Club 80-90 Forums

lloydy wrote:I'll have to check if my clamp meter works on DC?

Dash is correct, clamp meters only work on a.c I'm afraid....

Wonder if it would be practical to stick an inline ammeter in if you were building your leisure circuit from scratch?

Question for the Sterling Charger users, what current rating have you got, as they seem to come in different specs.

Mine is a 50amp battery to battery charger

Current consumption: 0.77 Ah/h at +25°C ambient temperature,

this is from the crp40 waeco. at this consumption how cool would it be and is this real life working figures or optimistic instruction specs?

can anyone check this, it's sterling product code c8411, would this be up to snuff or could someone fish out their product codes for their boosters?

We put a load on the alternator to pull the alternator voltage down. This fools the alternator into thinking that there is a major drain on the system and as such the standard regulator works at full current. However, the voltage is pulled down to a totally useless voltage for charging batteries. So the new system takes in this high current, but low voltage and amplifies the voltage to charge the auxiliary battery bank at a much higher voltage than the base system voltage. In order to achieve the fast battery charging, the software control program and settings for this product are the same as for our Digital battery chargers and the Digital advanced alternator regulator.

Dash is correct, clamp meters only work on a.c I'm afraid....

No he is'nt, and no they dont.

I use one regularly at work, they're much more expensive than an AC clamp meter, but they certainly exist im afraid.

v-lux wrote:

Dash is correct, clamp meters only work on a.c I'm afraid....

No he is'nt, and no they dont.

I use one regularly at work, they're much more expensive than an AC clamp meter, but they certainly exist im afraid.

I've never ever seen one - mind you in my game you wouldn't need one. So how does a dc clamp meter actually work then? I've only used (and seen) direct connection in-line ones...

As Bren says ^^^^^^^^a friend of mine used to be a mobile AA operative and one of these was part of his kit. Cars are primarily DC.

Martin

So how do they work? An ac one works by the magnetic flux set up by the current in the cable you're measuring inducing a voltage in the clamp which is then used to give a reading. A dc current does have a magnetic field but it's stationary except for the instant of switch 'on' or 'off'. The only way I can think is that the meter creates it's own magnetic flux in the clamp and the dc stationary field interferes with it and produces a reading that way.....


must have a google when I have a minute

if anyone sees a b2b sterling around the place pm me, keep your eyes peeled!

1664 wrote:must have a google when I have a minute

They utilise the 'Hall Effect' apparently. I have heard of it before, apparently the keys on calculators and computers use this too.....

http://www.electrotechnik.net/2009/09/h ... -work.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

yes 1664, it's some kind of pulse, i have a clamp with my multimeter. detects idle speed, i don't think it's that reliable as an indicator tho. i might try it again today now the cut off switch is getting volts.

Well you learn something every day.

So, what exactly is a Sterling charger, and how does it differ from other chargers?
And do you need external vents with a compressor fridge?

Dave