauge that used a capillary (spelling?) tube between the
engine and the gauge. The tube was encased within a protective wire
case, and had to be carefully fed around the engine bay, and through the
bulkhead. Accidentally touching it against a battery terminal produced
some interesting sparks.

My favourite (and most expensive if I remember correctly) was the baby
rev-counter.

Yes - I had a matching speedo and rev counter, but how I found a
circular speedo for an Anglia, I cannot remember.

The good thing about meters though (assuming you knew how to read
them) was they did give you advanced warning of a problem. The
Daughters Ka doesn't have a temperature gauge so the first and only
warning you would get of a problem in the cooling system is when the
red light came on by witch time it could be too late?

Absolutely. Modern cars seem to have warning lights for every
eventuality, but, as you say, with gauges you can, um, gauge when
something is going wrong, whereas with a warning light, whatever is
going wrong has already gone.

A hose split on my old Rover 218SD the other day and I did the
remaining 25 miles home using the temperature gauge as a speed limiter
(max speed was about 50 mph, pretty good with no water I thought) ;-)

grin
--
Graeme Eldred

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:50:19 +0000, Graeme
wrote:

In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:43:43 +0000, Graeme
wrote:
In message , T i m
writes
and who
typically made them ... began with a 'Y' was it? (I had the set in my
Moggy Minor van). ;-)

Yaeger?

Hmm, I think it was more Japanese sounding than that (and it may not
have begun with a Y).

I think my Yaeger should have been Jaeger? Then there were Smiths, and
Lucus. Yazaki?

Ah 'Yazaki', I think that's them! (well remembered that man) ;-)

fuel gauge, volts, amps, manifold vacuum, water temp and oil pressure.

Ah, that was another, oil pressure!

I always wanted, but never had, a clock.

Oh yeah, the clock! ;-)


I guess it was like most things they *could* serve a purpose (like
indicate when yer oil or big end shells needed changing) but as you
say, for most of the time they just looked good.

Indeed - foot down, and watch the manifold pressure. I think it was the
water temp. gauge that used a capillary (spelling?) tube between the
engine and the gauge. The tube was encased within a protective wire
case, and had to be carefully fed around the engine bay, and through the
bulkhead. Accidentally touching it against a battery terminal produced
some interesting sparks.

I think I remember them. Ah, and did you fit a 'T' piece to where the
oil pressure switch used to go (and fit that back to the T) then you
had some fine translucent tubing to thread back to the oil pressure
gauge (the type of tube that wanted to stay coiled up!)?


My favourite (and most expensive if I remember correctly) was the baby
rev-counter.

Yes - I had a matching speedo and rev counter, but how I found a
circular speedo for an Anglia, I cannot remember.

I only ever stuck with the stock speedos, anything else was a bit more
in-depth than my customizing was going to go.

The good thing about meters though (assuming you knew how to read
them) was they did give you advanced warning of a problem. The
Daughters Ka doesn't have a temperature gauge so the first and only
warning you would get of a problem in the cooling system is when the
red light came on by witch time it could be too late?

Absolutely. Modern cars seem to have warning lights for every
eventuality, but, as you say, with gauges you can, um, gauge when
something is going wrong, whereas with a warning light, whatever is
going wrong has already gone.

Yep, that's 'progress' I suppose sigh . To be fair though I'm not
sure what percentage of today's driving population would a) look at
the gauges or b) do anything different if they saw something. I
suppose they now rely on the EMU to put the engine in 'limp mode' to
protect itself FROM the driver?

My stepdaughter the other day ... "My car started making a funny
noise but it when away when I went faster .... "

A hose split on my old Rover 218SD the other day and I did the
remaining 25 miles home using the temperature gauge as a speed limiter
(max speed was about 50 mph, pretty good with no water I thought) ;-)

grin

To be honest I was firstly worried (how are we going to get home),
then experimental (ok let's give it a try and see how far we get),
then blasé (wahee, 50 mph and no meltdown!). ;-)

Tough ole things those 1.9 Pug diesels. ;-)

T i m

Why not put one of these in
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=37279
They are cheap enough to hack into shape and they frequently have them on
offer for less.

In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:50:19 +0000, Graeme
wrote:

I think my Yaeger should have been Jaeger? Then there were Smiths, and
Lucus. Yazaki?

Ah 'Yazaki', I think that's them! (well remembered that man) ;-)

I cheated, and browsed the classic car area of eBay :-)

Ah, and did you fit a 'T' piece to where the
oil pressure switch used to go (and fit that back to the T) then you
had some fine translucent tubing to thread back to the oil pressure
gauge (the type of tube that wanted to stay coiled up!)?

Yes! That reminds me of the tubing used to connect the manifold
pressure gauge to the manifold. Drill the manifold, tap the hole, then
there was a special part to reduce the diameter of the tubing - forget
that, and the gauge flew all over the place.

Yes - I had a matching speedo and rev counter, but how I found a
circular speedo for an Anglia, I cannot remember.

I only ever stuck with the stock speedos, anything else was a bit more
in-depth than my customizing was going to go.

The speedo I used was not calibrated for the car, so it looked good, but
wasn't actually useful :-)

Absolutely. Modern cars seem to have warning lights for every
eventuality, but, as you say, with gauges you can, um, gauge when
something is going wrong, whereas with a warning light, whatever is
going wrong has already gone.

Yep, that's 'progress' I suppose sigh . To be fair though I'm not
sure what percentage of today's driving population would a) look at
the gauges or b) do anything different if they saw something. I
suppose they now rely on the EMU to put the engine in 'limp mode' to
protect itself FROM the driver?

My stepdaughter the other day ... "My car started making a funny
noise but it when away when I went faster .... "

ROFL! Part of my job as a sub postmaster is vaguely overseeing a
delivery office full of posties, and their vans. All strange noises and
flashing lights in the vans are ignored. If the van runs, it is used.
Part of the rational is that, if there is a problem, the postie has to
take the van to the workshop at the main mail centre, which is nearly 50
miles away, whereas, if the van dies completely, the AA will come and
get it ...

--
Graeme

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:52:44 +0000, Graeme
wrote:

Ah 'Yazaki', I think that's them! (well remembered that man) ;-)

I cheated, and browsed the classic car area of eBay :-)

I like it. ;-)


Yes! That reminds me of the tubing used to connect the manifold
pressure gauge to the manifold. Drill the manifold, tap the hole, then
there was a special part to reduce the diameter of the tubing - forget
that, and the gauge flew all over the place.

So they did ... could they be considered the forerunner of the
'Economy lights' I saw on a 1.1 Mk3 Escort?


The speedo I used was not calibrated for the car, so it looked good, but
wasn't actually useful :-)

As an aside I've just remembered I didn't change the speedo drive over
when I recently swapped the gearbox on my MkII Escort kit car (now
reads very low). The std box was setup for a 3.89:1 diff and I'm now
running a 4.44:1 (mind you, also with wheels 1/3 bigger in
circumference than std).

Part of my job as a sub postmaster is vaguely overseeing a
delivery office full of posties, and their vans. All strange noises and
flashing lights in the vans are ignored. If the van runs, it is used.

Good and more chance of us getting our mail. ;-)

Part of the rational is that, if there is a problem, the postie has to
take the van to the workshop at the main mail centre, which is nearly 50
miles away, whereas, if the van dies completely, the AA will come and
get it ...

Hehe. Round here all the post vans seem to be either stopped or full
throttle, even the biguns! I also like the way the rear roller
shutters bounce open and closed in synch with the axle tramp. ;-)

T i m

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:49:51 -0000, "dennis@home"
wrote:


Why not put one of these in
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=37279
They are cheap enough to hack into shape and they frequently have them on
offer for less.

Hmmmm.

I suppose if I was going digital I could do as you say and hack one
about, even re-casing it etc? If I did that I'm not sure how much of
the PCB I could lose but I'd want it hard wired on the 10A scale (and
I think the shunt is at the bottom) and could fit a toggle switch or
PTM button for 'on' etc? (or one of those two way mini-toggles that's
centre off with a switched make one way and momentary the other, for a
quick instantaneous reading).

Or I could leave it pretty well as-is and just cut the internal and
fit an additional / external 'on' switch so I wouldn't have to turn
the selector round to 'off' every time (I think the 10A circuit would
remain in any case). I could even hard wire my circuit leads and use
the probes on other meters. ;-)

As you say, I've bought them at 2 for a fiver before so a cheap way to
get the display and 10A shunts etc (as less faffing re calibrating).

Good thinking, thanks. ;-)

T i m

p.s. Now if I could find a cheap one that did auto off! ;-)

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember T i m saying
something like:

Like: This morning I wired up a 15W panel to my eBay 10A charge
controller [1] (pretty neat unit for £16), a fairly good ex UPS sealed
12V / 17AH battery and 8W test lamp. I stood the solar panel in a
South facing window and the 'solar charging' LED didn't go off for
most of the day. What I didn't know though was how *much* charge I was
getting and how much difference things like a change of angle of the
panel made or how much better it was not behind the double glazing
etc.

When I bought a solar charging panel I wondered about the varying charge
rates at different times of day and year - a simple DVM was easy to
stick in place when needed.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember T i m saying
something like:

I can't see mention of country of origin or whatever on the
sparse paperwork, just they are sold by/via PurpleLine?

http://www.purpleline.co.uk

Look in www.alibaba.com if you want to see how they're obtained.

"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote in message
...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember T i m saying
something like:

I'm looking for one of those little panel meters to be used for
monitoring the charge / discharge rate on my garage solar lighting
system please [1] (around a tenner would be fine).

http://tinyurl.com/5ez266

And shunt it.

http://www.magenta2000.co.uk/acatalo...al_Offers.html

and its only £1.60+vat



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