Amp probe questions

30 A per pole.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

This consumes one kilowatt, as it's operating. Watts are power, which is the _rate_ of doing work; work is pretty much the same as energy. In one hour, a one-kilowatt appliance will have consumed one kilowatt-hour, which is a unit of energy usage. A 100-watt bulb only uses 100 watts, but in ten hours, that's a kilowatt-hour.

No. That depends on how well-balanced the loads are on the two sides of the mains.

And THEY ARE NOT OUT OF PHASE!!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE PERFECTLY IN PHASE BUT OPPOSITE POLARITIES! They're the two ends of a center-tapped transformer, there's no phase-shifting component there.

The power company doesn't like you to run unbalanced loads, but I'd think that the pole pig (the CT 240V tranny) would compensate for that - just half its windings would be transferring power.

Well, this isn't exactly the way it works. If it's a ganged breaker, it will pop if either leg is drawing over 30 amps, but if both legs are drawing 30 amps, it's just 30 amps through the whole thing and there's no neutral current. It's like 30 in one wire while 30 goes out the other wire simultaneously.

My pleasure. :-)

If you're going into that detail, just duplicate this for each phase, and put in some kind of power factor detection.

Good Luck! Rich

"Ryan"

** Nope - you cannot deduce that at all.

You need an AC power meter or Kilo Watt Hour ( KWH ) meter to measure energy consumption.

Depending on the nature of the load and the particular " amp probe " in use, the figure obtained by making that over simple calculation can be double or more the actual wattage figure.

BTW

Does " amp probe " = an AC current clamp meter or something else ?

Really helps if you are more forthcoming with important details like this.

....... Phil

Do you live in a home, condo or apartment?

The reading is obtained with a Fluke T5-1000.

My residence is a house (home).

I have heard people refer to it as 2-phase and to call 120v service single phase. I think your assertion makes sense, however.

Is this also true with "3-phase" service, such as commercial delta or wye configurations? Is it actually 3 polarities or different phases in that event?

This sounds interesting. Is this done between the meter base and the panel? I'm curious with what components this is done.

"Ryan"

** Replacing what this smug pig snipped.

" Nope - you cannot deduce that at all.

You need an AC power meter or Kilo Watt Hour ( KWH ) meter to measure energy consumption. "

** Absence of reply noted.

** That is an average responding meter - so cannot even give a current VA figure let alone true power in watts.

........ Phil

A single home usually has 240 VAC split into two 120 VAC 'sides'.

A condo or apartment will usually have 2 phases of 3 phase 208 VAC -- 120 VAC line to neutral.

Then you should have 120 + 120 = 240 VAC.

Yes, 3-phase is actually 3 phases, 120 degrees from each other. They come from the generator that way - there are three windings that are actually

120 degrees from each other around the circle (or some fraction of that, depending on the number of poles, but that's a different quesiton.)

Well, I'm thinking a current transformer on each leg, and a voltage sense, and use a micro to do the arithmetic to get true power and power factor.

Cheers! Rich