Yesterday I done a trial run with following components.
1. Current sensor (30A) available for ebay
2. Stalker V3 - from seeedstudio ( got it down for 10USD in the promotion period)
3. in programming , I used emon library http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/buildingblocks/how-to-build-an-arduino-energy-monitor to calculate Irms. Then use SD card to log the Wattage around every 300mS
Following is the data obtained through SD card log.
8:27:57 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 142.54W 3.89V- Bat
18:27:57 - 27-9-2015 0.60A 141.45W 3.93V- Bat
18:27:57 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 142.17W 3.93V- Bat
18:27:58 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 141.63W 3.89V- Bat
18:27:58 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 142.75W 3.93V- Bat
18:27:59 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 143.34W 3.91V- Bat
18:27:59 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 141.86W 3.89V- Bat
18:27:59 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 143.68W 3.94V- Bat
18:28:00 - 27-9-2015 0.60A 141.33W 3.91V- Bat
18:28:00 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 143.64W 3.93V- Bat
18:28:00 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 143.57W 3.94V- Bat
18:28:01 - 27-9-2015 0.62A 144.14W 3.89V- Bat
18:28:01 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 141.90W 3.91V- Bat
18:28:02 - 27-9-2015 0.60A 141.48W 3.89V- Bat
18:28:02 - 27-9-2015 0.62A 144.13W 3.93V- Bat
18:28:02 - 27-9-2015 0.60A 141.46W 3.89V- Bat
18:28:03 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 143.72W 3.93V- Bat
18:28:03 - 27-9-2015 0.61A 143.91W 3.93V- Bat
18:28:04 - 27-9-2015 0.60A 141.31W 3.93V- Bat
Following is the screen shot of usage (Wattage) vs Time. As per this graph,it clearly shows the around that there is a peak power consumption around 6pm and around 8.30pm releavant to water heater (shower). And later part of the night it shows how the invert-er refrigerator on / off cycle.
I came across on of my multi purpose arduino like board , which have charging Li-ion battery using solar cell and able to interface to nrf24L01 chip directly.Although original purpose of this of board is a birthday card using 9x9 LED matrix, it have the capability to act as a solar powered device.
Yes. I am planning to run this energy monitor using small solar panel :).
Main features of the board are,
1. Monitoring Solar charge current
2. Monitoring Solar voltage
3. Monitoring Battery Voltage
4. General purpose buttons
5. NRF24L01 Header ( to connect module available on ebay)
Following is the PCB. The plan is to use this board , for self powered energy monitoring device. which would update it's data to web using either wifi module or to a Raspberri pi via ISM band RF communication.
Update - 10/8/2015
Within in this week I was able to soldered the most of the components of the board. Mainly the Atmega328 chip , solar charger chip , 3.3 regulator and the 8Mhz crystal. Following is a photo of the board.
This board is in Ardino term is a "Arduino Mini Pro Atmega328p 3.3V 8 Mhz" board. So once the chip is soldered i tried to program the bootloader using another Arduino board as the ISP. while programming i came up with an issue saying the Chip signature mismatch.
The error is that the expected signature is 0x1e 0x95 0x0F and the read signature is 0x1e 0x94 0x06; So first I thought this is a general error and just edit the avrdude.conf and change following segment.
part parent "m328"
id = "m328p";
desc = "ATmega328P";
signature = 0x1e 0x94 0x06;
ocdrev = 1;
But later ,I figured out that I forget to solder pull-up for reset pin. Then I soldered it the board (see the big old fashion 1k resistor in the photo). Then when i try it again it successfully download the boot loader.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr/bin/avrdude -CC:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -patmega328p -cstk500v1 -PCOM28 -b19200 -Uflash:w:C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr/bootloaders/atmega/ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328_pro_8MHz.hex:i -Ulock:w:0x0F:m
avrdude: Version 6.0.1, compiled on Apr 15 2015 at 19:59:58
Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch
System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
Using Port : COM28
Using Programmer : stk500v1
Overriding Baud Rate : 19200
AVR Part : ATmega328P
Chip Erase delay : 9000 us
PAGEL : PD7
BS2 : PC2
RESET disposition : dedicated
RETRY pulse : SCK
serial program mode : yes
parallel program mode : yes
Timeout : 200
StabDelay : 100
CmdexeDelay : 25
SyncLoops : 32
ByteDelay : 0
PollIndex : 3
PollValue : 0x53
Memory Detail :
Block Poll Page Polled
Memory Type Mode Delay Size Indx Paged Size Size #Pages MinW MaxW ReadBack
----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
eeprom 65 20 4 0 no 1024 4 0 3600 3600 0xff 0xff
flash 65 6 128 0 yes 32768 128 256 4500 4500 0xff 0xff
lfuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 4500 4500 0x00 0x00
hfuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 4500 4500 0x00 0x00
efuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 4500 4500 0x00 0x00
lock 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 4500 4500 0x00 0x00
calibration 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
signature 0 0 0 0 no 3 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
Programmer Type : STK500
Description : Atmel STK500 Version 1.x firmware
Hardware Version: 2
Firmware Version: 1.18
Topcard : Unknown
Vtarget : 0.0 V
Varef : 0.0 V
Oscillator : Off
SCK period : 0.1 us
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.05s
avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e950f
avrdude: NOTE: "flash" memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed
To disable this feature, specify the -D option.
avrdude: erasing chip
avrdude: reading input file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr/bootloaders/atmega/ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328_pro_8MHz.hex"
avrdude: writing flash (32652 bytes):
Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.00s
avrdude: 32652 bytes of flash written
avrdude: verifying flash memory against C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr/bootloaders/atmega/ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328_pro_8MHz.hex:
avrdude: load data flash data from input file C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr/bootloaders/atmega/ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328_pro_8MHz.hex:
avrdude: input file C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\arduino\avr/bootloaders/atmega/ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328_pro_8MHz.hex contains 32652 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip flash data:
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.00s
avrdude: verifying ...
avrdude: 32652 bytes of flash verified
avrdude: reading input file "0x0F"
avrdude: writing lock (1 bytes):
Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.07s
avrdude: 1 bytes of lock written
avrdude: verifying lock memory against 0x0F:
avrdude: load data lock data from input file 0x0F:
avrdude: input file 0x0F contains 1 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip lock data:
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s
avrdude: verifying ...
avrdude: 1 bytes of lock verified
avrdude done. Thank you.
The circuit is populated and now it have Li-ION battery and RN42 Bluetooth is connected to it.
Following it the image of the setup. I have use a container to protect the device from rain.
As visible on the photo, the current Sensor attached to the one of the wires which feed the Main board in the house. Following is a reading from the Bluetooth.
Data sent over serial as comma separated values first column is a count then wattage , then current after that Li-ion battery voltage.
