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Current Clamp meter that measures energy?

walter-

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Jan 31, 2021
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Hi All,
Is there a Clamp current meter on the market that is able to measure 'energy' in Ah?
All those I checked have just Current (A), not Current over time (Ah). Where is seems to me easy to add this feature.

Any thoughts?
I know there are brands with a app that has some monitoring options. But that seems over complicated for what measuring Ah would be. And a Clamp meter will last propable 20 years (at least my multi meter does); I doubt we still have apps or devices running those apps in 20 years.

thanks in advance for your replies!

Walter
 
I believe what you need is a capacity tester. To measure capacity it has to be done over time. At least that's my understanding. I have not capacity tested my cells.
 
All those I checked have just Current (A), not Current over time (Ah). Where is seems to me easy to add this feature.
Why not use the clamp meter to measure amps and use your watch to measure time. The math to get ah is pretty easy from there.
 
Why not use the clamp meter to measure amps and use your watch to measure time. The math to get ah is pretty easy from there.
That would be possible if i had a lot of time when for example measuring the consumption of a refrigerator. Maybe the time is not the real issue, but it will be a boring time ;-). I could watch netflix when the meter takes the measurement.

There are indeed a lot of out other devices, but none as simple as a clamp meter. And that makes it a pity no one adds a 'counter' of current in the clampmeter - or at least it seems like that.
 
Not a clamp option but these work well for monitoring use. I have them for use around my home. You can check your use with the app.
Smaller and more compact than a standard kilowatt meter. ?

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How do use that in a 12V systeem?
I assumed your refrigerator was AC (sorry).

The kill-a-watt would easily measure the “consumption of your (AC) refrigerator” as i implied what you stated.
Certainly a must have tool if not for this case.
 
I would also like to find something as easy and cheap as the Kill-A-Watt is with AC for low voltage DC applications.

A hall effect or shunt based energy monitor seems like it would do the trick, I don't have one specifically to recommend, but its the closest thing I can think of. (something like this)
 
The easy part for the clamp meter is that you don't have to change the circuit. You just need access to a wire.
I indeed ran into the Kill-a-watt stuff: but indeed only low DC.
Your amazon reference was already on my amazon cart ;-). But it is a difficult device to quickly check something in a van.
 
Why not use the clamp meter to measure amps and use your watch to measure time. The math to get ah is pretty easy from there.
It is easy if the load is perfectly constant - it is hard/impossible if the load changes a lot. Some sort of integration scheme is needed for a dynamic load.

12v/24v halogen lights are the most stable load available for low cost and would work well for capacity testing. Inverters tend to make a bunch of switching noise as they take gulps of current - not a continuous flow.
 
I would also like to find something as easy and cheap as the Kill-A-Watt is with AC for low voltage DC applications.

A hall effect or shunt based energy monitor seems like it would do the trick, I don't have one specifically to recommend, but its the closest thing I can think of. (something like this)
You could replace the shunt with something like this: http://www.hantek.com/products/detail/77

Output is either 100mV/A or 10mV/A. You can scale these down to "simulate" almost any shunt value with two resistor divider.

DC hall sensors have tendency to drift over time so don't expect to measure small currents with this kind of setup.
WAG anything below 100mA or 2.4Ah per day is hit and miss.
 
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