Re: That sounds like a tough one


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.9.37] on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at 01:45:01 :

In Reply to: Re: That sounds like a tough one posted by gmharris [71.105.35.169] on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at 00:21:59 :

I can usually fix just about anything electrical if I have to but in this case, I think it's just about hopeless. There are lots of ways you could insulate the strip (kapton or fiberglass tape) and wrap uninsulated wire (even your own wire) around it, or try to use some other kind of insulated wire that had the same resistance (copper wire, or one strand of cloth-insulated thermocouple wire, measured to have the right resistance).

Any of those things would be quite a bit of work and would heat the strip and make it bend. The catch is that they would all conduct heat to the metal strip differently than the original design did, which means that they would not be at all accurate. For anything approaching accuracy, you have to rebuild it the same way it was originally built. Undoubtedly, the engineer who designed it futzed with the number turns, size of wire, type if bimetal strip, geometry of slots in the strip, etc until it appeared to work pretty well, then drew it up, sent it to manufacturing, and said "build them all like this". This is not something that was designed on a computer.

There is one last ray of hope, before you go looking for a new gauge. Is it possible that there's only one point where the insulation is cut through against an edge of the metal strip? If you can find that one spot (an ohm-meter with a low-resistance range could help), you might pry it up slightly so it doesn't touch, put a dab of varnish in the gap, and consider it fixed. Obviously if it's shorting out all over the place this isn't practical, but if it's just one or two corners, you might get by.

Is there any chance this is a 6 volt gauge used on a 12 volt system? That's the usual cause of burning out gas gauges. Maybe doubling the voltage (4x the heat) didn't burn through the wire, but it overheated it enough for the varnish/insulation to melt in spots.



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