"Solenoid meter" is the only thing I've ever heard it called besides a Wiggy. Wiggy is (I think) Square D's brand name for a solenoid meter.
A solenoid meter does not have a needle. It has a plunger that gets sucked into a solenoid, the depth of which depends on the voltage. A real Wiggy also has a polarity indicating magnet on top. Some other brands have neon bulbs mounted on the plunger to aid in seeing it. It is a low impedance device that does not respond to leakage current.
My friend had symptoms similar to yours. Turned out it was a "floating" neutral, the neutral wire down the mast and into the meter was loose on the "house" side connector of the hydro meter.Of course Hydro at first said nothing was wrong, but my buddy is a pretty smart guy and had to hire an electrician to pull the meter, they found the lug loose, hydro still wouldn't pay up but his fluctuating voltages and flickering lites were now cured. He first confirmed this by lugging a wire at the neutral, where it went into the mast (the big bare cable) and ran it directly to the neutral in his fuse panel, this cured the problem so he knew there was a problem from the mast to the panel. This may or may not be your problem but it was his.
Then you ought to be able to use a digital voltmeter with an appropriate (high resistance -- not like one for a current meter) shunt to achieve the same result.
CJT wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net:
snip
You'd think so, but it isn't true. Digital meters are fine for accurate measurement of a stable voltage but lousy for fluctuations where you can get an inkling of what's happening with an analog meter, wiggie or otherwise, but not with a digital readout. The way things are, analog meters will remain useful for the foreseeable future. I have both digital and analog meters. I usually prefer using the analog meter.
Watch someone come along and suggest using an oscilloscope for this problem.
do you remember LPs, music on vinyl? they were the means for storage of an analog representation of sound on a media capable of containing the entire full linear spectrum of a line.
with the correct components comprising the system: i.e. pre amp, amp, turntable and speakers music sure did sound much better back then. a fuller more complete sound with harmonics.
with analog to digital conversions, line sampling by picking points on the line in order to reproduce the analog signal in a digital format leaves a lot of information out of the reconstructed information stream. all has to do with mathematically speaking of how a line is actually an infinite series of points with there always being a point in-between any two picked points that is being left out.
CD - half the music and dog gone near twice the price. if the industry had said, CDs for people who can not hear well and vinyl will still be pressed for those who can hear, but we're going to charge twice the price for vinyl, I'd paid it. oh well, that did not work out.
reminds me of how industry sold everyone VCR machines and then made those obsolete by moving the format to DVD machines. one thing is for sure and that's how getting caught up in materialism leads one to chase and spend money in pursuit of satisfaction that just can't quite seem to be retained.
thank you God for setting me free of satan and his thievery.
I did. I googled solenoid meter and solenoid meter wiggy. I forget the details but didn't find anything relevant, except when I looked up solenoid in the dictionary, apparently it means any coil, not just one with a moving metal plunger. No one I know uses the word that way, but I figured the OP might.
Also, why would you need a solenoid meter such as you describe, when it seems to me any low impedance meter would work?
Are you saying it has to have lower impedance than a classic simpson VOM for example, or any meter made in the 60's and earlier? IIRC they are 30,000 or 50,000 ohms per volt.
That would be surprising to me, and the lower the imdedance the more the circuit is affected by the meter.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
If you insist. Of course, you still have to keep the meter in view and have enough light to read it. The Wiggy buzzes and vibrates when energized. After a little experience, one doesn't need to look at the thing to see what it's reading.
Right tool for the job and all that. I can cut down a tree with a coping saw but with a chainsaw close at hand, why? Wiggys are cheap and really are the right tool for the job of troubleshooting power electrics.
The first hit on "wiggy voltage tester" was to Home Depot ($19.95) The second was to Square D's site:
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Several reasons, in no particular order. It's cheap enough to have one everywhere, even leaving them inside machine cabinets.
It indicates if the voltage is AC or DC - quite important when a cabinet has mixed voltages. It's a real pisser to tie into a 250VDC bus because your meter set to AC reads zero.
It draws enough current to burn through corroded and otherwise bad connections while not being affected by coupled potentials, ground loops and so on.
It covers the full range from about 50 volts to 600 without range switching. No digital nor analog instrument does that, at least without range switching which takes time. There is at least a little response on 24vdc. I can walk down a terminal strip in a cabinet looking for the line voltage without worrying about high voltage DC or even higher voltage AC affecting my meter.
I don't have to look at the thing. I can feel and hear its operation. I can even slip it in my shirt pocket and still feel it operate.
The Wiggy is totally unaffected by RF. Try using a DVM (except maybe a high end Fluke) inside a large transmitter or around an induction furnace. Even the venerable old Simpson sometimes acts up when the meter protection diodes pick up enough RF.
I could probably think of a few more benefits but that's enough for now.
Yep. I can't seem to find a spec on the thing but I'd guess that it draws at least a half amp on 120vac. Almost all reactive power, of course, so no significant wattage involved. I know that the prods draw a pretty significant spark on 480vac.
When diagnosing power circuits, that's exactly what you want. I don't want a DVM or even a Simpson 260 sitting there reading leakage current through the blown fuse. And I don't want to be chasing my *ss trying to find out why the circuit is still "hot" despite having opened the breaker because my meter is reading stray current coupled into the conductor from others in the conduit. This is a special problem when there are lots of variable speed drives about with their high harmonics.
Of course, the opposite holds too. A Wiggy is like a bull in the china shop inside an instrument cabinet. I can think of more than one nuclear plant trip caused by a spark-trician poking his Wiggy where it didn't belong. We actually banned Wiggys from the instrument rooms at the Sequoyah NP.
Like I said, the right tool for the right job.
BTW, something I'd forgotten until Google reminded me of it. "Wiggy" is the abbreviated name for the inventor of the thing. "Wiggingham Voltage Tester" is the formal name.
If you want to learn about a wiggy, look under its' true name... Wiggington.
Once you have diagnosed a case of "open neutral", it will stick with you. It can be very hard on equipment both from under voltage on one leg, and over voltage on the opposite leg.
I hope they don't send a dumba$$ like my power company did. I had reported an open neutral and this jerk condemned my underground service (350 CCM copper) without even checking the transformer connections. He was arranging for a temporary feed laying on the ground until I could dig a new trench for the new service. A call to his supervisor finally convinced him to climb the pole. Yep! He found the problem... loose neutral, as I had already reported.
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