Using a Clamp Meter to Determine How Much Electricity Christmas Lights and Decorations Use - Christmas Electric 101 - Part 2
In part 1 of our Christmas Electric 101 series, we reviewed how to calculate how many watts and amps your Christmas lights and decorations are using. Knowing this helps you keep your lighting and decor safely lit without overloading any circuits or cords. If you've spent much time installing Christmas lights, then you've probably experienced the frustration of tripped breakers. In this blog, we're going to show you how to easily measure how many amps each of your electrical cords are pulling. By knowing this, you'll be able to keep your electrical loads well under the maximum rating.
Back in Part 1 of this multi-series Christmas electrical blog, we reviewed calculations for watts and amps, however, these were done with the assumption that you already knew the wattage or amperage of the lights or decorations. Unfortunately, this is often not the case and you'll need to have an easy way to measure the electric load. In the second part of this series, we'll be explaining how to measure the amount of electricity your lights and decorations are using.
Using a clamp meter with a homemade line splitter to measure amperage.
Measuring Electrical Load
To measure electrical load, it's as simple as plugging your line splitter into an outlet, plugging the line that you want to test into the end of the splitter, and clamping the meter onto either the black or white cord. See the picture above. Close up view of clamp meter dial. Be sure A or amps is selected.