Top 10 Best Amp Clamp For Parasitic Draw for 2026 – Expert Tested

Quickly this is an easy to use and I believe accurate tong meter. It’s small size allow it to fit easily in a tool pouch. It does everything I want. I have cracked the display in my pouch. I’m now a little more careful how I put it in my pouch. I wish it came with a hard case. I’d probably still keep it in my pouch. My only issue is that it doesn’t have an auto off and I’m forever putting it away with the power on, wearing out the battery. I also bought the 110 volt plug adapter that allows me to read one leg of the power cord of an appliance without spearating conductors. That’s been real handy.

This was recommended to me by one of my customers, so when I needed a DC current clamp-on for a task with another customer, I purchased one. It does the job quite nicely.

Identical to some more expensive ones from certain diag sites (AESWave, cough cough). Great price from a small business. A lot of techs like their multimeter too, but this does work with any multimeter. Good stuff.

This is yet another diagnostic tool for my mechanical arsenal. I’ve been tracking down an electrical problem on my old F350. While I haven’t found the source as of yet, this clamp has helped me eliminate many circuits to limit this wild goose chase.

Cons:- Battery: must remove screws to change batteries. Not big deal, but this would be a “nice to have” feature.- Beep: unit continuously beeps when measuring near zero ohms. Perhaps can be disable but haven’t discovered how yet. Again not a big deal.Pros:- Purchased during Amazon Prime deal (July 8 – 11) and got fantastic price break- Overall solid and strong construction (possibly could easily withstand 3 feet drop)- Good display: easy to read in normal household ligting; and option turn on back light (illuminate)- Easily detect AC voltage near houshold sockets or behind walls- Easily measure AC and DC current (amps) using clamp (which easily opens, right amount of torque)- Provides option to automatically or manually perform measurements- Solid and durable case for unit, temperature sensor and measurement cables- Great for hobbies, or professional electrician or electronics work- Pleased with product, and would recommend or purchase again

I own both the HT208D and the HT208F. Both are a great value with a great many useful functions. I originally bought the D model because I wanted to measure the peak inrush current on our RV AC when I was debugging what turned out to be an on board generator problem. Even though I have a lot of good meters at home, none had inrush capability. The D performed very admirably, but as mentioned by many others, the display can be difficult to see in bright sunlight. Still, I liked the meter so much that I wanted a second one. That’s where the F model (HT208F) comes in: It’s not immediately apparent, but the F is identical to the D except that it has a standard (backlit) LCD display that is visible in bright sunlight. So if this is a concern for you, get the F model. It’s a quality meter with features for most everyone.

So many of these clamp meters are deceptively sold. Most don’t work with dc. This one does! Enough said.

A great tool for finding parasitic drains on an automobile. Clamp it onto the positive lead, and see how many amps are being drawn, then pull fuses until the drain ceases. It also comes with test leads, so is versatile as a multi-meter. It also has a beep option that tells you if a circuit is live so that you don’t have to look down at the display.

Was looking for a recording device to determine power usage for our well. Since it is 240V, I couldn’t just plug in a Killawatt device. This BTMeter just clamped on to one leg going to the well pump and showed amps drawn when it ran. Installed the app on an iPhone and it prompted me to enable bluetooth. The app then connected with the BTMeter automatically and the app was showing the measurement on the meter. I pressed start and ran a load of laundry. Then clicked save and selected to save in excel format. Then I connected to iPhone to my PC and used iTunes to get the files. Then I opened the CSV file as a spreadsheet and could see all the measurements which allowed me to see how often the pump kicked on, how long it ran each time, and the amperage drawn. This allowed me to calculate the KVA used by pump which is usually higher than the KW usage, but can be used as a conservative estimate of cost.Likes:* worked out of the box* app easy to set up and use for measurements (ran for 1-1/2 hour at 120 measurements/second)* was able to extract the CSV file into a spreadsheet and calculate the totals in there.Cautions:* the iOS app seems to have a bug that it will not show the data collected or graph the data, but the data was still recorded to CSV file.* the process of getting the data file off the iPhone and onto the computer takes a bunch of steps. Would be nicer to be able to just share the file to an email.* positioning of current clamp can be touchy and sometimes had to reposition to read zero when pump was off.

Great meter for the price! Although keep the price in mind – your not getting a 300$ meter for – 45 but this is still an outstanding meter!Use the clamp for AC and DC amps! Most meters in this price range only do AC. Remember that you cant use the AC clamp on any meter to go around a whole electrical cord but you have to go around 1 of the 3 wires inside. I almost made that mistake- see my pics for a extension cord I made up to help take measurements on electrical cords.Overall the meter feels nice, not too cheap feeling except the rotor switch is slightly cheap feeling but for the price you couldn’t ask for better. The probes feel nice too. Another plus is the nice carrying case.The App works great too- Bluetooth so only About 30 ft… but it connects easily if you follow directions and really is useful especially for monitoring something over time.The meters works great, although I cannot speak to its accuracy but it seemed fairly accurate for the measurements I tested. But once again for 45 bucks you can’t ask for a 300 meter! I attached a pic of the spec sheet if interestedIt does only measure temp in Celsius whole numbers, but I didn’t buy it for this… although F would be nice to have tooOver all- love it! Great deal!

Been playing with this for a few weeks now, if you make sure to zero it out before using it gives accurate readings. I was having issues with my camper and was able to pinpoint the problem. Much more functional than a multimeter, being able to see the current draw without disconnecting wires is an A++++ in my book

I bought this as a spare meter to my Fluke and Fieldpiece meters, mainly because I wanted to measure DC Current in a clamp style. It sat unopened until this past week when I was finishing wiring a shop and needed quick verification of power present at the receptacles. Immediately I disliked the wired probes because how loose they both fit into the receptacles. Literally falling out, to the point that I read no voltage present. Of course the display is so tiny on the icons, it was in DC range which I corrected. Still no voltage, so I checked a known good source and it read correctly. OK problem in the receptacles. De-engergized the circuit and couldn’t find one problem with it or the breakers. Finally being the wired meter leads were so sloppy, I went and got one of my Fluke meters and voila the receptacles are fine.Bottomline is do not trust this meter to determine residential voltage or higher, because you could get killed thinking something was dead, when it really was live.Beyond return windows so into the drawer it goes with a note. “For DC clamp current measurements only”

Cons:- Battery: must remove screws to change batteries. Not big deal, but this would be a “nice to have” feature.- Beep: unit continuously beeps when measuring near zero ohms. Perhaps can be disable but haven’t discovered how yet. Again not a big deal.Pros:- Purchased during Amazon Prime deal (July 8 – 11) and got fantastic price break- Overall solid and strong construction (possibly could easily withstand 3 feet drop)- Good display: easy to read in normal household ligting; and option turn on back light (illuminate)- Easily detect AC voltage near houshold sockets or behind walls- Easily measure AC and DC current (amps) using clamp (which easily opens, right amount of torque)- Provides option to automatically or manually perform measurements- Solid and durable case for unit, temperature sensor and measurement cables- Great for hobbies, or professional electrician or electronics work- Pleased with product, and would recommend or purchase again

I own both the HT208D and the HT208F. Both are a great value with a great many useful functions. I originally bought the D model because I wanted to measure the peak inrush current on our RV AC when I was debugging what turned out to be an on board generator problem. Even though I have a lot of good meters at home, none had inrush capability. The D performed very admirably, but as mentioned by many others, the display can be difficult to see in bright sunlight. Still, I liked the meter so much that I wanted a second one. That’s where the F model (HT208F) comes in: It’s not immediately apparent, but the F is identical to the D except that it has a standard (backlit) LCD display that is visible in bright sunlight. So if this is a concern for you, get the F model. It’s a quality meter with features for most everyone.

Review for MAXRIENY Open Jaw Clamp Meter 600A DC AC Current Smart Digital Electrical Multimeter Tester.This product is hard to review, as it is complex.I am always on the lookout for a good multimeter, as I tend to misplace them when doing projects. Thus, I was excited to get this product.We (several family members who have all used multimeters extensively) spent quite a bit of time just trying to learn how to use this multimeter. I have several different types, and none of those were as complicated to figure out as this product was. The print on the instruction booklet was small and dense and minimal, so we resorted to watching online videos to see what this product could do. Then we did a LOT of testing. Repeatedly.First, the automatic mode is useful. If you sometimes forget to swap modes, then this multimeter will tell you just about anything you want to know using the auto mode. We loved that.Second, there are long touch and short touch for the buttons. We thought the flashlight was broken until we figured out that it took holding down the button 3 seconds or more to turn the flashlight on. (Don’t expect much from the flashlight.)Third, we never could get the multi-meter to read any wire inserted between the jaws. The leads worked, but the meter would not read any wire inside the jaws. We could get it to beep when current was near the jaws, but that wasn’t very accurate. So that was very disappointing.My main concern is that if it took this much effort to figure out this device, then we are unlikely to remember how to use it when we really need it. I suspect this multi-meter will sit in a drawer somewhere while we grab easier to use devices that are much more intuitive to use.

The meter itself appears to be well built. I was not impressed with the wire test leads however. I would be hesitant to use them to measure 600 volts hanging on to them. That said it quite an adequate test meter for many applications. I measured AC amps and used a clamp on meter to compare readings. They were very close.The ohmmeter and dc voltmeter functions are the most often used by me. They are accurate enough compared to my Fluke meter.At this price point its an excellent buy.

I WORK FIGURING OUT ISSUES ON TRACTORS AND THIS TOOL IS A NECESSITY FOR TRACTORS WITH SEVERAL CONTROLLERS ON THEM

It be 5 stars if it could install itself.Its functional too

Finally someone makes devices like this instead of us trying to get a bunch of male and female wire connectors, fuses and wires to do lab scope tests on cars. Just pull out the fuse, use the Current Loop that fits the fuse socket, install the fuse you removed from the vehicle in the side of the Loop, install the Loop back in the fuse socket and test the devise or circuit. Good quality, good size, fast results and cannot damage the vehicle.They just need to make one that fits the low profile mini fuse now.

Bought to troubleshoot a slow battery drain on the hundred or so circuits in my W220 (too many to count). I use it with a clamp amp meter and get good results. I wish they would make a model that could handle higher current as this one is limited to 30A and I’ve got many that are 40A circuits limiting it’s use.