Problem With Power Outlet

Typical answer of someone advocating expensive tests before inexpensive

A load test on a battery is a five minute (if that) job and may be done for
free if the garage owner is a decent sort.

Real expensive... not.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Not sure if I did this correctly, but I didn't see any drop. I placed the

Read again Dan..... black on negative post and red on clean body metal will
get you a zero reading everytime on a negative ground system. This would put
the meter in parallel with the ground cable from the battery.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

I did read the OP and the 1000 or so posts after it. You were the one that
made the claim that the charging voltage needed to be over 14V and indicated
that if not, the battery was bad. This is simply not always true.

 

Hey Matt - do you get the idea that we are in the proverbial mud
wrestling contest with the proverbial pig? (Not calling you a pig, Max
- it's just a figure of speech.)

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

To find out if the shiny metal was a good ground, connect the red to
the positive post and the black to the shiny metal. You should have 12
volts.

 

Not if the body ground was bad where the socket gets its ground and that is
what this test is looking for.

 

LOL, ever here of the load exceeding the output of the device, especially at
idle.

 

You don't actually expect an answer from this, do you?

 

In the LH cars, the battery is buried behind a fender, so they bring the
positive cables up to an accessible point beside the engine for jumping
it off or measuring battery voltage without jacking the car up and
removing the fender liner. with the excpetion of the power cable
between the battery and alternator, *all* vehicle power goes thru that
jump post which consists of a threaded stud, 3 cables, and two nuts to
clamp the cables on the stud. I was thinking that the minivans may have
a similar "jump post" - but am not familiar with the minivans, so am not
sure. On the LH car, there also is a negative jump post which is also a
main ground point for the vehicle - it would also be a good idea to
check the single ground lug bolt to be sure it is tight. A given
vehicle would either have both or neither. Again - not sure about the
minivans.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Never say ALWAYS. If a wire is broken, there may well be zero voltage.

However, your point is generally correct that you need some load (much
more than a high impedance DVM provides) to really see what is going on.
That is why many folks have suggested testing the voltage under load.

Matt

 

--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving

LOL! Then I guess that there is no need putting that fan belt on the
alternator since it can now apparently give full voltage at 0 RPM's. The
real deal is that the voltage will not change (much) until the alternator is
at its wide open (non-regulated) point. Then the voltage is gonna drop
unless you speed it up. Granted, the alternators of today are very powerful
and can handle most loads at or near idle but that is not ALWAYS the case.

Or it's one of those bogus gauges that doesn't really measure anything. All
this really proves is that the alternators of today can handle normal loads
at idle speeds, not that the voltage never changes.

Yea, because the wiring cannot handle the current being drawn by the grid
and is causing a voltage drop. But hey, wait, didn't you just say that the
voltage never drops and only the current is effected?!?!?!?! I guess that
you just proved yourself wrong.

That is because most of them didn't work worth a damn. You could definitely
see the voltage move on those old mopars. My 65 Darts would be all over the
place voltage wise at idle with anything on at all. The current meter
showed nothing unless I just started it, then it would move but it was not
the most accurate thing on the planet. If I turned everything on with the
engine not running, then it would more slightly to the discharge side.

 

The ac meter would come in handy on those a.c. batteries.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

That's impossible! It has been stated here that a voltage regulator and
alternator system won't let the voltage vary AT ALL with RPM. How can
this be?

Hopefully, you can detect the sarcasm here...

Matt

 

Even a bad ground will show 12 volts if there is any connection at all with
no load on it.

--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving

http://www.SecureIX.com ***

 

Yes.


Matt

 

I guess you missed the part where I said "if the socket is powered". If a
wire was broken, then the socket would NOT be powered.

 

Are you sure? What if the ground is disconnected completely?


Matt

 

Then there wouldn't be any connection at all, would there?

 

It would if the broken wire was the ground wire.

Matt

 

What's amazing is that the OP, Neil, has managed to separate the clutter
from the good information.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')