[Spridgets] Volt meter

corvallis at peoplepc.com corvallis at peoplepc.com
Sun Jul 19 09:56:54 MDT 2009


If the car is not running, the battery is the only place you could get
voltage. 12.8 volts would be a ballpark guess.
If you have a battery charger in there, it would be higher ...but not 19.
Same with the alternator running.
Sometimes I misread my digital volt meter; 19mv looks like 19v.
You can get 19 milli-volts off of a lemon (the fruit kimd.)

If other voltages appear where you don't expect them, you have a floating
ground. This is where voltage is working around via other circuits to find
the battery. This happens with older connections in any car.
...bill in oregon
============================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: spridgets-bounces at autox.team.net
[mailto:spridgets-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Michael Rowe
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 8:23 AM
To: Spridgets
Subject: [Spridgets] Volt meter

I lost power to one side of my tail lights; it turned out to be a bad fuse
that had not melted, just lost contact internally somewhere.  While tracing
power, I got an 11 v reading from the working side to ground and a 19 v
reading from the dead wire to ground.  How does a volt meter get any reading
at all from a dead circuit?  Is it coming back from the ground?  Then why 19
v?

Michael Rowe
'74 Midget
'60 Sprite kit
Long Island, NY_______________________________________________


More information about the Spridgets mailing list