Aviation Training Tip: Ammeters vs Loadmeters

0:00After watching this quick tip video, be sure to check out our website at Wi-Fi-CFI.com. Our online aviation courses include Study Courses for the private pilot, instrument rating, commercial pilot, CFI, CFWI, and multi-engine app on Study Courses. All of these include videos, podcasts, quizzes, flashcards, audiobooks, practice FAA exams, check-ride workbooks, and more. We also have courses for just the check-ride lesson plans. These are to teach on those flight instructor check-rides. We've got the CFI, the CFWI, and the MEI add-on lesson plans. They all come in PowerPoint, PDF, and dot formats, word formats. They're downloadable, customizable, printable. They've got animations, diagrams, images, included quizzes, and more. Additionally, we have teaching courses. If you're a flight instructor already and you want to teach your students, you can teach your private pilot instrument rating, commercial pilot, CFI initial, and CFWI add-on students with flight syllabi, lesson plans, homework assignments,

1:07binders, and tracking, quizzes, logbook audits, endorsements, and more. And you can try every single one of our courses for free for as long as you would like at Wi-Fi-CFI.com. We also need to talk about the differences between ammeters and load meters. Ammeters, they show if the alternator or generator is producing an adequate supply of power. It also indicates the battery charge or depletion. Designed with a zero point in the center, plus 60 amps minus 60 amps over here. A positive indication means that the battery is being charged. If this is over here to the positive side, that means that we are powering our system. So we're powering up, we have enough power for all of our electrical components in the airplane, and the battery is getting a charge. That's great, that's what we want. If this needle is over in the negative side, that means that the battery is

2:07being depleted. So either our alternator generator is weak, we have too many electrical components on, and the alternator generator is not able to keep up with the load. And so we are drawing off of the battery. That is not a good indication in flight. You would want to go land somewhere at that point, because you're probably or start turning off electrical components that you don't need and see if this comes back up and then have a mechanic check it when you get to wherever you're going. All right, so that's amateurs. Load meters. This gauge has a scale beginning with zero and shows the load being placed on the alternator. It reflects the load placed on the electrical system by the electrical accessories and battery. So this one doesn't have a negative indication. We're starting on the left with a zero, and it's just going to tell us how much of a load we're putting onto the onto the system. Are we doing 30 amps, 60 amps, 40 amps, 10 amps, whatever? When all

3:10electrical components are turned off, it reflects the amount of charging current to the battery. So we turn everything off. If this needle shows a little bit of a positive charge right here, that just means that it's charging the battery. Cool, electrical load, that's it. Depending on your aircraft, you may have an ammeter, you may have a load meter. So know which one that you have and know the indications and exactly how it works by checking your pH, but that is the generals of how they work.