The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Tach/Dwell Meter

I just picked up a tach/dwell meter at a yard sale. I am not sure how to hook it up properly. It has two wires with battery charger style clips on the end, two wires that both attach to the same metal bar, and one wire with a small alligator clip on the end. Part of the label is missing, but I believe it says Maxi-Tune on it if that helps anyone. Also, is it hooked up the same way for all functions?

Aaron

Hook up the positive lead of the meter to the negitive side of the coil, then hook up the negitive lead to ground. This will work for both dwell and RPM.

I played around with it a little last night. It also works as a voltmeter and ammeter. The two leads with the battery charger clips work for voltage/amperage testing. I hooked the negative one of those to ground and the small wire with the alligator clip to the negative side of coil and was able to check my dwell. That didn't seem to work for the tach like I was expecting though. I still don't know what that other set of wires is for that has the bar attachment.

Aaron

That's a current shunt for testing high currents. You pass the current through the bar the long way and the meter reads the voltage across it. The meter is calibrated to the resistance of the bar.

Thanks for the help guys, I guess that shunt makes sense, because I was surprised to see how high the amperage scale went.