At 10:11 PM 5/2/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>What is the smartest and lowest cost method to detect if there is a
>current flowing in a 110/220 V cable, preferably without doing any thing
>else with the wire then to attach something outside of the cable.

I'd slit the cable insulation to expose one of the current-carrying
conductors then use a clamp-on transducer with 10mV/A output (0.1A ~300A).

If it's a 240V circuit with neutral you can detect current in either 120V
circuit or the 240V circuit by looping one of the hot lines through
the core in the opposite direction.

Then the output is 10mV * (I120#1 + I120#2 + I240), or proportional to the
total wattage for resistive loads.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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