100v 20a deluxe meter project
100v 20a deluxe meter project:
With a little work you can install a nicely featured power meter into one of the smaller pinfox boxes and give
yourself a great read on voltage (3-99v), current (0-20a), power, and even keep count of watt-hours. This meter
has a few nice perks to it, including a pleasant blue backlight that can be turned on/off, as well as the watt-
hours keeping their reading after power-off. (until you manually reset it)
See the link in the parent folder on how to install powerpoles on a pinfox. The meter will require a much larger
hole of course. For that, I use masking tape to make a guide for the meter, similar to the powerpoles, and then
pre-drill a series of holes just inside the mask. The plastic is pretty thick so I suggest NOT overlapping the
holes. Leave just a millimeter or so between them, otherwise the drill bit will try to catch the adjacent hole
and lift up on the box as you drill it.
Once you have the series of holes made, use your largest side-cutters to cut the gaps between the holes, and then
just pry/lift it out. Then you have to go at it with an x-acto knife or whatever you have that can shave off the
remaining plastic. This medium pinfox fits the meter a little TOO well, requiring you to shave the corners on
the meter's housing down a bit to clear the beefy screw posts. They really do build this box like a tank!
The pinfox boxes are pretty tall, so there's plenty of space for wire management after the meter and powerpoles
have been installed.
