Re: Household electrical current to Excel ???

[Vlad <Bla@xxxxxxx>]

If you have access to surplus Radio Frequency meters of the type used
on broadcast stations ( transmitter's site) and you can break your
power line to insert a meter, open the meter's case and attach a
couple of wires to the internal meter connections, after the
thermocouple.
The meter will display the r.m.s. current and will give you a dc
connection to the outside
Connect the 2 wires to a voltmeter with a serial output and you can
display all the information you need and/or use excel for further
manipulation.

Those meters are very precise and usually available from surplus
places.

Advantages are that they measure r.m.s current, disadvantages are that
they are very sensitive to overload.  You apply twice the maximum
current and the thermocouple is finished.

Vlad

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:24:00 +0100, "Declan McEvoy" <ngacs@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I want to be able to monitor electrical usage in the home in real time and
>to be able to see the effects of for example turning off the TV or turning
>on the water heating in graphical or numeric form.
>
>I looking for opinions on the best way(s) and product(s) for doing this.
>
>Presumably one would simply measure the electrical current drawn from the
>consumer board and send this reading to the PC using some kind of data
>acquisition board and software?
>
>I'm really not all that familiar with the products that are out there for
>doing this and would appreciate any help / opinions.
>
>I trolled Deja News and so apologise if it has been aired before!
>
>
>Declan.
>