Submitted by TrystanLea on Mon, 01/11/2010 - 11:34.
Hey thanks Joachim! From what Jason says he is using two clamps because: "in most US homes, the electricity comes in as 220v on 3 main lines. Some appliances, like ovens and clothes dryers, are connected to these 220v lines directly. However, by using just one of the lines, the power is reduced to 110v for all the wall outlets. Usually, a home’s electrical wiring is divided into two sections. One line (known as a leg) powers one section of the home and the other line powers the other side. To get the total power usage in my house, I put an AC clamp on both legs and added the measurements together."
It seams that in my home I can put a clamp over one wire and measure all electricity consumption in the house and so if you have similar wiring to what I have you should be fine with one.
As for voltage yes you can certainly measure it at one outlet, I dont think you would want to measure it in the breaker box... I have been using a standard step down AC to AC transformer pluged in to one of the house outlets to measure voltage recently, something I intend to write up here as soon as I can. Maybe if you want have a go at the current measurment first and add the voltage measurment later?
Trystan
Hey thanks Joachim! From what
Hey thanks Joachim! From what Jason says he is using two clamps because: "in most US homes, the electricity comes in as 220v on 3 main lines. Some appliances, like ovens and clothes dryers, are connected to these 220v lines directly. However, by using just one of the lines, the power is reduced to 110v for all the wall outlets. Usually, a home’s electrical wiring is divided into two sections. One line (known as a leg) powers one section of the home and the other line powers the other side. To get the total power usage in my house, I put an AC clamp on both legs and added the measurements together."
It seams that in my home I can put a clamp over one wire and measure all electricity consumption in the house and so if you have similar wiring to what I have you should be fine with one.
As for voltage yes you can certainly measure it at one outlet, I dont think you would want to measure it in the breaker box... I have been using a standard step down AC to AC transformer pluged in to one of the house outlets to measure voltage recently, something I intend to write up here as soon as I can. Maybe if you want have a go at the current measurment first and add the voltage measurment later?
Trystan