Dear Scholars
I'v been searching the boards just to get even more confused regarding a simple way to measure Current in a non intrusive way (Hall Effect) of a 220v cable (can be even the main cable entering the household)
I am looking for a clamp that is suitable for this job, preferably with a nice 5v output to an Arduino pin, and preferably available in Europe.
The emphasis should also be the quickest, simplest sensor, If there is something that can be used "out of the box" it will be nice.
something like http://assets.fluke.com/manuals/i30s_i30iseng0000.pdf works right out of the box, analog 5v = 50 amp. Other current scales are available to suit your needs, DigiKey can have it on your doorstep in 3 days.
Note the high cost is why most folks here try to "roll their own".
If its to measure power consumption of the household, the easy / cheap way is to hook some kind of optical sensor to the meter, most meters have have some form of indication of the present power consumption, either a flashing LED or a spinning disk. A phototransistor or maybe a line follower sensor, measure the time in milliseconds and do some maths to find the watts.....