Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Anybody have any idea who might sell a multimeter test lead this long in the UK? Looking for one with a croc clip not a probe so I can hook it up to the battery neg terminal and get me some good old fashioned earth fault finding action in the engine bay as per the wiki http://www.lotuselan.net/wiki/Lotus_Ele ... u_may_need

Maplin,Tandy, Amazon etc all draw a blank. RS have one which is 1.5m long but they want ?45

Many thanks all
Steve

What's wrong with a long piece of wire?

John

Hey John - very good point. I was planning on sacrificing the croc clip and 4mm jack on existing short lead and soldering to some regular leccy cable but the good folks at lotuselan.net (any idea who they are there? They sound very dodgy to me. Some kind of freakish plastic car cult???) emphasise the need for good quality . . .

Steve


"Long multimeter lead - 20 feet of GOOD wire with crock clip on one end (that will grip a car battery terminal or an engine block) and a multimeter plug on the other end (normally a 4mm jack plug). (all available from Tandy/Radio Shack etc) "

The battery earth connects to the chassis, can you not just connect to the chassis in the engine bay? A long piece of wire works otherwise, Maplin will sell you a croc clip and banana plug if you need them.

Most of the faults are in the earth, so you often need to go to the battery.

Just connect a set of jump leads to the battery and use the other end as your meter test point.

Great idea Galway, many thanks.
S

Dangerous to use two such leads! The free end crock clips might touch each other.

You only need one lead, to the earthed battery terminal.

billwill wrote:Dangerous to use two such leads! The free end crock clips might touch each other.

You only need one lead, to the earthed battery terminal.

My jump leads are siamesed and the croc clips are insulated. I should, however, have clarified that I only connect the earth lead for this operation!

http://www.tester.co.uk/pvc-cable-reel- ... ander-lead


Is 50m long enough?

Jon the Chief

At 50m you have to start considering voltage drop. At least with a 3m or 5m jump lead, the cable cross section is large enough that you can disregard voltage drop at low voltage (12V).