Product review : Turnigy Watt meter and power analyzer

Started by allthatido, February 24, 2010, 11:26:22 PM

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allthatido

Hi everyone

A few days back i had received a Turnigy Watt meter i had ordered from Hobby City. The order was placed in the last week of Jan and i didn't pay any customs duty for it. The packaging was nice and HC had used air filled bags to prevent damage during shipping.

Onto the watt meter now...

It has a very solid construction and the case has a semi matte finish on it which is nice. It does not come with connectors so you will have to solder them yourself. I soldered deans plug on them. The watt meter can handle upto 60 volts and currents upto 130 Amps.

It has a blue back-lit LCD for displaying the values and is not eye straining or hard to read. The display comes with a screen protector. It is extremely simple to use as it has just 2 pairs of wires and no buttons. Out of the two pairs of wires one is the SOURCE and the other is the LOAD.

You connect your battery on the source side and your motor/esc on the load side. The display shows four values. On the top left is the current consumed by your load. On the top right the voltage supplied by your source. On the bottom right you have the Watts consumed by the system. The bottom left displays many values flashing after one another every 2 seconds. These are Amp hrs,watt hrs,Vm(minimum voltage measured on source),Wp(max power drawn on load side).

The screen gets updated after every 0.4 seconds. The minimum voltage to get it to work is 4.8 volts. below 4.8 it will run your load but there will be no display. You can also connect an auxiliary source battery in 3 pin connector provided.


The various methods to use it are as follows :

1) connect battery on source side and motor/esc on load side --- to measure power,amps consumed by your motor.

2) battery charger on source and battery pack on load side --- to measure charging current,watts gone into the battery.

The data generated by it is reliable and accurate for our purpose. This costs around 23 $ at HobbyCity.

Here are some pics. Video will follow soon.

Regards
Ankur

anwar

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sundaram

How does the Brushless Run with signal from receiver or without? If with signal from receiver where it is connected?

allthatido

Hi Sundaramvelar

On the load side you are connecting an esc which provides power to the connected receiver. Just think of the conventional brushless setup...you are adding the watt meter between the battery pack and the esc to measure current as it flows into the motor. It will become more clear when i will add a video soon.

Regards

sundaram

Thats simple Thanks.

This sure seems to be a very essential accessory when if you are planning to build and fly foam fighters and electric planes with power plant of Plus 300 Watts. Just one shift in size of Props to the next size completly changes the Wattage.

One can always test it for amperage before frying your Lipo.

Ashta

Dear sundaramvelar,
if u want to do some DIY stuff, have alook at this.


http://www.rcindia.org/servos-gyros-and-all-electronics/low-cost-diy-volt-amp-meter/

ashta
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