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Question
By Bach On, Section Homebrewed Electricity Posted on Sat Nov 08, 2003 at 06:32:55 AM MST
Watt meter

I bought one of those manual transfer switches used to wire a generator to your electrical panel. This was one with a bad circuit breaker. I have a better one now, so the old one is surplus.
These came with 2 "Watt Meters" to help you monitor power use. Does anyone know if I could use these meters as part of a wind/solar system to monitor use? I really don't know how they work or if they are calibrated only for 120 volt current.
Any thoughts out there?
Bach On!

Question | 4 comments (4 topical)

Re: Question (none / 0) (#1)
by drdongle on Sat Nov 08, 2003 at 07:04:22 AM MST

You can use them on the output of your inverter(s).
I would suspect that they have 4 leads, one to the common white and two that splice in to the black ( hot) lead, one will be for the black wire from the inverter and the other for the black wire to the load and lastly a ground.

Dr.D
Carpe Vigor, Dr.D

Re: Question (none / 0) (#2)
by bob golding on Sat Nov 08, 2003 at 03:19:36 PM MST

be careful about using watt meters with "modified sine wave" inverters. they are designed for use with 50/60 hz sine waves. i have a plug in type that shows al sorts of crazy readings from the inverter. works fine on mains.

still having fun
bob

Re: Question (none / 0) (#3)
by Scott on Sun Nov 09, 2003 at 07:28:57 PM MST

I have a pile of old meters including watt meters. I use a 0 - 150watt meter to monitor a small tape drive mill. Hooks up like ampmeter to positive output from mill and also to mill output voltage, amps x volts = watts. I like it, I have a smaller 0 - 50watt meter I might put on my 30W solar panel to see what it's putting out.

Scott

Re: More questions (none / 0) (#4)
by Bach On on Sun Nov 09, 2003 at 07:48:31 PM MST

Thanks for the responses guys.

These watt meters have a scale ranging to 3,750 watts. They were each wired to monitor 3 of the six circuits for a genset of up to 7,500 watts.

I had considered using them with a modified sine wave converter. I doubted they would be real accurate since they probably aren't RMS. But they might at least get me in the ballpark to determine the power being drawn. I have a volt meter on it already. Why not a wattmeter too?

Does anyone know if these can also be wired to work with DC? Somehow, I doubt it.

Bach On!

- - I'm not superman, but I am very dense! -

Question | 4 comments (4 topical)

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