I'm working on a project where I need to sense if a circuit is in operation on a wide range of vehicles. My plan so far is a current sensing clamp, and an Arduino micro listening for the current draw on that wire to be above 0ma. (or a more reasonable threshold to be determined)
I've looked into the normal clamp meters for AC applications, but they dont work on DC. I also need this to be non invasive, and able to be quickly attached to and from various wires - so must be a split loop pickup or similar... These types of current sensors wont work, as they are invasive.
I'm thinking some kind of a coil on an Arduino analog input, that is clipped onto the wire to monitor - but I'm at a loss as to what this coil needs to look like - and I'm not getting anywhere trying various random coils hooked up to an Arduino and looking for any change in analog read...
Can anyone offer any help on this?