My new panel meters

Looks Great! 

 

Can you give more info like part numbers or a link to the meters on the web site?  When I look them up, I'm getting a higher price for the two.

 

Thanks, Mike A.

The amp meter is AC 10a analog pael type, #85L1-A, price is $10.99.  Item is 2.5" wide by 2.2" high by 1.9" deep, volt meter is same size.  Volt meter is 85L1-V AC 0-20v analog panel meter,price is $7.44...I got the volt meter from Amazon and the Amp meter direct from Hong Kong...

 

Marty

Mike A

Some older transformers such as a pw ZW can exceed 10 amps output to a single power district. I had that situation where on ZW throttle "A", when I was operating two long, incandescent-lighted passenger trains in the same power district [TMCC] pulled by double-headers or MU-ed engines. I learned that the load could exceed 11 amps at times.

For that reason I always installed 0-15 amp range AAC meters on each district.

 

Also the rate of housepower into the transformer primary can affect the transformers secondary railpower output. On TVA power at our mountain cottage the voltage was usually 117 VAC or less[down to 109 during "brownout"]. Here in town on Duke power I have a normal output of 120-122 VAC at the receptacle, so it varied by utility[and layout].

 

Light Object 0-15 AAC meter pictured below- about $10. Also a Shurite brand which is slighty more expensive.

Thanks Marty & Dewey for the responses.  I've got some shopping to do now!

 

Mike A.

Great thread guys. It's information like this that makes all of our hobby time better spent.

The meters look great and at a reasonable costs!

Has any one used these type of meters with dcs?  I would like to use them to monitor variable channel outputs  on the dcs tiu, so I would have to put the dcs signal through the amperage meter, wondering if there were ill effects on the signal.

Thanks,

Mike

Hi Mike, I never did that but I don't think it would be a problem. As stated on other threads on this subject the AMP meter is just a very sensitive Volt meter. This meter reads accross a shunt that is basically a wire, or piece of copper.

This I would assume would be not much diffrent then running your DCS accross a section of track center rail.

The meter may lode down the signal but not much more then what a second DCS device would do and as we know you can have a hundred on the track.

 

I may be wrong but it is my guess that you are good to go.

Hello Mikeaa, can you email me, it is in my profile...Thanks

 

Marty

Hey Mike, I just thought of something. Why don't you put your amp meters on the input of your DCS ports?

Not that I think what I said above was wrong, but I could be so by placing them on the input you still get a good current reading with no chance of effecting your signal.

Well, if nothing else you gave me another fun test to run.

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Ammeter Basics:

 

An ammeter places a resistance (about 0.1 ohm) in series with the signal to the track.  A sensitive voltmeter continuously reads the voltage drop across the resistance. For an AC Voltmeter with a full scale reading of 0-20 VAC the voltage drop would be 2 volts for a reading of 20 amperes.

Actually, very few ammeters that are scaled for 20 amps would drop anything close to 2 volts!  I just took out an 0-10A analog AC panel meter and measured the resistance (yes, I have a meter capable of doing this) and it is .02 ohms across the meter.  That would give me a .2 volt drop at the full 10 amps, more in line with what you should see.  As verification, I connected my 300W 2 ohm load across it and an 18 volt power supply and measured 8.8 amps in the circuit.  The voltage drop across the meter was .16 volts.