ttoyoda, what a well reasoned post. I was going to chime in to say "voltmeter" until I read that.
Very nicely explained - thanks.
And this coming from an EV driver.
Thank you. Unfortunately for me almost everything I have learned has come from some sort of (usually repeated) near-miss or disaster, large or small. Like the time I touched an electric fence in the dark twice, because I could not believe it had shocked me the first time.
Only once in a while do I have an opportunity to learn from someone ELSES disaster, e.g. why I don't want power windows.
Are there any off the shelf remote-sender ammeters for auto use?
I have never seen one, (being cheap) I just use the mv meter and the alternator cable as a shunt. If you are going to use a moving coil meter, then a (center zero if you want to read discharges, means different hookup) meter movement that is about a microamp full scale has a reasonable internal resistance to give a reading directly, but if you are going to try that then start off by putting resistors in line with the meter movement to make sure you do not peg the needle right off the bat.
Ideally, the connection to the alternator cable would be to the crimped lug just away from where the threaded stud goes thru the terminal hole, so that changes in the resistance of the contact at the terminals do not have any effect on the results. I am usually lazy and just use big ring terminals, use the threaded stud with the meter ring terminal on last.