Mill capacitor centrifugal switch issue?

[warrjon]

If you put it around the mains cable it will read Zero. It has to be clamped around ONE single conductor.

You would need to open the main panel of the mill and put the clamp around the active wire.

A clamp meter reads the magnetic field around the wire, if you clamp it around a mains cable with active and neutral the magnetic field will cancel (almost) and the meter will read almost Zero amps.

 

[petertha]

Yes, sorry that's what I meant. The jaw ID on my clamp meter is quite small compared to others I've seen but thinking through this, there aren't many accessible spots to surround a single wire. I had the terminal cover open & those wires go straight from the screw down board up into the cable shroud. The CSA box has very short leads from the wall cable to its terminals.