Heavy Duty Kill A Watt Project Completed - see pix

MrWizard wrote:
BFL13 I can measure everything or any one thing from here by turning off circuit breakers
The KAW was on different outlet's for the two different converters

And I don't think both converters were in use when I made my comparison measurements for VA spike

Yes,it was one at a time with the KAW. I was thinking of voltage drop where this one sees 124 instead of 119. If so you would get different answers depending where you tried it from?

BFL13 I can measure everything or any one thing from here by turning off circuit breakers
The KAW was on different outlet's for the two different converters

And I don't think both converters were in use when I made my comparison measurements for VA spike

Marvin
When it was 105* and I slipped up and let the inverter generator run out of gas,
Once I restarted The generator, it kept going into over load, when turning things back on

It was the heat factor, the inverter electronics, de-rated the output

All I could run was the the A/C, I could not power the the Converter or the fridge
I turned off the converter no battery charging, and put the fridge on inverter/battery only,

I wanted a way to measure and monitor total RV use, as well as large hard wired devices like the A/C units

So I found a good power meter and built a heavy duty kill a watt device

This thing can tell me how much power I'm really using, from generator or shore, and show me if I'm getting too close to the listed limits,or the new hot limit, by observing what value triggers an overload
It even counts kWh if you want that function

And yes it is handy for us tech types, we can use it to answer such questions as can I use two charge converters at the same time etc..

MrWizard wrote:
Quick test of both converters
124.1v. 21.70 amps. ...2692.97va. 1996.2 watts. Cos/PF 0.742

Voltage here is higher than the previous KAW measurements from the same gen. Is that from being at the generator end of the shore power cable instead of at the converter's end?

If so, then comparisons should be from the same situation when using these kinds of meters.

Horizon170 wrote:
MrWizzard, I guess I'm dumb but what is the purpose of this contraption. Is it for you HIGH TECH guys or does the average (once in a while) camper need it?
Thanks,

I think this would be unnecessary overkill for the average camper. It's sometimes interesting to techies to see the information, but most of it is beyond the needs of just plain camping.

The AC voltage is a good measurement to have, doubly so if one doesn't have an EMS unit that will cut off power if it's out of spec. There are cheaper and easier ways to check the voltage, though.

The current is somewhat useful, but not essential.

The apparent power is just current multiplied by voltage. There are times when it's useful to know, but it's also not hard to compute if needed. Actual power (which this gizmo doesn't show) is also a handy figure to have, albeit for somewhat different purposes.

The frequency is entirely eye candy for most people. I suppose it could be handy if you need to adjust the governor on a (non-inverter) generator.

EDIT: Threads about power monitoring gizmos got mixed up in my mind. Ignore the bit about frequency (which doesn't exist here) and actual power not existing here. Maybe I need to replenish the caffeine in my system....

MrWizard wrote:
yeah.. that line is in there

i think that line is in there to prevent people from trying to measure cheap MSW inverters, that might have really high spikes in the square wave output

Perhaps the design is similar to the Kill A Watt which does not work on MSW inverters in spite of the fact that it claims to be true RMS.

MrWizzard, I guess I'm dumb but what is the purpose of this contraption. Is it for you HIGH TECH guys or does the average (once in a while) camper need it?
Thanks,

yeah.. that line is in there

and im using 60 HZ 3100w Champion inverter Generator

works great

i think that line is in there to prevent people from trying to measure cheap MSW inverters, that might have really high spikes in the square wave output

MrWizard

Your meter looks great. Thanks for the post.

Did the bottom line of the User Guide read like this. If it is like this what did you do to use 60Hz electricity or was anything needed.

The meter can only use to measure 50Hz A C city electricity, it will be destroyed when use to measure square wave, output of inverter and correction sine wave.


Thanks

Quick test of both converters
124.1v. 21.70 amps. ...2692.97va. 1996.2 watts. Cos/PF 0.742