I didn’t know how to use it, it always show up 0 when I try to measure. I learn later that you need to measure a single line - I wouldn’t buy the clamp meter if I know this before hand - now I have to improvise.
Search around amazon I saw the cheapest AC line spliter is around 15$, that crazy!
So I thought why not do it myself, look and behold:
In my country there is no grounding wire, house builder don’t support it unless you told them to, almost all power socket do not have middle wire, there is no ground wire culture here…
you can just buy a smart power plug that have energy reading on it.
I have a few Kasa plugs to monitor my server total power and other things that are on all the time
Another thing that can be done if you’re dealing with very low currents is to add loops in the wire that you’re clamping to measure. Then just divide the result in the meter by the number of times the wire loops through the clamp.
Here in the United States another (possibly risky) option would be to get an extension cord (grounded preferably) that uses “zip cord” for the wire. This is the type of wire that you can see how the individual conductors are separated, where it looks like just individual wires lined up side by side and fused together. You can carefully separate a lead from there (IIRC the neutral is usually ribbed, the live not, and the ground if present would be in the middle) and then just measure. This could be done if you’ve already got a spare cord or possibly cheaper than buying the individual parts to build one. Be cautious though, if you’re not careful separating the conductors you might expose live metal as these cords are only single insulated. Similar could be done with a double insulated extension by removing the outer jacket. Just remember that whatever you do, you’re playing with electricity!
I mean those endcaps, that you can crimp on the cable. The ones with the isolating jacket sometimes are too big to fit the space inside the plug. I used to cut them off. I didn’t searched for ones without jackets, I assumed they were all like this.
