Whole house power monitoring.
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@shabba I have used a clamp meter and arduino uno to monitor power levels, disadvantages are that you need to full wave rectify, provide load resistor and smoothing. Measurement becomes a bit of guesswork as to how many volts o/p in a Kwh.
Here in Britain, meters have a LED that flashes 1000 times per Kw. I have used a digital light sensor input into arduino uno digital input and then measured the time between flashes in msecs to give accurate readings. I use have used both methods to monitor solar panel output, then turn on Leaf BEV car when sufficient free power is available and off again when clouds arrive. Next step is to o/p readings to a Nextion for both solar and grid power readings with adjustment of turn on thresholds to optimise summer and winter useage. -
@shabba I have used a clamp meter and arduino uno to monitor power levels, disadvantages are that you need to full wave rectify, provide load resistor and smoothing. Measurement becomes a bit of guesswork as to how many volts o/p in a Kwh.
Here in Britain, meters have a LED that flashes 1000 times per Kw. I have used a digital light sensor input into arduino uno digital input and then measured the time between flashes in msecs to give accurate readings. I use have used both methods to monitor solar panel output, then turn on Leaf BEV car when sufficient free power is available and off again when clouds arrive. Next step is to o/p readings to a Nextion for both solar and grid power readings with adjustment of turn on thresholds to optimise summer and winter useage.@terryrow Out of curiosity, was there no output pulse connection on the meter, or is it a sealed 'smart' meter from the supplier?
Wh pulses appear to be rare on supplier provided meter which piqued my curiosity, they are generally kWh pulses... -
Our utility company meters have a flashing led that flashes 1000 times for every Kwh, so 1 flash is a wh
@gohan said in Whole house power monitoring.:
Our utility company meters have a flashing led that flashes 1000 times for every Kwh, so 1 flash is a wh
Fair comment for Italy, but I do not recall similar for the UK, although I must confess I had little interest with respect to monitoring systems at the time.
In Romania they have the habit of placing smart meters with pulse flashers in rather large acrylic bubbles (a la Klockner Moeller) out on the main road, which not only renders optical detection difficult, put potentially removeable by every passing drunk.... Hence placing a padlock on the isolator access to dissuade the same folks from switching off the entire house from the main road...
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@terryrow Out of curiosity, was there no output pulse connection on the meter, or is it a sealed 'smart' meter from the supplier?
Wh pulses appear to be rare on supplier provided meter which piqued my curiosity, they are generally kWh pulses... -
@gohan Sorry I have been so long, some things, apparently, are more important than playing on my laptop. I managed to lose the "saved" copy when looking at Nextion mods. I have recovered/repaired and tidied the code but I need your help as to how to share with you.
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@zboblamont I cannot see any sockets for a digital o/p. Neither is a smart meter, but both are only 2 years old. The grid meter has an additional green led when power is going out of the house.
@terryrow Sorry, perhaps I am misunderstanding your scenario in thinking it may be similar to my own.
I cannot access the supplier's meter or optically couple safely as explained above, but I can shut down power to the house, which allowed fitting of a DIN mounted meter in the consumer box. This has both external flashing LED and 2 connections for pulse measurement via clamp screws.If the house meter is less than two years old, it will be digital, and these USUALLY have a connector for external pulse.
If you can physically access the meter, google the make and meter type for info, perhaps you have a model with similar pulse connection available. Hence my query... -
@gohan Sorry I have been so long, some things, apparently, are more important than playing on my laptop. I managed to lose the "saved" copy when looking at Nextion mods. I have recovered/repaired and tidied the code but I need your help as to how to share with you.
