05-02-2016, 09:21 PM
About 5 years ago I bought a couple of these: http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/15a-plug-in-en...itor-l61aq
I didn't actually buy them from Maplin. There's a guy at a local car boot sale who sells customer returned Maplin products very cheaply - I got the meters for £1.50 each. They had minor faults but I fixed them by opening and cleaning the switches / PCB contacts.
The meter displays mains voltage, current, frequency, power factor, VA and 'real' watts. It also keeps a cumulative total of KWh used, which is reset when you unplug it. It only reads down to 1 watt, but I still found it useful for working out the standby power consumption of things like set-top boxes. It also enabled me to work out how much electricity it takes to make a loaf of bread in a bread machine, which is rated at 800 watts but operates intermittently.
I found it convenient to plug my variac into the meter, then use the meter to measure the current drawn by the variac and its load as the output voltage is turned up - this can alert you to possible faults.
A point to note: this Maplin meter is unfused, and claims to be able to measure up to 15 amps, but clearly it will be unsafe to draw that amount of current for any length of time. The BS1363 socket is only rated at 13A. I did test it briefly with an electric fire (2000W) and it worked without any problems.
I haven't used the meters you mentioned on Amazon and Screwfix, but they look like updated versions of the ones I've got. They have the facility to calculate cost if you program in the price per unit, however the reviews on Amazon suggest that's fiddly to set up. Other reviews said the instructions were poorly translated and some thought their meter was faulty. Maybe worth buying one from a shop that you can easily return it to?
I didn't actually buy them from Maplin. There's a guy at a local car boot sale who sells customer returned Maplin products very cheaply - I got the meters for £1.50 each. They had minor faults but I fixed them by opening and cleaning the switches / PCB contacts.
The meter displays mains voltage, current, frequency, power factor, VA and 'real' watts. It also keeps a cumulative total of KWh used, which is reset when you unplug it. It only reads down to 1 watt, but I still found it useful for working out the standby power consumption of things like set-top boxes. It also enabled me to work out how much electricity it takes to make a loaf of bread in a bread machine, which is rated at 800 watts but operates intermittently.
I found it convenient to plug my variac into the meter, then use the meter to measure the current drawn by the variac and its load as the output voltage is turned up - this can alert you to possible faults.
A point to note: this Maplin meter is unfused, and claims to be able to measure up to 15 amps, but clearly it will be unsafe to draw that amount of current for any length of time. The BS1363 socket is only rated at 13A. I did test it briefly with an electric fire (2000W) and it worked without any problems.
I haven't used the meters you mentioned on Amazon and Screwfix, but they look like updated versions of the ones I've got. They have the facility to calculate cost if you program in the price per unit, however the reviews on Amazon suggest that's fiddly to set up. Other reviews said the instructions were poorly translated and some thought their meter was faulty. Maybe worth buying one from a shop that you can easily return it to?
