Book or tutorial for 12V DC?

[Zelph]

Sorry for the newbie question. All my limited electric experience is with 120 AC.
is there a book or a good tutorial that explains how 12 volt dc automotive works?
im reading all these threads with electric issues and it would be nice to have a better understanding of what the responses are talking about.

Tia for the replies.

 

[Finkaire]

simple, positive and ground. The chassis of the car is grounded to the ground terminal on the battery. The positive cable runs to the fuse box where wires are fused to individual circuits which are then grounded to the chassis. Anything electric can be turned on or off by interrupting the circuit. Relays are used as triggers to complete circuits in some cases. Alternators have a wire that goes directly to the battery for charging.
Im talking old school, modern cars are computerized.
You can pull up a schematic for your individual truck which will tell you exactly where each individual wire goes. Make sense?

 

[fast 99]

Takes about 14v to charge a battery, system actually operates near 14v. If points, coil uses approx 9v through a resistor. There is always some AC voltage but should be less than .10 v.

 

[Camar068]

AC neutral = negative in a 12v ckt. Positive is always the high voltage.

Troubleshooting standard 120V is no different than troubleshooting standard DC. Change your meter to DC instead of AC. Place your reference (black) probe to ground (neutral on AC) and go to town as you did before.

As you go through the ckt....verify your ground/neutral before you move your negative lead downstream throughout the vehicle/house.

Don't make it difficult.....it's a switch on your meter, your looking for a power signal equivalent to the battery/AC source....when you lose it or it's dropped a bunch.....you likely found your problem. [edit] of course this is for a ckt that is expecting 12VDC or 120VAC. you starting running stuff in series things change.