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John,You are mostly correct. However, put the CT around only one lead. It doesn't matter if it is the hot or neutral. You will have to separate the wires in your power cord at some point.
If both hot and neutral leads pass through the core, each will be carrying current in opposite directions, cancelling any reading on the meter.
A 50:5 CT will give you a 10:1 scaling, so 25 amps to the coil would read as 2.5 amps on your DVM. Just don't run it over 50 amps, or you might damage your CT.
Dave On 9/3/2015 2:20 PM, wt5y wrote:
So I put dmm in amp mode, switch probe leads to 10 amps plug, current Xformers over the cord or just the hot wire? And if it is running 25 amps I would see 2.5 amps on my meter?Sent from my Samsung GALAXY S5™, a Cricket 4G LTE smartphone -------- Original message -------- From: David Speck <Dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: 09/02/2015 23:13 (GMT-06:00) To: Tesla Coil Mailing List <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [TCML] Power factor correction John, Check out eBay for a current transformer. A 50:5 unit will multiply your DMM readings by factor of 10. They should be available for under $20 with some diligent looking. Something like the following would work. (no connection to seller.) http://www.ebay.com/itm/130895906892 Just be careful to never put current through the transformer (CT) without having a load, like your DMM on its amperes setting, across the CT terminals. When unloaded, a CT tries to put out infinite voltage which may break down its internal windings. Then, you can investigate which arrangement of PFC caps works best for you. Dave
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