bayite DC 5-120V 100A DC Current Meter with Transformer

That's interesting and cheap enough to "Play" with.

In the Amazon description it says: "Loop through sensor multiple times to strengthen signal. For example, if your current signal is only 0.2 Amps, you could loop the wire through the sensor 10 times and the signal would by 10X stronger and would appear as 2.0 Amps."

To make the meter work, you have to disconnect a wire and run it through the sensor. Based on the above quote, if you have sufficient slack in a smaller wire, I wonder if you could fold it over and then stick the fold through the sensor. Since there would be two runs of the wire, you'd then have to divide the reading by two.

Bill

In my case I will be looking at 25AMPS DC current drain with my 12VDC loads and also will want to see how much DC Current the battery bank is demanding when I am in CHARGE MODE. Hopefully I don't have to change any wiring for this...

My OLDER XFRM Sensor does this quite easy using a MINUS symbol on the display. Hoping this one does something similar...

My homemade DC meter panel already has two each 12VDC meters to measure the static DC Voltage on each of my two banks... I have BLUE SEA Battery switches that allows me to use one bank - both banks - OFF



This tells me both battery banks are now showing 12.03VDC and my 12V loads are drawing a total of 18 DC AMPS... Its time for me to shut down and go into BOOST charge mode soon using my generator running my PD9260C to get my batteries back up to their 90% charge state in a three hour generator run time when I am camping off the grid.

The reason i need more of theses is I need to do some additional DC current monitoring for some other items and of course like to play with them too hehe...

Roy Ken

Trackrig wrote:
That's interesting and cheap enough to "Play" with.

In the Amazon description it says: "Loop through sensor multiple times to strengthen signal. For example, if your current signal is only 0.2 Amps, you could loop the wire through the sensor 10 times and the signal would by 10X stronger and would appear as 2.0 Amps."

To make the meter work, you have to disconnect a wire and run it through the sensor. Based on the above quote, if you have sufficient slack in a smaller wire, I wonder if you could fold it over and then stick the fold through the sensor. Since there would be two runs of the wire, you'd then have to divide the reading by two.

Bill

Zig-zagging or folding the wire wouldn't work because the zags cancel out the magnetic field of the zigs (and vice-versa). The gizmo measures the net current flowing through the donut. With what you describe, you have a net current of zero (since the current traveling outwards on one leg of the fold has to come back inwards on the other leg).

Cute. Three or four otter keep me happy. Kudos for the link RoyB. Might have a tussle ramming 2AWG Diesel Locomotive Wire through that shunt though.

The wire has to be disconnected anyway to go through the coil. Run a second parallel wire with 10 loops and a switch for 1X or 10X reading.

"Three or four otter keep me happy"

Mex gave me chuckle here. One of my favorite camp grounds along the Blue Ridge parkway here is named OTTER CREEK. There is also a place nearby called OTTER PEAKS and a real creek named OTTER CREEK.

SO one would assume there was OTTERS here at one time. Every time we camped there I was always looking out for OTTERs haha..

I finally researched the area and found this "With a nod to the name of the area, no river otters are known to have inhabited this area"

Turn out it was apparently named after some local homeland of a couple of guys coming to this area from Ireland...

I have seen otters playing at the Wichita Mtn Wildlife Refuge in OKLAKHOMA however haha...

Roy Ken

Mine arrived last week, and I tested it against other ammeters, not knowing which one to believe. They were generally within 10% of each other. My Sears clampmeter needs new AAA alkalines as they are in the 1.21v range and Nimh's in it had readings off by 25% when i first got it.

The bayite only has a 0.2a resolution and indicates negative amperage not with a - sign before the number but a period after the decimal placed number.

I found the voltage to be 0.2v out of line with reality, there is no voltage calibration potentiometer.

What I want to find is some nice flat 3 wire ribbon type cable. like which came with the device, so I can locate the sensor further away from display, cleanly. The 6.5 feet provided is not enough, given my intended locations.

I intend to measure total alternator current with it with display visible from drivers seat, initially, but will likely move sensor to another wire to display amps into and out of battery after enough data is collected.

The sensor says it is only good to 140F so no engine compartment mounting locations.

I wish the display were red instead of green, but Oh well.

landyacht318 - Thanks for the info.... I think I am going to be about 2-feet short. I will probably just add some wire in the middle of that 6.5 foot ribbon cable.

All of my cables back to my monitor go thru PVC flex line so won't bother anything adding more cable to it... (Solder and heat shrink tubing)

Where are the controls for the different modes - I think I see push button panels on top...

Roy Ken

landyacht318 - Any thoughts on gluing a flat piece of plastic on the sampler xfmr so I can mount to a wall or tongue frame. Also this will be outside... Guess I need to place it in a electrical box perhaps... My cables are 4AWG

I solved the cable length problem on my other transformer by having a electrical junction box within 12-inches of the xfmr on one end and maybe two-feet from where my meter panel is on the other end. Then I ran multi-cable between the two junction boxes terminated to a small terminal strip. That worked out great once you get past cutting the short ribbon cable in two sections haha...

Will probably do same for this one...

I had to add an small ON-OFF toggle switch for the power lead feeding the meter panel. Mine was so bright it lit up my whole inside of the trailer haha...

Roy Ken

Thanks folks! Just ordered one to read current off my solar panels. Hope to read actual current, regardless of what my TriMetric is telling me.