Home Distiller

Looks like it will work to me.

ARGGG, Amp meter someone suggest one please. I like easy as it gets and numbers as big as your head, I have old eyes.
(using the 220 10k dimmer controller)

ok, I got over the frustration of ebay and amazon for an ammeter and just picked one. The reviews are what was pissing me off. Everyone I looked at was split on great or sucks ass.

Final question on the electrical stuff. Can I run the stranded wire into the main panel? Thus far I have soldered all the ends all the way thru to the boiler. Down to the final connection at the box.

Haus6565 wrote: Can I run the stranded wire into the main panel?

wha..?

I am using 10/4 SJOOW cable. Can I run that from the breaker panel to the outlet or use solid copper. I don't trust the Lowes guy, he said run it all the way to the panel, so I'm asking here.

Sure, you can run it to the panel, just hork that screw down tight

Haus6565 wrote: The reviews are what was pissing me off. Everyone I looked at was split on great or sucks ass.

well, at least you know it will be great! ...or suck ass.

Haus6565 wrote:ARGGG, Amp meter someone suggest one please. I like easy as it gets and numbers as big as your head, I have old eyes.
(using the 220 10k dimmer controller)

I'm sorry that I missed your post. I have tested several power meters, read here. They measure the real power, and must be connected before your SCR otherwise they will smoke. The Peacefair PZEM-006 has a large display only the screen protection is from soft plastic. And the lcd is connected to the mains....
I see that Peacefair have two more models the PZEM-004 with a serial interface and the PZEM-031. They look promising.

HDNB wrote:

Haus6565 wrote: The reviews are what was pissing me off. Everyone I looked at was split on great or sucks ass.

well, at least you know it will be great! ...or suck ass.

No truer words will we speak.

Well after a bit of waiting time and two tries to get the right ammeter, the first one arrived and the shipper sent a milliamp. Cost more to ship it back to China so I own one of those now.

The right one arrive and now I have slid back into the electrically challenged range.

It has + on one post and - on the other. Previous readings indicated "pass through", which to me means clip one of the hots, H1 or H2, and connect the ends to each post.

Referring back to my original drawing above somewhere, I had a small gauge wire from each, H1 and H2 to the posts.

What am being dense about here? Maybe it's just +/- that throwing me off.

throwing me off too. send a picture. passthru means literally...pass one hot wire thru a donut looking transformer.

and on the bright side, you can use the milliamp meter to find out how much current your ammeter is using

Haus6565 wrote:Well after a bit of waiting time and two tries to get the right ammeter, the first one arrived and the shipper sent a milliamp. Cost more to ship it back to China so I own one of those now.

The right one arrive and now I have slid back into the electrically challenged range.

It has + on one post and - on the other. Previous readings indicated "pass through", which to me means clip one of the hots, H1 or H2, and connect the ends to each post.

Referring back to my original drawing above somewhere, I had a small gauge wire from each, H1 and H2 to the posts.

What am being dense about here? Maybe it's just +/- that throwing me off.

Looking at your original diagram, it looks like you have an analog meter (wired wrong in thediagram). Is this what you ordered? (With a needle?) If so the +/- posts on the back are not really posative negative indicators just in and out. Only one leg of the hot feeds the ammeter. This meter also will need a shunt. You can't just run the full load straight into it. It will blip right into non work mode and you will need another.

Hound Dog is right....you measure voltage (potential) by a small lead to the (+) and (-) power feeds and not much current is flowing through the measurement circuit.

But, you measure current (flowing electricity) by an "in series" connection of the conduction path. It will require a heavy gage wire since the full current will pass through the meter (if internally shunted).

If it isn't internally shunted, you indeed need an external shunt (donut) which is a special kind of voltage transformer which reduces the current which actually flows through the ammeter down to the sensitivity range the gage can tolerate. Your gage specifications should've told you if an external shunt is required...and likely would've recommended the appropriate one to use (or at least they would have tried to sell you one).

I use internally shunted ammeters so no external one is required. But I do use 10 gage wire to hook it up...input (+) and output (-).

Again, voltage is measured parallel to your power supply and current is measured in series with it.
ss

the little donut looking thing is the lead one hot wire would pass thru for amps. the red/black could hook up to one each of the hots, before the ssr for a volts measure.

*just a fer instance, there is lots of different kinds of these things.

HDNB wrote: the red/black could hook up to one each of the hots, before the ssr for a volts measure.

Why 'before' the SSR. Youll just be measuring line voltage then, not voltage to the element.

Jimbo wrote:

HDNB wrote: the red/black could hook up to one each of the hots, before the ssr for a volts measure.

Why 'before' the SSR. Youll just be measuring line voltage then, not voltage to the element.

that was covered by edwin in another post. the gist of it was that the wave modification caused by the ssr switching caused the meter input to melt and blow a cap out of the front end of the circuit.
sry i can't be more specific on the details of the board cct, but it's in here somewhere with pictures of scorched meters...he made a suggestion for a more spendy meter that could take it, but these 12 dollar ones off amazon apparently don't have much of a sense of humour.

*edit -found it! he3re is the aptly named thread http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 85&t=56032

hmmm, interesting. I had a cheap chinese digital voltmeter on it at first and discovered they dont measure RMS, unless you get a nice Fluke or such. It was reading way off, so I ditched it and put a simple analog meter on with a movement and it reads perfect. Next to the 2 meters now (2 SSR's in my box) I have a cheat sheet, voltage to power.

Haus6565 wrote:It has + on one post and - on the other.

Please post link or picture. Meters marked with plus and minus connections are always DC only and won't work in this application.

Here ya go

I did pop it open, all there is inside it is a wire that runs from one post to the other which has a wound coil. Then the needle movement is centered in that coil.

It has an internal shunt/resistor. + first then load to -. Hook it up the other way and youll peg the needle going backasswards, or maybe it doesnt matter since its ac and the plastics case tooling was done to satisfy both ac and dc models?

Sorry folks, I appreciate the help though.

I went back and read the Amazon page thoroughly, it states in very small print I might add, that a 30A CT should be also used.

So I just bought this one, which clearly states NO CT NEEDED.

http://www.amazon.com/DH670-Tuning-Curr ... s=AC+0-30A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

So I guess I have a meter to measure a meter to measure a meter now. Even worse is what the wife is going to say when the bank statement comes. Pray for me.

Just wanted to say thanks, Jimbo. I definitely need to go electric, but the controller was driving me nuts, I thought I had a dual-110 solution, but it turned out that my outlets were only 10 amps. I remembered that the people we bought this house from had a tanning bed in the master bathroom (seriously), and so there's now a 50amp circuit going unused...

So I had sorted everything but the controller, which was getting more and more confusing as I did more research, until I stumbled onto this thread.

I just saw in another thread that you have a flute, too, I'm off to dig up that thread, too :]

Not just a flute, one built bit the goddess.

jedneck wrote:Not just a flute, one built bit the goddess.

Lol, yep I'm a lucky bastard

Jimbo wrote:or maybe it doesnt matter since its ac and the plastics case tooling was done to satisfy both ac and dc models?

I think you are right Jimbo, the symbol on the meter indicates that it is a moving iron ammeter. If the coil is made from very thick wire then it might be 30A.

As poorly as Paint will allow me, this is what it looks like on the inside. The wire gauge looks to be around what you would find in a regular household 14/2 or a bit smaller cable (solid, not stranded).

Haus6565 wrote:As poorly as Paint will allow me, this is what it looks like on the inside. The wire gauge looks to be around what you would find in a regular household 14/2 or a bit smaller cable (solid, not stranded).

Thanks for posting. 14 AWG is ~2 mm2 and is probably to thin for 30 amps. Maybe it is a 5A meter and need a 30A to 5A current transformer which is probably more expensive then the meter itself. I tried to find this meter on Amazon but no luck. But I see you already ordered another one. I will pray for you

Edwin Croissant wrote: I will pray for you

Sounds like time for a smoke test.

They have these cheap meters on ebay too. Here's one, very little info given except says 'direct connect'. GIven its a chinese cheapo their are NO guarentees, but I have the voltage versions of these cheap meters and they work fine and seen to read accurately.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AC-30A-Ampmeter ... 3f256c1938" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The meter only costs $5 bucks and they'll ship it to you free from China I couldnt mail it to my next door neighbor for 5 bucks. Must be a precision piece eh

Analog works great. Its an indicator of the power to the pot. I use that very same China-made one and it works fine. I also have voltmeters in the circuit, but they don't tell me much. The current flow, on the other hand, is a fantastic adjustment tool....recommended!

The shipment from China (I ordered 4 because of the price and unknown reliability) only took 2 calendar weeks after placement of order. I had other build activity happening, so the delay was totally acceptable to me.

Oh, and the backup spare meters are still in their boxes...not needed because the first set of gages worked and still do.
ss

still_stirrin wrote: I also have voltmeters in the circuit, but they don't tell me much. The current flow, on the other hand, is a fantastic adjustment tool....recommended!

???

Volts or amps give you the same indication of what your element is doing. You can get to power from either, or just stick with volts or amps if you calibrate your head that way to your runs.