Dynamo Testing

[Alejandro Athie]

Hi Nick:
As far as I know, most (or all) voltmeters that have a needle, that is, not 
digital, are moving coil 'galvanometers'. These are very sensitive current 
measuring devices and act as voltmeters or ampmeters depending on how are 
they connected. I think that if you use any needle pointing meter it'll 
work, provided you use it at the correct maximum voltage range, above 16 
volts, maximum.
This is because the voltage regulator connects and disconnects the fields 
very quicky to 'regulate' the voltage. The generator, battery and in general 
all the electric system 'feels' the average voltage. The moving coil 
voltmeter's inertia will feel and point to the average voltage. An 
electronic digital device will scan instantaneous voltages every fraction of 
a second and you might get a whole set of diverse readings from very low to 
a relatively high ones that apparently make no sense.
Please feel free to respond and discuss it, if you want.
Alex Athie


>From: "Horn, Granville" <GHorn@ci.kent.wa.us>
>To: "'cahc@autox.team.net'" <cahc@autox.team.net>
>Subject: Dynamo Testing
>Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 12:35:47 -0800
>
>I would like to test my Healey's electrical system to see if my recent dead
>battery could be due to the dynamo not charging.  The Manual refers to 
>using
>a "moving-coil-type voltmeter" for many of the tests.  Is this the same
>voltmeter sold today, or has technology made such strides that if I use
>today's voltmeter, it would be fried because it isn't a moving-coil-type?
>Nick
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