Digital Wattmeters!

[topspeed]

I got a digital watt meter made inb China and installed it inb my turbine.

It gave no reading.

It says 6,5-100 volts / 20 A.

So how much do you think it consumes electricity itself ?

I mean does it start showing something like after 6.5 V x 2 A = 13 watts ?

[Mary B]

Many require a separate power supply to work...

[OperaHouse]

I've had some that only need 3ma to work, LED ones take about 20ma.  Assume with a wind turbine is charging a battery, so the battery will supply the power all the time. If just feeding into a load, it won't start working till about 6.5V is generated.

[topspeed]

I've had some that only need 3ma to work, LED ones take about 20ma.  Assume with a wind turbine is charging a battery, so the battery will supply the power all the time. If just feeding into a load, it won't start working till about 6.5V is generated.

Yes...I had it working on very low speed wind.

[taylorp035]

I have one in my Christmas windmill.  I have a separate power supply to run the meter through the receiver wire port.   It draws only a few mA.   This combined with my mechanical relay uses 40 mA total, but I don't remember the exact split.   4 volts is not enough to run it, hence the separate power supply.

[OperaHouse]

I have a Peacefair Model that had no external supply input. I modified it to work on two lithium batteries in series. When at voltage, it charges the batteries with 5ma from a simple voltage drop resistor and diode.  These currents are so small that no charge controller is needed.  They were discarded batteries so no loss if damaged.  It has been working for years.  This was right off of solar panel and slow wakeup from early morning voltage often did strange things like reset the WH count or cause voltage not to be displayed. I have this on my water heater controller which is independent.

[topspeed]

I might need a condensator on it to work...is that right ?