Non-resetting inline power usage meter

[Pete Verdon]

I'm currently making arrangements to store and work on a boat. The owner of the land can probably supply electricity, and I have offered to pay for what I use. I'm looking for a suitable meter that can be wired inline (probably into a conventional extension lead) to record usage. I would just use one of the myriad plug-in meters, except that these tend to forget the cumulative figures when unplugged, and that could be very inconvenient. I don't need ultra-accurate calibrated metering, and want to spend as little as possible on something I probably won't use again.

Any suggestions?

Pete

[John Walliker]

Have a look on eBay. There are usually lots of electricity meters for minimal cost.

John

[Dave Osborne]

Cheap and cheerful:

You can buy a reconditioned electricity meter for £12 +VAT

e.g.

would need to make some kind of arrangement to put it in a box and have inlet and outlet connections.

==========

A little more bijou and compact:

Buy a DIN Rail-mounting kWh meter and put it in an IP65 small consumer unit:

e.g. eBay

a box to put it in:

e.g. eBay

glands:

e.g. aBay

[js.b1]

Use the DIN rail version with a boat - with an RCD :-) Just check how long it handles outages depending on where you locate it w.r.t. RCD if you need power on when not there (dehumidifier for boat, heater, pump, missile silo whatever).

Where is the supply?

- Half a mile across a field means a long walk to reset an RCD, or you need 526-06-6 compliant cable which means a long run of sized accordingly armoured with CW glands.

- Relatively close means a short walk to the RCD and you can use Arctic or H07RNF as necessary. Marque suppliers do cable cheaply (about 89p for 1.5mm, 99p for 2.5mm).