Voltage panel meter

[sam l]

Hi, I'd like to stick a meter in the van to tell me how many volts are currently (sorry!) residing in my battery. I bought one from ebay but it doesn't seem to work, cycling through a large range of unlikely sounding voltages when I stick the red and black wires on the respective bits of my jumpstart box. Then in got hot and started to smell. It has 5 jumper switches on it but they don't seem to do anything much except change where the decimal point goes. Anyone know where I can get one that works? I know in old landies they had ones with a needle, this is what started me off on this cos I always seem to have a knackered alternator and would like to know when to bring the battery in for a top up!


Thanks,

Sam

[dcwuk]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-TIM-White-Fac ... dZViewItem

this any good?

[evanmandos]

volt meters don't cost much, just go to a radio shack/conrad/electronic partner or whatever its called in the UK any volt meter which at leat measures 14V will be OK. If you'd really like it to look nice, get an old army transceiver and use the 'S-meter' of it, fiddle a bit with a resistor in front of the meter(+ side) to get the scale to line up with your battery voltage(so 12 on the meter is average battery voltage), looks awesome costs a pound

only plus of a car-voltage meter is that it fits in standard dashboard brackets from the car-accesoires shop.
Personally i think 20 pounds(about 30 euros isnt it) is a bit expensive since they cost about 50p if you buy standard volt-meters in bulk