T&T: CLIP ON AMP GUAGE

[David&Joan]

Mike:

There are two types of clamp on ammeters: inductive and Hall Effect.

The cheaper inductive meters are only usable for measuring AC current. You 
clamp on one wire of the AC pair and the meter inductively measures the 
current. Amprobe is one manufacturer of this type.

The more expensive Hall Effect meters use an obscure physics principle to 
measure DC current, also by clamping around one of the conductors.

Fluke makes both and they are expensive. Ancor sells (I suspect Fluke may be 
the manufacturer) a less expensive model. I have one and it works great. The 
Ancor meter can be purchased at any of the main chandlers: West, Defender, 
etc.

David