LCD Digital Voltage Meter Install on HAWK

[buckland]

Bingo. Those wires on the volt meter are wicked short... so 2 'Y pigtails' were necessary to make it easier to connect.
All in all I am happy. Being a furniture maker by trade a suggestion: measure the opening from the volt meter, cut a piece of thin wood to that size, put a piece of 2 sided tape on it, place the piece where you want the volt meter, use an exacto knife to score around the piece of wood (this keeps plywood with veneer from splintering when cut...clean edge) drill small holes in each corner, use a forester bit and drill as many holes inside the score lines to remove most of the wood, use a small blade hand saw to cut out the remaining wood 1/16" or so from the score line, then use a rasp to smooth the final opening...I did add a couple notches on the side for the clips that hold in the meter also with the rasp. Nothing in life is perfect... so I am happy.

 

[craig333]

Hmmm, not sure I'd trust my harbor freight meter for that )

 

[MarkBC]

After installing a solar plug and doing some wiring tonight, I got to comparing this meter with my fluke style device, and what I found was a tenths difference in DC volts. So, I removed the drawer and popped the digital volt meter out to make some adjustments.

I wanted to provide the followers of this thread or any future readers the steps to adjust this meter to a known accurate industry meter. What I did was ever-so-carefully turn the screw shown in the first picture until the numbers on the meter are the same (or very close) to what your known accurate device is showing.
..
I got my meter within 3 hundredths and was happy. The adjustment screw is very very touchy so I settled on the side of caution with my on-board meter reading about 3/100ths lower than actual as shown in the picture. Seeing that I'm a government employee, I think this is close enough for government work.

Before you made the adjustment the digital meter was off by 0.1 volt -- is that right?
Does the digital meter have the ability to make a two-point adjustment, an adjustment to the span (if that's the right term)? Or is there just the one screw giving a fixed offset?

I got one of those digital voltmeters, too...but haven't hooked it up yet.

 

[MarkBC]

I don't know why I'm asking, since I don't have a calibrated voltmeter to adjust mine to anyway .
But what I was wondering, in my previous post, was whether the (inexpensive) voltmeter -- after adjustment -- still agrees with the Fluke at a voltage well-away from the voltage at which it was adjusted. Like, if/when the battery charge is lower and the Fluke measured, say, 12.5 would the inexpensive voltmeter also read 12.5. And if not, is there a second screw that adjusts span?
Thanks.