Re: Sparrow Ammeter

[Michael Haseltine]

This question of meters, especially Lee's comments about different meter movements and their sensitivity to external influences relates to a question I have about my ammeter situation.

I pulled the innards from a nice surplus meter with a 0-50 scale on a 50mv movement and installed it in place of the gas gage in my truck (on the right in this image):

http://ag.arizona.edu/~haseltin/evinstruments2.jpg

It's one of the things I like the most about my conversion. I think it's really elegant, but it's gotten sensitive to static electricity, even waving my hand over it moves it a hundred amps or so. The last time I had the cover plastic off (the one over the whole instrument cluster, the meter doesn't have it's own cover any longer), I casually wiped the dust off it on my shirt and when I put the cover on, the needle waved all over the place.

I 'calmed it down' with my hand by discharging it as best I can, but I'm wondering if an antistatic spray would be better and more complete. Is there something I can do to the needle to make it less sensitive to static electricity so I can dust off the plastic when it needs it?