Omega Owners Forum
Omega Help Area => Omega Electrical and Audio Help => Topic started by: Auto Addict on 11 July 2008, 07:41:19
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Thinking of fitting a voltmeter & ammeter to my facelift.
Anyone suggest an appropriate place to mount them, so that they look like part of the car.
Would the wiring be difficult?
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A while back I was wanting to put a gauge in my mini facelift but no matter what, I just could not think of a place to fit it.
I was thinking of fitting a dual mode gauge for oil pressure and temp. My only option really is to fit it under the bonnet. Although I couldnt keep an eye on it whilst driving at least they could be checking weekly when checking top ups. Whether it ever gets fitted is annother thing.
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have you seen a cadilac catera dashboard. it has gauges in place of our TIDs/MIDs. Looks good but am not sure i would trade MID for 2 gauges
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Pity they didnt build into the display oil pressure, volts and amps like they did with the clock. Would have been a nice option.
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A Polish friend of mine did exactly that on his MV6.
Cant remember if the Catera Dash was Volts and Amps, or Volts and Oil Preasure, but he remounted the MID above the Rear View mirror in a Clock housing from a Escort I believe.
Looked really cool, problem is, his was a Pol Plate Left Hand Drive so it just slotted in. Not sure if they ever made a RHD Catera.
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I think I'll abandon the idea.
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I think I'll abandon the idea.
There are some pods that sit on the 'A' pillar for extra gauges, but they look as though they'd be more suited to a Max Powered Courser.
;D
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That idea with repositioning MID is not bad at all. Would it fit by the radio? BTW Cateras only LHD
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That idea with repositioning MID is not bad at all. Would it fit by the radio? BTW Cateras only LHD
I guess it would fit where ever you could make it fit, Radio, Hmm, Pre Face or Face Lift?
What about loosing one of the Air Vents!
ither way your be OK with the Catera dash being an LHD Opel.
Let us know if you ever decide to do it :y
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there are quite a few other things in plan for this year. projector lights, new MID, parking sensors, new stereo with amp and sub... possibly new rims (new tyres for sure), tints...some of these are just waiting to be fitted. we will see what future brings
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I am very interested in how anybody plans to connect an ammeter to a car which takes 200Amps cranking, upto 120 amps when running and still expects to see sub 1 amp draw when its turned off......plus what is proposed to be use as the measuring shunt without affecting the operation of everything! :y
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dont know about ammeter ( and what would one want it for), but voltmeter makes sence.
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I am very interested in how anybody plans to connect an ammeter to a car which takes 200Amps cranking, upto 120 amps when running and still expects to see sub 1 amp draw when its turned off......plus what is proposed to be use as the measuring shunt without affecting the operation of everything! :y
Amp meters these days generally monitor the charging circuits rather than the battery drain, Good point about the shunt but again with today's technology, shunts aren’t required but instead use inductive loops around the target cable which are capable of measuring mA to hundreds of Amps.
I like your style of thinking though, nice one. :y
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I am very interested in how anybody plans to connect an ammeter to a car which takes 200Amps cranking, upto 120 amps when running and still expects to see sub 1 amp draw when its turned off......plus what is proposed to be use as the measuring shunt without affecting the operation of everything! :y
Amp meters these days generally monitor the charging circuits rather than the battery drain, Good point about the shunt but again with today's technology, shunts aren’t required but instead use inductive loops around the target cable which are capable of measuring mA to hundreds of Amps.
I like your style of thinking though, nice one. :y
1) Its no good measuring the charging current when I suspect that AA is more interested in battery drain.....
2) The field monitor types also can not measure the wide range required, to get the low resolution requires small magnetic cores or lots of turns of wire.....chuck big currents through and you either saturate the cores or produce large EMF's which throw the readings off the scale!
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A Polish friend of mine did exactly that on his MV6.
Cant remember if the Catera Dash was Volts and Amps, or Volts and Oil Preasure, but he remounted the MID above the Rear View mirror in a Clock housing from a Escort I believe.
Looked really cool, problem is, his was a Pol Plate Left Hand Drive so it just slotted in. Not sure if they ever made a RHD Catera.
Catera Dash Pic, cant see very well but looks like Oil and Battery Guages.
(http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg299/zirk-photos/CatDashLHD.jpg)
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oil pressure and voltage gauge
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Already got them in the Scimmy :)
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Thanks for all the replies, I'm still going to abandon the idea.
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Already got them in the Scimmy :)
I preferred the ammeter in my 5 rather than the volmeter in my 5a's...but prefer the 5 dash anyway!
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I am very interested in how anybody plans to connect an ammeter to a car which takes 200Amps cranking, upto 120 amps when running and still expects to see sub 1 amp draw when its turned off......plus what is proposed to be use as the measuring shunt without affecting the operation of everything! :y
Now im guessing a bit here.......but there are 3 wires coming off the + batt terminal.......I assume one is feed to the starter.....one feed from the alternator and the other feed for the accessories.
If the case then you would only need to use the accessories wire.
Something like this would do i guess.....and i notice they do a solid shunt.....would this be better? :-/
http://www.dpmeters.co.uk/DCDualmeterDPM62VA.htm
I am assuming the meter is auto scaling, if so you could see small a small drain when ign off :-/
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I am very interested in how anybody plans to connect an ammeter to a car which takes 200Amps cranking, upto 120 amps when running and still expects to see sub 1 amp draw when its turned off......plus what is proposed to be use as the measuring shunt without affecting the operation of everything! :y
A decent shunt resistor between the battry and alternator would give the same info as mini coopers (and others) used to have. Charging current.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/What-is-a-Shunt.htm
No good for stationary current drain though.
I suspect there is a way to hijack the MID/ODBII system - but no idea how. There is probably spare I/O in the ECU though.
Also, armed with an RS catalogue, some Veroboard and a soldering iron you could probably make a small LCD/LED digital unit that would be easier to find space for. The ashtray space comes to mind.
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I am very interested in how anybody plans to connect an ammeter to a car which takes 200Amps cranking, upto 120 amps when running and still expects to see sub 1 amp draw when its turned off......plus what is proposed to be use as the measuring shunt without affecting the operation of everything! :y
A decent shunt resistor between the battry and alternator would give the same info as mini coopers (and others) used to have. Charging current.
http://www.reuk.co.uk/What-is-a-Shunt.htm
No good for stationary current drain though.
I suspect there is a way to hijack the MID/ODBII system - but no idea how. There is probably spare I/O in the ECU though.
Also, armed with an RS catalogue, some Veroboard and a soldering iron you could probably make a small LCD/LED digital unit that would be easier to find space for. The ashtray space comes to mind.
Absolutely :y
Thats the reason i mentioned the 3 wires......as said im guessing why the three wires........but if one of them is for accessories.......this wire would do nicely :y
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The problem is, you want the measure the battery current in / out not the current consumed by the accessories. You want to ignore the starter motor feed since the huge current this will take is going to be a pain. So, you'd need to separate the alternator and starter connections to the battery (currently a single wire right across the engine bay) and separate the accessories from the starter at the battery and insert a shunt so you're measuring the charge current into / accessory draw from the battery.
All a bit of a pain. You still probably won't measure with enough resolution to spot the 100mA of current that'll flatten your battery because you'll have to make the shunt big enough to measure up to the full alternator output (140 amps in my case).
I have an LED bar graph meter that plugs into the ciggy lighter and instantly shows the voltage, on the other hand. A couple of greens indicates a fully charged battery. Crank it, watching how much drop there is and then watch a few more green lights appear as the alternator wakes up. Turn on some loads and watch for voltage drop. Overcharging? Red light. Tells me all I need to know about the electrical system (which are pretty reliable these days, TBH) without messing about at all.
If I need to know currents, I have a clamp-on ammeter, or a multimeter for tracing small currents.
Kevin
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The problem is, you want the measure the battery current in / out not the current consumed by the accessories. You want to ignore the starter motor feed since the huge current this will take is going to be a pain. So, you'd need to separate the alternator and starter connections to the battery (currently a single wire right across the engine bay) and separate the accessories from the starter at the battery and insert a shunt so you're measuring the charge current into / accessory draw from the battery.
All a bit of a pain. You still probably won't measure with enough resolution to spot the 100mA of current that'll flatten your battery because you'll have to make the shunt big enough to measure up to the full alternator output (140 amps in my case).
I have an LED bar graph meter that plugs into the ciggy lighter and instantly shows the voltage, on the other hand. A couple of greens indicates a fully charged battery. Crank it, watching how much drop there is and then watch a few more green lights appear as the alternator wakes up. Turn on some loads and watch for voltage drop. Overcharging? Red light. Tells me all I need to know about the electrical system (which are pretty reliable these days, TBH) without messing about at all.
If I need to know currents, I have a clamp-on ammeter, or a multimeter for tracing small currents.
Kevin
Makes a lot of sense Kevin.