Love this. I saw this meter on Amazon, and couldn't figure out HOW to connect it. A schematic perhaps would help me.
Are all the connections on the 240 supply before the ESVE?? I couldn't tell from the pictures. Can you help me ??
Dr Alex
Houston
Have you done much wiring? Any little wiring projects in the home? You need a rudimentary understanding of "hot" "neutral" and "ground", or I wouldn't attempt it. But if you know what those three terms mean you are good to go. The meter comes with a schematic.
Here's a brief description of the connections as I made them. And this is from memory, so I could screw this up, but it should give you the basic idea.
The meter comes with a ring-shaped magnet. You have to run either the "hot" or "neutral" through it. NOT BOTH. Only one or the other.
The ring-shaped magnet has two wires attached to it when you get it. You don't have to attach them. You just land them on the meter, based on the schematic that comes with the meter. The meter has 4 terminals, and this occupies two of them. So, with the "hot" or "neutral" going through the magnet, the meter can now read the current flow.
The meter has to sense the voltage. To do this you connect a wire to the "hot" and land it on the meter, again just landing it where the schematic shows. And you also connect a wire to the "neutral" and land it on the meter. These two wires are identical to the probes on a home electrical meter that you would touch to a pair of wires to see if they had voltage, or touch to the terminals on a battery to test its voltage.
When I say "you connect a wire to the 'hot'", one way to do this would be to cut the "hot" wire, and then use a wire nut to connect the two ends you just cut plus a third wire. Then you land the other end of the third wire on the meter, so now the meter is connected to the "hot" and can sense it. You can do the same with the "neutral".
Hope this helps. If you buy the meter and can't connect it, return it to Amazon and nothing lost!
One note: I used 18 ga wire for my voltage sensing wires mentioned above. Don't use bigger wire as the meter won't really take it, and if you short the voltage you'll destroy the meter. I also used silicone to seal the connections at the meter for a little home-grown water proofing.