Low Cost Power Monitoring

There's hundreds of this type:

Power Monitoring Data Loggers - Power Profiling and Monitors

Or, get two of these:

Kill-A-Watt P4400 AC Power Monitor - For Loads to 15 Amps

What do you engineer? These are well known items.

I engineer misinformation. Thank you by the way. This a good start. I have used a Yokogawa clamp-on meter in jobs past, and it has always worked fine for me. I was hoping that there was a Trump-all product out there that didn't cost +$2000 like the Yokogawa. . . and possibly a few opinions later on down the comment trail, comments will be made about features and... who knows, if I am lucky, some one will bring up Higgs Boson and that the meter should detect that too.

Where have you looked, so far?

Go here: Search GlobalSpec and look for two channel AC power monitors/loggers.

If you know that 120V is OK,than you can monitor only the two currents and calculate the power.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dranetz-626-Universal-Distance-Analyzer-/280600743137?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41551b8ce1

There are lots of these available; they're not "state-of-the-art", but they will do what you want -- cheaply.

I use the Killowatt meter for basic power usage. It's been fine. But for trouble shooting I would prefer to use an oscilloscope. Used ones are available for under the $1,000.00 price limit. And they can analyze power quality as well as simple voltage/amperage. Frequency shift, ripple, noise etc. can all contribute to troubles. Also, though I have not used one myself, I might try a volt meter with a data port. This could be hooked up to a laptop and give a nice power history report similar to the old school chart recorders, which were so reliable and easy to use. Remember safety first when rigging temporary wiring. It's easy to cut corners when doing testing and just as easy to get hurt.

One of the most effective ways to capture power source problems is to use a 60 Hz notch filter fed to the trigger circuit of a scope. The notch filter will keep the scope from triggering EXCEPT when nearly any disturbance occurs, including amplitude shifts, waveform changes, and dropouts. Use a scope that allows storage upon trigger so that you can view the waveforms after the fact.

Here is a source for inexpensive notch filters:

http://www.freqdev.com/products/filters/d68bp.html