There are four number areas on the Watt Meter screen: Upper left hand corner: Amps: This measures the current in units of amps (e.g. The amps produced by your generator) Upper right hand corner: Volts: This measures the voltage (The voltage of your battery bank, if you are using a battery bank.) Bottom right hand corner: Watts: This measures the power produced in units of Watts (joules/second) (e.g. The power produced by your generator) Bottom left hand corner: Cycle. This cycles through various readings which are: Amp hours = Ah (e.g. The amp hours charged into your battery from your generator. For example, if your wind turbine or solar panel sends 10 amps of current for one hour straight to your battery bank, that is 10 amp hours.) Watt hours = Wh (e.g. The Watt hours charged into your battery from your generator.) Watts peak = Wp (e.g. The peak power produced by your generator into your battery bank.) voltage minimum = Vm (e.g. The minimum voltage that your battery bank fell to.) Amps peak = Ap (e.g. The peak current produced by your generator into your battery bank.)
The meter should be connected before the regulator, correct? or does it make a regulator function as well?
Correct, it is best to connect the meter to the DC output of the generator (wind turbine, solar panel, etc.) If you are using a 3 phase AC wind turbine, then you must connect the meter after the 3 phase rectifier. This is because the meter works with DC electricity.
The wires are 12 AWG fine stranded. For high current applications (above 30 amps), the user can trim the wires back to a length of 1.5 inches; to keep the heat down and power loss to a minimum.
The WN wattmeter is shown as part of a set of new toys I covered in this video. Starts at 00:01:45 Thanks Windy ... can't wait to use it! Tom http://www.youtube.com/user/Fearlessthinker
The meter is shown installed and in use. I took it apart, drilled 2 holes in the back-plate to reroute the wires , and mounted it flush to my switch box. Sure looks cleaner that way. I wired it inline with the PV(-) lead going to the charge controllers because the meter's shunt is in the negative leg. The red/positive lead just went to the PV(+) bus bar to sense the voltage. This works OK except it does not work if there is no PV power coming in (in my case). There is an external power source input that is available that I will now wire t0 the +12V battery bank so that the meter stays on all the time. This is vital if you want to collect watt-hours or amp-hours over a period of days. You will also need to add an external switch in order to shut it off to reset it in this case. I do wish it had a backlight. As you can see, it is not easy to read. I might try to wire one in. Tomhttp://www.youtube.com/user/Fearlessthinker
Well, I just determined that the Amp-Hour reading resets at 65 and then starts over. That's just a few hours when you have 20A coming in. I also noticed the spec on the SHOPPING page is incorrect for AH max. Better fix that.
