PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post - Found a good looking add on volt / amp meter

dieseldiehard · #4 12-29-2018, 11:05 PM

that MP Jones meter is certainly cheap! I would not hesitate to put it in a motor home or HUMVEE or some military vehicle but to me its a bit too much for a Mercedes at least any that I drive. I do like the idea of monitoring GP current though!
That said, I use something to monitor battery voltage that seems to be NLA, at least I couldn't find any after a thorough search.
It is a small device with a couple of cigarette lighter outlets that is hardwired to 12V (I connected in parallel with the tilt-out lighter socket in the W210 car.

Of note is the feature it has where three small LED's indicate the state of charge: green, yellow and red.
These indicate analog values and are a quick indicator of whether your battery voltage is changing or low. A lot easier then reading a seven segment LED or LCD display.
And I could have used one in my '87 300D recently when my alternator started going out, I never saw the dash light come on but gradually voltage would drop to the point the car would be hard to start then a short trip and it died on me.
I attribute the early death of the 3 y.o. Bosch battery to a possible intermittent brush contacts. I am going to pull the alternator and will upgrade to a 115A one and then I'll take the regulator out and examine it to see if my theory is correct.

I mounted my nice charge indicating cig lighter outlet on the side of the console near the radio, where a laptop charger could be plugged in as well.
(Pics to follow)

Some newer cig outlets even have a USB port. One I saw featured a bright blue LED that lit up for whatever reason - this is not what I recommend, driving at night with a bright blue light in my face is not my cup o' tea!

There is something about the European cig lighters in Mercedes that leaves me hating them because I have seen them not make good contact to available cigarette lighter plugs.
Anyone else had that problem?
DDH