Crazy idea but i thought these things were supposed to cut the flow of electricity through those wires, but when i hook up the battery i get a 12v reading from the red connection, about a 2v from the inner green one, and a little less than 1v from the other green and black ones. Yes i don't have the links in place when i'm doing this. Is this supposed to happen or do i have a connection somewhere in the circuitry...

 

HELP

 

Andrew

Think of them as just a big fuse for multiple circuits in the fusebox. There should be the amount of voltage the battery contains flowing thru them (12 off 13.8-14.5 running).

but if the links are out why am i getting voltage

you should have 12v from one side for all connectors

one set usually has 12v on both sides, mine's black

I still get crap from the links in mine. I wasn't paying attention one day and put the battery in backwards and burnt the middle link in two, that forced me to custom fabricate one right there in the middle of the field.

no i'm getting 12v with the link out. isn't it completing a circuit with it in, but with it out there should be no current running through it. it's going across where the link would be.

The readings you are getting is due to the series voltage drop across the meter. I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish by doing this. The position that you read 12 volts at means something is trying to draw some current but can't due to the meter resistance. Since the voltmeter resistance is much higher than the circuit resistance all the voltage is dropped across the meter. If you are working on something that is staying on with the car turned off and killing the battery then you should refer to my posting I sent you in your other thread.

 

If you are trying to measure the current that each leg is drawing then I can see a reason to do what you are trying to do but the meter needs to be in the current function then. That makes the meter a low resistance to the circuit as compared to a high resistance in the voltage mode.