Ge0rge: Without being rude, I'd suggest your question tells you that you should engage the services of a professional.

It's the logical suggestion - nothing rude about it. But, I don't need a professional for a clip-on smart home current transformer. I'm not opening the meter, or accessing the back of the board, or going anywhere near exposed wires. All I need to know is which wire to clip it onto.

I could just go one by one, collect data over a day for each wire and figure out which one is the water cylinder and which one is the household etc. Or, someone could save me the time and tell me which one is which.

Seeing you have a current monitor....

Do your own tests by turning lights and appliances on and off to figure out your own map.

Kookoo:

I could just go one by one, collect data over a day for each wire and figure out which one is the water cylinder and which one is the household etc. Or, someone could save me the time and tell me which one is which.

Hi, as others have said, you should not be in there, especially if you have to ask such questions.

Anyway going to the base of the meter is Phase In on the left, black Neutral to power the meter (along with Phase in) and Phase out is the red on the right which delivers power to your home. I see you have put a current  on transformer there, that is fine.

The black unit to the bottom is the hot water relay, again the black wire is neutral to power the relay as is the white wire that comes from an external pilot feed to control hot water heating. The two Red wires are phase in and out of the relay to power your water heater.

Well thats the best I can read it all is without being there to check.

Cyril

Kookoo:

 

I don't need a professional for a clip-on smart home current transformer.

 

Or going anywhere near exposed wires.

 

You will need two wires tied into it somewhere.

There needs to be a voltage measurement to get a power value calculated. Voltage is measured in parallel.

Current sensor could be reading 8A, but it needs the voltage to calculate the power (wattage), P = V*A.

The grid doesn't stay at 230Vrms all the time. It constantly fluctuates and at night it often goes higher.

Get someone in to put it in place.

Then they can get the insurance if it has an issue.

gregmcc:

 

Right off the bat, you are accessing a switchboard, there is wiring with primary insulation only contained in this, the homeowner exemption does not allow for any work to be done by the home owner in a switchboard, it's also obvious that you are not familiar with how this is wired, I can tell by where you have put the clip on that you are guessing.

 

Get an electrician involved.

 

 

 

Again - me not knowing what I'm doing is a valid comment. Rules and regulations though - that's a different thing. Can you point me to where it says that I should not open that cabinet?

I guess my point is - electricity isn't magic. The meter or the cabinet aren't going to blow up just because I clipped on a current transformer. But if I'm breaking a law or regulation here - I'm be super keen to know what it is. Because before doing it I Googled the heck out of it, checked Vector and Genesis websites (which pretty much tell you nothing except that the meter box is your responsibility), and examined all the stickers/warnings on the box and inside it - and found nothing to tell me I'm not allowed to do this. From what I've seen, as long as I don't touch the seals, don't open the meter or the breakers, don't go to the wiring in back of the board - I'm fine from regulatory perspective.

While we are discussing electrical work on the switchboard... is there any reg that says you can't have a power point in the same cabinet? Could be handy to have one installed in there along with USB power. Done by a registered sparky, of course.

johno1234:

 

Can you point me to where it says that I should not open that cabinet?

 

"...does not enter any enclosure where live conductors are likely to be present"   <-- right there, is where you stop, and call a sparky.

Yes, a clip on CT seems like an easy enough thing to do, but electricity can be less straightforward than you may think.  For example, how exactly would you clip the CT on the wire.....What would you do, in what order, as far as the main switch shown in that picture and how/where does the signal wire end of the CT go?

you could be up for a shock (dual meaning intended).

Johnk:

 

Generally home owners can replace like for like and that's about it, and even then its only if they are competent and have the correct ppe and tools. Its pretty easy to find the rules on this

 

That's super helpful, thank you. Having said that, now that I've read it, it still doesn't deal with this scenario. It's very clear about wiring work, adding or replacing, etc. Which to be fair - I'd never do myself anyway.

But what I'm doing here isn't wiring in any sense of the word. The ct doesn't touch the electrical grid, it's not even mains powered. It's battery operated and reads the magnetic field around the wire to measure current. If I was doing this for an electrical appliance at home which is powered by a cable with split hot and neutral wires, this wouldn't even be a question.

cyril7:

 

Hi, as others have said, you should not be in there, especially if you have to ask such questions.

 

Anyway going to the base of the meter is Phase In on the left, black Neutral to power the meter (along with Phase in) and Phase out is the red on the right which delivers power to your home. I see you have put a current  on transformer there, that is fine.

 

The black unit to the bottom is the hot water relay, again the black wire is neutral to power the relay as is the white wire that comes from an external pilot feed to control hot water heating. The two Red wires are phase in and out of the relay to power your water heater.

 

Well thats the best I can read it all is without being there to check.

 

Cyril

 

Thanks, much appreciated!

Kookoo:

 

Having said that, now that I've read it, it still doesn't deal with this scenario. It's very clear about wiring work, adding or replacing, etc. Which to be fair - I'd never do myself anyway.

 

But what I'm doing here isn't wiring in any sense of the word.

 

Stop here. Read my post above - you are not allowed in the meter box, per JohnK's screenshots of the regs.  Further, If you could outline the steps you would take to install the CT, I can point out the unsafe parts, which will show why these rules are in place.