Volt Meter issue

Can you open up the compartment where the USB and cigarette lighters are installed and post a picture?

 

I’ve had issues with some of their meters that ‘auto’ read. I’ve been using a Fluke-114 meter and since 2014 for work and it’s been very reliable.

 

Measuring the battery with your volt meter will tell you if your have 12 volts to start with. Who knows maybe the problem is the battery. As for the ground running it all the way back to the engine compartment just adds extra resistance in the circuit, not to mention cost and effort. But, it's not going to do any harm.

Car electrics are really not that fussy, a cheap Harbor Freight meter is all you really need. But if the meters batteries are low, the leads are beat up will cause hair pulling because the meter is giving bad readings. Another test is to measure a new AAA, AA, C or D battery. They all provide 1.5 volts and will show if the meter is in the ball park.

 

^ this ^

 

OP needs to also post a pic of the devices with their front weatherproof covers OPEN. The way I read the first post the "meter" is a device that includes dual USB ports, and those other 2 devices are 12 volt sockets (i.e. cigarette lighters). Of course I could be mis-interpreting his first post.

"I installed a volt gauge/dual USB outlet along with two power ports."

 

That switch probably isn’t rated for 30 amps if it is closing the circuit for the 10ga wire.

Plenty of ground spots in the back near the cubby. Avoid the unnecessary extra length of ground wire. More room for things to go wrong and have to track it down.

Could possibly be a bad connection somewhere. OP what type of wire are you using? It’s too early for this to be the issue, but I used CCA to the back of my truck and it corroded causing a huge voltage drop.

 

Here is a picture of the back of the panel.

 

While you’re there give it a quick check with a voltmeter. You’ll have your answer on whether the gauge works or not real fast.

 

You have described it correctly.

 

Where are you grounding the meter? I recall while installing my power in bed, an improper ground yielded the same voltage as you're getting.

 

The meter is grounded to the fuse block installed next to the storage cubby. The fuse block is grounded to the negative point the battery is attached to in the engine compartment.

 

I’ll bow out as there is some good help here and I don’t want to add confusion to it, but I do have two other suggestions before leaving:

instead of a fuse that stays on all the time, I put a switchable circuit breaker on the positive line near my battery so I can shut off the entire circuit to the bed when not in use- I was concerned about the hot wire running through my frame as it could be chewed or rubbed raw by accident. Also, running a high amp ground circuit through the length of the frame from the bed back to the battery could cause a ground fault in other circuits if it goes bad- I suggest also running a negative wire back to the battery if doing it for high amp switching items like refrigerators and tools.

 

Thanks for posting the pic.. but I was hoping for a little more clarity. My (almost) 70 year old eyes are having trouble following where all the wires go. If you open the panel again, try for better focus if possible.

 

Put other metering sources on your battery and make sure it isn't a range or resolution issue. For instance the cheapo harbor freight voltmeter #96308 will read a 9 volt battery as 8 even though its really 9.65v, it reads the car battery as 11v when its really 13.6.

 

Update....

Thanks to everyone who weighed in. After going through all of your advice (it was all very helpful) I thought it through and decided try a few things. I disconnected the positive wire from the switch I had installed to isolate the volt gauge and ran the positive directly from the fuse block. Voila! it all works! Either the switch was bad or the connection. As there is an on/off button on the gauge itself I will rely on that rather than the switch.



Thanks for all your help!

 

fyi, that on/off button on the gauge is only for the display, and doesn't effect power to the usb ports.

 

Thank you for that clarification. It helps. I will have to make sure that I turn it off as it is a constant draw (though I would imagine a very very small one) when the truck is not running. Either way I had a switch to monitor. Now all of the outlets will be hot but not draw power unless something is plugged into them.

 

If the switch on the USB device only turns off the display, the USB ports may still be drawing power even with nothing plugged into them. Can you post a link to your actual device?

 

My volt meter is wired direct to the battery. It always shows the voltage

The light is wired to the dash lights.

In my case the slight draw appears not to effect things it can sit 10 days plus with no problems.