Sunday, Feb 18, 2007 at 00:44
Khavers, I think you need to be registered with RS to access their online catalogue.
The info I quoted is from their catalogue which expires in March 2007, I have no idea if and how much the price will differ in this years catalogue. I have not seen these meters at DS nor in the DS catalogue.
Re the wiring up, The boat fridge I use the hour meter for has a fancy compressor not suitable to connect anything in parallel. Actually, I would NOT connect anything in parallel with any 12V fridge compressor, they not neccessarily run on 12V DC, even if that's the voltage fed to the fridge.
There is an easy way around that though. Get a reed switch with a N/O contact - these can be got from DS or by removing one from a magnet door security switch.
Wind a small coil around the glass switch case ( its fragile! - use a similar diameter dowel former for the winding) with an enameled wire suitable to carry the fridge current - I used 1mm diameter wire.
Connect this coil in series with one of the fridge power leads. When the fridge comes on the current through the coil sets up a magnetic field which in turn closes the reed switch inside. I used the positive lead which allows me to connect one reed contact to one coil end and the other reed contact supplies the switched 12V to the hour meter.
If it does not turn on you need more turns, add a second layer to the coil, though
mine works fine with one.
Use the reed switch to turn the hour meter on and off, the meter requires a 12V DC supply, same as the fridge.
The hour meter keeps its reading even if it gets disconnected.
The reset is wired from the meter module, it comes with a little circuit diagram that explains how. I just fitted a tiny pushbutton switch to the plastic jiffy box I mounted the hour meter in. Pushing the button briefly resets the display.
Hope that explains it.
Klaus
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