ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Old Austrian kWh meter

Recently I dug out an old meter I got last year (somebody who probably took it out of an old farm house gave it to me, along with the original meter base board) and tried to hook it up. The schematics were blurred and not too helpful, so I decided there wasn't much that could go wrong with a single phase meter and went along. Worst case it wouldn't spin at all because I wired it backwards (meters are supposed to lock if wired backwards as far as I know). There was a set of 4 wires (2 red 2.5mm2 and 2 black 1.5mm2) in one set of terminals and just single black 1.5 in the other. Load side double-tapped? Maybe. Take the trailing socket off an extension cord for a feeder, and a few pieces of wire with an old ungrounded socket for the load. Load itself was a class II work light with a 60W incandescent bulb.

Plug in... wipe dust off the glass... look closely... meter spins backwards! No locking mechanism inside...

So I reversed the connections, and it worked!

Now the technical data (as on the name plate):
Kilowattstunden
Wechselstromzähler
Form AB2a*
220 Volt 5(10) Amp. 50 Per./s
1600 Ankerumdr. je Kilowattstunde (i.e. rev/kWh)
DANUBIA A.G. WIEN

I guess it's from the early 1950s. On the board there were clearly two Diazed DII elements, you can see the light spots in the wood, I guess hot and neutral or two hots. A 10A single phase service... try to imagine that!





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[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-10-2006).]

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