Voltmeter on House Current

[George E. Cawthon]

There are lots of English conventions and that is certainly one--no more that 2 of the same consonant in a row. Since you can possibly pronounce it, and written language is just a graphic translation of speech, three consonants in a row doesn't make sense. Similarly, "u" has to follow a "q" in English. Modern use does allow spelling of some foreign words without the "u". Don't really know why it is allowed with Arabic since the alphabets don't have a one-to-one relationship any more than Cyrillic does to English. On the other hand, advertisers spell anything anyway that they want, but those spelling remain substandard or unacceptable.

[JimL]

Last week I finally bought a 'digital clamp multimeter - item 42396'.

I rushed home and clamped it around the power cord of the computer that I leave on all the time. I wanted to know how many amps it was drawing or how much money I'm wasting by not shutting it down. It read zero of course, as I guess you need to hook it around one side of the line at a time, right?

[Harry Everhart]

Advertisers spell word different for two reasons.

1. They can copyright the spelling and no one else can use it. Example - "jello"
2. When you do a search on the internet - it is easy to find - example "ipod"

[Duane Bozarth]

And, depending on the range of the meter, it may not read accurately at all

[Harry Everhart]

You can do that with the Kill A Watt that I bought at True Value for $9.

Right now my Mac Powerbook G4 is drawing .57 Amps.

Kill A Watt is neat.

See one at -

They say it is $27 there - but I only paid $9 for mine.

[m Ransley]

Clamp ons are realy made for the mains panel, I made up a 12" intermediate plug with 3 separate wires for cheching apliances, But for accuracy to 0.01A Digital you need to go to an electric supply house HD etc models go only to 0.1A unless you get an expensive unit. 0.01A digital is good for finding shorts , many houses loose to ground and people dont know it.

[Duane Bozarth]

My point precisely--JimL was trying out his new meter on his PC and I was just noting even if he splits the power cord he's likely to not get anything meaningful...

[webmaster]

Ahh...thats where you take your clamp on, and use it with your 10 wrap that you can buy that allows you to plug into the outlet and then plug into it.

[JimL]

[Ralph Mowery]

YOu need to clamp the meter around only one wire in the cable. Make sure it is not the ground wire either. There should be no current on the normally green ground wire. If it is you have major wiring problems. You may want to make up something like a short (about a foot long) dropcord with 3 seperate wires to make the measuring easy.

[webmaster]

A clamp meter wont tell you anything of use, unless you are simply seeing if the compressor is near its RLA, and of course, it will vary depending on the temps... A megger is what you want.

Sure you can..wait till that sucker derails..LOL Just ask Snowball.

Oh...and thank GE for that long running compressor....not Trane.

[SJF]

What a deal! But I asked the purchasing guy at our local True Value. He'd never heard of Kill-A-Watt and sure didn't have one in the store. --- SJF

[Harry Everhart]

I got it over the Christmas break in December 2004 - last Christmas - at the True Value M&S Hardware Store in Tamaqua, PA. I have been using it ever since - here at our home in FL. Right now I have the computer plugged into it - and it is drawing .45 amps and 24 watts. It is also showing 59.9 cps and 119.5 volts. When I hook up my electric chainsaw to it - it draws 8 amps when it starts and then drops to 6 amps while it is running.

Here is a place that has it for - $26

I am sorry I can't help you out any better than this.

Funny - my wife was with me when I bought it - and she thought it was stupid then and stupid now :-) Don't women know how neat it is to measure the electric you are using? :-)

Harry

Harry

[m Ransley]

Harry, let her pay the utilities, then she wont find it so stupid.

[Doug Boulter]

Duane Bozarth wrote on 15 Apr 2005:

Hmmmmmm, good question!

[Backlash]

Most women I've encountered don't seem to give a rat's ass about how something works. They just want it TO work, and RIGHT NOW! Famous line when you're showing your wife something. "But what does it DO?"

RJ

[m Ransley]

I imagine with your 2 electric tanks, going gas tankless wlll save you

600 - 900 a year. I save 3- 350 a year net converting to Ng tankless an 82% efficient unit, plus you are offered 900 to do it. Is electric use graphed out separatly. I will bet that is your big user.

[tm]

[Harry Everhart]

Winter or summer - fall or spring - or utility bill seems to always be about $300 a month here in FL. One bill covers - electric - gas - water

- sewage - fire protection - garbage - runoff water. You pay the city - the bill breaks it all down for you.

Neat thing about Tallahassee - you can go online and type in any address and see their utility bills - it is all graphed out for you. You can also see the taxes. You can go back in history on the bills too.

The city will also give you a $450 rebate for replacing and electric water heater with a gas one.

Harry

[m Ransley]

Thats Takagi 92% Ng 95% propane, you forgot who mailed you the info Harry.