Wiring a Watt/Volt etc meter (1 Viewer)

[cc93cruiser]

Quick question ... I have my solar setup all fine with a 100watt renogy panel wired to a sunsaver solar controller... thought that wiring a watt meter in between the panel and the solar controller was simple enough, but when wired all up as described, the meter will does not power up... When I wired the meter directly to a 12v battery, it does light up and work. I am stumped.. What rookie mistake am I making? Here is a pic of cheap Amazon meter...

 

[e9999]

this type (from what I can see) of meter needs a minimum of around 5V input voltage to work. If less than that you need to add a battery (9V is fine) to the little connector on the side (takes a standard servo plug). So maybe you did not have enough voltage coming out of your panel and the controller hid the voltage from the battery -if you had one on. So if you are just interested in Energy transfer, not specific voltage or current out of your panel, try putting it on the other side of the controller, which is also more useful if you care about battery charging.