Archived Forum

Not directly. For a start, the -000 without a burden will output around 8 V peak (22 V peak for early versions), which will very possibly destroy your sound card. The -030 will output 1 V at max current, and that would possibly be too much.

You need to interpose an attenuator, and probably protection diodes too, in order to do it safely without fear of damaging your sound card. All the details you need are in the test report on the CTs (in Resources > Building Blocks), because that's how I test the CTs.

Thanks for your answer, i did not know where to start. It was an interesting reading.

By the way the datasheet link http://files.openenergymonitor.org/SCT-013.jpg on the top of this page http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/buildingblocks/report-yhdc-sct-013-000... is down

But now i have more questions :( .

So if i understand well these sensors 'convert' the amps that go through them into volts, but not directly and there are lots of parameters going on.

1 What if i test the output directly on the jack pins with a multimeter ? Given the right formula and some error margin, could i get a rough reading of the current ?

2 If these clamps are not designed to be plugged on a sound card, what device is this 3.5 plug intended for ?

3 Are there clamps that are sound card 'plug and play' ?

Thank you for noticing the bad link - I've corrected it.

"1 What if i test the output directly on the jack pins with a multimeter ? Given the right formula and some error margin, could i get a rough reading of the current ?"

If you use the -000 and your multimeter is set to read mA on the ac range, you will get an exact (within the accuracy of the CT and your meter) reading of current. Likewise with the -030 and your meter is on the ac volts range.

"2 If these clamps are not designed to be plugged on a sound card, what device is this 3.5 plug intended for ?"

Are you talking about current transformers or clamps?

This is a clamp:

If you mean why is the CT supplied with a 3.5 mm jack, you'd better ask YHDC. I expect thay had one of these in mind:

"3 Are there clamps that are sound card 'plug and play' ?"

Why would anyone want to do that? A CT is a piece of measurement apparatus and it's not normally associated with speech and music, which is a sound card's primary purpose. It's most unlikely that you will be able to make qualitative measurements with a sound card without careful calibration.
You might be able to connect a 0.333 V output one directly. It only needs a fault that blows a fuse or trips a breaker and you could have a very large spike that could easily cause damage. Don't blame me or OEM if you destroy your sound card.

Perhaps a very much simplified version of this:  https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/lisa2000/gilfix/gilfix_html/ although I suspect the resultant sounds would be a lot less soothing than peep's rainforest setting, which you can hear here:  http://peep.sourceforge.net/intro.html