Dome light issue
Ayyyyyyyyyyyy this did it. Swapped the fuse and everything is gravy. I've never really seen the use for a test light before now. Fuse looks good, ohms fine but the second I swapped it bam. Thank you!
That is a good lesson. LOADING a circuit often shows off problems that a voltmeter and especially ohmeter often does not
A couple of useful tools for this:
First of course a common probe mounted test lamp. I use both LED sometimes but more often a LAMP type test lamp, because it puts a little load on the circuit
Sometimes you want MORE load. For that, rustle up a useable stop/ turn lamp socket and an 1157 lamp. You can wire this several ways to provide more or less loading:
HIGH wattage lots of load.........connect to the shell of the test fixture and wire both wires together and use the two wires together as the second connection. You have two filaments in parallel
SLIGHTLY LESS load......use the shell and the stop filament
LESS YET Use the shell and the tail filament
Even more "less.' Dont connect the shell, but rather use the two pigtail wires for your two connections. This puts the two filaments in series for "less" wattage
A REALLY HEAVY load.......scare up an old headlamp with at least one good filament. That's about a 50W lamp
AN EXAMPLE of how useful these might be:
Let's say you have a parasitic drain..........the battery goes dead, and you can't figure what it is
Remove battery ground........Put a test lamp in series........if you put your headlight in there and it lights up pretty goo, you have a HEAVY drain, perhaps a shorted alternator
Try the heavy version of the 1157, and then step down to say series. If it lights pretty dim, you have a drain that is not near as big as a short
Let's say the test lamp (the store one) lights really bright........Once it has a load enough to really light up the test lamp, you need a bigger test lamp to get an idea of what you are dealing with
So you think "Why not just put my ammeter in there?" (Multimeter) You can damage it or blow an expensive meter fuse (Fluke) Because if the drain is more than the current rating of your meter (10A whatever) then the meter fuse, if there is one, is what will protect the meter from overload.
