Voltage/Current Panel Meter Installation

[DonL]

I was thinking when it has a design like this.

It could have a resistor or diode built into the coil also. Or the diode and cal resistors will be on the board.

Why not just take the coil apart, and stop farting around ? Don't let a piece of wire scare you. lol

To check the meter you should be able to put low voltage on the terminals to see if it reacts. Even a 1.5 V battery should give you a reading.

Good luck on your project.

 

[Jadnashua]

There are no 'lumps' on the coil big enough to hold a common circuit. There's another company that appears to be selling the same meter, and at least a few reviews indicate the same issue. They have a schematic and just call that a transformer.

I left the distributor a note, but probably won't hear from them. The third one should be here tomorrow...here's hoping the third time's the charm! If I decide to just give up and send it all back for a refund, I don't want to tear the coil apart and have it denied. I could probably wind my own, but have no idea of the winds required or how to calibrate the meter once I did and it's not worth the effort...I may reconsider if the third one also fails to work - trial and error might get me close, and I don't need or expect high accuracy. My guess is that they use a bench test device on the meter, but do not actually test it with the included coil. Or, if they do, maybe they're using the wrong solder (maybe with an acid flux), or cold solder joints, and after a delay, it no longer works because of the corrosion. Can't see, since it's all taped up in a manner that would be hard to replicate outside of the factory.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jadnashua]

Finally, success! Third time is the charm, so they say, but very annoying! The third meter arrived today, and I first checked the coil - it had a slightly different outer wrapping than the first - either a different factory, or a different procedure, anyway, it ohmed out at about 8.7-ohms on my DMM rather than infinity, so I had good expectations. So, I installed it, and while I do not know how accurate it is, it works! If nothing else, it should give me a relative indication of what's happening while my BMW i3 BEV recharges.