Cheap ammeter for power hungry RV's

DrewE wrote:
I have one of those little panel meters too. It works very nicely, and gives more precise (and I think more accurate) current readings than the PI EMS unit does. (In particular, I think it does a better job with non-sinusoidal currents that switching power supplies with a poor power factor have.)

By the way, CT in this case stands for "current transformer", not "center tapped." There is no center tap on the coil since there are only two wires. The primary of the transformer is the wire that goes through the donut, and the magnetic field generated by the current flow is detected by the coil wound on the donut core.

These units (at least mine) does measure actual power, not apparent power; the current reading multiplied by the voltage reading does not necessarily equal the power reading.

I would suggest the installation of a (small value, 120VAC rated) fuse in the hot voltage sense lead. This is particularly needed if the wires between the power source and the meter are at all long and are smaller gauge than the wiring at the voltage source.