Aeon Labs Energy Meter clamps

Thanks, I have not opened the power meter box, but I’m assuming there is a switch in there and it would be lower risk to turn off?

Nope , no switch inside, plus it’s sealed. You can have the power co. remove the meter - that’s the only way.

Or hire an electrician if you don’t feel competent,

An aside - some fire departments will pull meters in an emergency or fire, but more won’t even do that.

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Thanks, it seems possible to put the CT clamps on without coming into physical skin contact with the live wires and use only one hand, from reading and watching videos. It looks like I have enough space to accomplish this. Any thoughts?

I was actually going to give the “one hand” advice, but even if you start with one hand, those clamps are really awkward to close using only one hand. I found myself unconsciously reaching with my idle hand to assist. I think the “hold your belt behind your back” only works with conditioned professionals, as it simply becomes muscle memory for them.

However, it is definitely possible to install them without coming into contact with the live cables. Again, as mentioned, if you are uncomfortable, hire an electrician. Funny thing is, many electricians will probably want to tag you with a travel charge or a $79-99 flat charge, since the job was like 15 minutes of work for me as a novice. I’m sure it’s a 30 second install for a professional, maybe 3 minutes if you want them to route the clamp wires.

Just from glancing at your pics, your install should be fairly straightforward. My mains come in from the bottom, so I had to get creative in how I mounted them to get them to stay in place. But, you will have a tougher time routing the wires out of the panel. That was the good thing about the mains being on the bottom, the route to the knock-outs was straight down.

Pro Tip: Get a stick, plastic tool or other non-conductive manipulator to assist with positioning and manipulation if that idle hand refuses to stay out of the way. And still don’t touch the mains. :slight_smile:

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Funny thing is, I was born with one hand so I got that going for me. Do the clamps slide at all? Or need to be tightened somehow? What suggestions do you have on mounting the monitor and how to feed out the cables?

I opened a Knockout at the top of the panel and installed a chase nipple. It is a sleeve that prevents the wires from being torn. I cut out an outlet above that to exit the cables.

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The clamps do not tighten. The inner diameter of the clamps is pretty wide, and fixed. They will slide and move around on your mains. With your setup, they should rest right above the terminals and main breaker. You shouldn’t have any issues.

@joelw135’s pic should give you something to aspire for. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Here is what it looks like now after I cleaned it up.

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that looks pretty! where do you live and what do you charge to do this? :wink:

I am in Middlesex County New Jersey.

Thank to everyone for their comments and suggestions. I got it successfully installed and reporting. The hardest part was unscrewing the battery compartment.:slight_smile:

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Why do you have so many?

The more you know…

I’ve got four of these and an absurd number of other power monitoring devices. Trends show where you have excessive vampire draw, habits you can change to save energy, extremes that signify trouble and automatically alert you. The list could go on and on.

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Michael - Can I view my data on a graph like that without understanding git hub and coding? So cool!

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That looks like Grafana running on a local server in the house. I need to get mine up and running again.

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I suggest Initialstate for this need.

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Yeah Initialstate is probably easier for initiates. I host my own linux server and run Grafana/InfluxDB to do this. The down side is Initialsate isn’t free.

I could do the server bit, but IT is my day job, so I try to keep things simple at home. No time to maintain, IS is worth the cost. Only costs for large number of transactions anyways, but I do pay it.

I’m cheap. Like, real cheap. :slight_smile:

@Mike_Maxwell is it possible to put one clamp on a 220V dryer and one on a 110V washer? or does both has to be on one or the other?