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100v 20a compact deluxe meter project:




My "deluxe 100v 20a power meters" have been a great success, but they're still sometimes awkwardly bulky
when mounted in those small pinfox boxes. (that they just barely fit in) So I've been wanting to try making one
that is in an even smaller enclosure. (same width, but not as thick) I was also thinking about trying a meter
with pigtails on it instead of powerpoles mounted on the box. (it's difficult to connect two things together that
both have powerpoles hard-mounted on them, such as connecting a powerpole block to a meter)

As I was pondering cutting down the meter's enclosure, it occurred to me that the meter's enclosure could be the
case, so I got to thinking about how that would work. If I flipped the wire block around I could run the wires
into the enclosure, and maybe mount powerpoles on the top and bottom sides? Or better, maybe just run the leads
out through a hole in the side, and that'd give me the little pigtails I was wanting to try. But with that block
in the way I can't run the wires out that side in the middle, so maybe out the ends on the side? But that would
look weird with the leads on one side spread apart and together on the other end. So how about both ends
coming out spread apart and joining for the connector?

The 5mm holes for the leads had to be positioned carefully, there was only 6.5mm of vertical space to work
with on the inside. I also had to shave off a bit of the lip around the connector block on the back cover since
the block wasn't symmetrical on the two sides. (this hasn't been a problem before since I wasn't leaving the
back cover on) I used hot-melt glue to secure and strain-relief the leads, though it had to be trimmed back a
bit to allow the cover to close.

I decided to give it a little "flair" with yellow heat shrink on the powerpoles. I really like the way it looks,
and will be using it more in the future. It's also compact enough to fit easily into the pouch on a solar wallet,
but one drawback is it's not waterproof, so it's "indoor-use-only".

A. inside	B. inside above	C. cover modified	D. wire glue detail	E. back cover on	F. header detail
G. side	H. shorty	J. smoke test	K. label added

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last updated 05/27/2025 at 21:54:46 by make_www_index.command version 2025.05.20.B