Blown Amp Meter?

I hooked up my 5VDC amp meter in the same fashion as Kal with the transformer and power supply exclusively feeding the meter. When I powered it up I got some smoke from the meter. I checked thinking I crossed the + and - but those were good I then checked the DC output at the power supply and found that it was around 17VDC, so I backed it down to 5 and plugged it back in again. No smoke on the second round but it is stuck reading out "-I88.8" the first character being like a sideways T or more exactly, the 8 character with the top, bottom, and left sides not illuminated. Sound like its blown or something that can be fixed with a little solder?

In the meantime, I just ordered another to get the ball rolling, I hate waiting on something to come in from China when I'm so close to wrapping my build up.

If the magic smoke got out, it probably will never work properly again. Good thing you already ordered another.

stlbeer said:

If the magic smoke got out, it probably will never work properly again. Good thing you already ordered another.

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Agree, you got to be quick to catch the smoke in a mason glass I saw some for sale on Ebay once, you could search on there
This should not hold up the complettionn of the build though should it, you can still run without the amp readout (unless you mean you are running and hooking this up would mean no more need to open the box up)

mattd2 said:

Agree, you got to be quick to catch the smoke in a mason glass I saw some for sale on Ebay once, you could search on there
This should not hold up the complettionn of the build though should it, you can still run without the amp readout (unless you mean you are running and hooking this up would mean no more need to open the box up)

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It will still be a while before my kettles are in and I get the brew stand welded and painted so until then it will be gas fired brewing. But I do want to get the control box finished and out of the way which the last big part is getting all the wires tidied up and I can't do that until everything is installed.

I had the same problem, except around 9V DC and no smoke. Same -188.8 on the display. I ended up ordering another meter and it worked.

Cole said:

I had the same problem, except around 9V DC and no smoke. Same -188.8 on the display. I ended up ordering another meter and it worked.

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Yeah I got mine all sorted out now. What sucked is the new one had a different connector type that had to be soldered and it was on the top instead of the bottom so I had to pull out the cover that was siloconed in and redo it. I still haven't plugged it into 220 or run it under a load so I still have a little testing to do yet.

We always called it releasing the factory installed smoke...never a good thing.