How to wire an ammeter on a Valk?

[BOZ]

I would appreciate some instruction on wiring an ammeter on a 98 Valk Standard. There are two terminals on the back of the ammeter --- How should they be wired to the Valk? thanks in advance for assistance.

[Bagger John - #3785]

I would look at wiring a voltmeter instead. If you incorporate an ammeter into the circuit you'll end up running a pair of wires of sufficient gauge that they can carry the entire electrical load of the bike...because it has to be wired in series between the battery and the wiring harness
main power leads. A voltmeter, on the other hand, merely needs to be connected to the bike's ACCY/GND power connector and can use relatively thin gauge wire for its hookup. It'll tell you a great deal about the condition of the bike's charging system, and in a lot simpler fashion than an ammeter.

[Bone]

Found this online,
http://www.motorcycleproject.com/motorcycle/text/ammeter.html

[Thunderbolt]

Much easier to wire in a Voltmeter.  All it needs is a 12V. source and ground.  An ammeter must be wired in series with the load and requires heavy wiring and also creates extra connections where the ckt could open or short to ground.  Then bikie no workie.

[Madmike]

Another option that you may want to look at if you are set on installing an ammeter is to get an ammeter that uses an external shunt rather than an internal one so that the guage can be remote mounted and wired in with light wiring.

Here is a description of how they function

http://www.rc-electronics-usa.com/current-shunt.html

As an example of what is available here is a link to the Stewart Warner site that lists 3 ammeters in the same series of gauges, 2 require external shunts while the other has an internal shunt - if you look through their product catalogue you will likely find other examples.

http://www.sw-performance.com/products/HDAmmeter

Here is a link that shows a picture of a 100 Amp shunt, they only offer 1 other part # that is good for either 150 or 300 Amps - maybe 12 or 24 volt application??.


http://www.sw-performance.com/index.php?page=details&p=407616

I went to their site because I knew that they offered the 2 styles of Ammeter and just wanted an example of the technology that you could see.  I am sure that other instrumentation suppliers offer similar options if this is what you want to do.