Are there any designs out there for an electricity meter capable of very accurately measuring electrical power consumption, non intrusively?
Basically what I'd like to do is either build or buy some sort of clamp probe the could be attached (or wound??) around the insulated live wire of a domestic power cable, then by (presumably?) measuring the strength of the electrical field generated by the current flowing through the wire, determine and log both voltage and current, and hence electrical power.
This seems like an ideal application for a PIC and data logger. The only part I know nothing about is the clamp probe to the mains cable, and how you would convert the measured electrical field into voltage and current. How do you stop the presumably equal and opposite electrical field in the neutral wire from interfering with the measurement, if the wires are close together and can't be separated?
Is this idea feasible? Has anyone got a circuit diagram? I don't want to buy a complex and expensive power analyser, or have to touch the wires in the circuit under measurement.