ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Electrical Theory and Applications CT fun

Warning this is a tiny CT, measuring tiny currents. Don't fool around with those big things you see in a CT can!

I was playing with one of those small CTs on a lamp holder



My original intent was to get some ideas of what to look for if I was integrating this into a project. Short answer is there is plenty of current if you drive into about 1000 ohms and it scrubs off most of the noise.
You get around a tenth of a volt with a 14w load, .5v with 60w load and 1.2v with a 100w load (into 1k ohm). That doesn't seem very linear but I didn't plot it.

The interesting thing for me was the wave form.

14w seems pretty sinusoidal



As the wattage (and output voltage of the CT) increases it starts affecting the wave form.
100w is pretty warped



When you plug in a CFL things really start getting weird

What happens if you load the CT with a 10 or 50 ohm load?

100 ohms drops the voltage on a 60w load from .5v to about .25v so I imagine 10 ohms would just crush it.

Greg,
What sort of 'scope are you using there?
It seems to suggest Texas Instruments, but I'm not sure about that.
It certainly looks like it has the wood over my Tek-tronic 40MHz dual trace 'scope I have here.
I have wanted a new DSO for some years, but are they all the stuff they are made out to be?
Could I justify an NZ$4000 'scope, is the question I ask myself.

Sorry for the thread-jack.

Tektronics 465.

If I had waited around a little I probably would have got a 485 DM44 when the IBM office was going away. That is really far more scope than I have any use for. I don't really need the capabilities of the 465 either but it is a nice display. It hasn't been calibrated for 16 years so I wouldn't trust it for any serious work. Some of the pots are getting a little cranky too.

From the layer of dust on the cover in third picture, pots getting cranky would not be unexpected.

So what are you doing with the CT?

I ripped a wall out in that room and cut out a piece of the concrete floor. It was a might dusty for a while.



I am looking for a way to see if things are running around the house remotely.

You are just doing does it draw some current or not? Not precision measurements, correct?

Yes I just want to see if things are drawing current. (is it on or not)

How are you going to monitor them?

Visual indicators, multidrop communication scheme like RS-485, LONWorks, dry contacts, or what?

Nosey engineer wants to know.