Energy Meter

aaronik19 · Joined: 25 Apr 2011 Posts: 296

Dear All,

I was google for some Energy Meter controllers like CS5463, MCP3900 and ADE7755.

Does someone have a link from where I can buy prototyping board because saw some on RS and seems incomplete (without CTs and Voltage transformers interfaces). More than this as a performance, which chip is most better and easy to implement? I want to read the following, VOLTAGE, CURRENT, APPARENT POWER, REAL POWER, POWER FACTOR, TRUE RMS.

Thanks for your great help.

asmboy · Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 2128 Location: albany ny

temtronic · Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2012 6:36 pm

You might just buy one of the 'kill-a-watt' energy devices,yank out their micro and start from the 'already working front end'...put a PIC inthere and get what you want.

I used that approach to get FCC type approval for telecom equipment,used a premade PC modem card,added my 16F877, sold the 'repackaged' product.

aaronik19 · Joined: 25 Apr 2011 Posts: 296

thanks for your replies. Which kill-a-watt' energy devices you used? How you interfaced the PIC with this device? It has any output port?

temtronic · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 6:06 am

model P4400..if my memory is still good.I only paid $30 for it.

I reverse-engineered their product to reconfigure for my PIC16F877.I 'split' the analog section away from their digital section.

Yes.Analog side has voltage as well as current outputs.

aaronik19 · Joined: 25 Apr 2011 Posts: 296

ok I found it. So you opened the device and changed the design? Do you have any photos?

temtronic · Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2012 7:43 am

Yes, reverse-engineering means open it up, figure out what chip does what, then cut and hack to get what you need.

photos ? No, heck back then(10-15 years) I didn't even own a digital camera ! It was one of those 'bet-you-can't-do-this-in-less-than- a-week' bets and I won the 'coffee and donut' prize.The PIC16F877 talked to a laptop that I still have and it's 29 years old.

R-E is not magic, just a few hours of looking,recording,measuring, researching and basic R&D procedures.With today's free tools, what took me a week might only take a day or 2.

gpsmikey · Joined: 16 Nov 2010 Posts: 588 Location: Kirkland, WA

BUT --- do be careful poking around inside there - your standard house voltages are wandering around in there. Make sure you don't connect the 110v out to your PC or something - you can let the magic smoke out :-)

As Elmer Fudd used to say "be vewy vewy careful" :-)

mikey
_________________
mikey
-- you can't have too many gadgets or too much disk space !
old engineering saying: 1+1 = 3 for sufficiently large values of 1 or small values of 3

Mike Walne · Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1785 Location: Boston Spa UK

Is this a pure learning exercise or the preliminary to a world's best product?

We need more detail to be able to help at all.

Your question is just too vague.

If you do not need isolation; all you require is a few resistors (maybe an OPA) a UART (or LCD) and loads of time to do software.

Mike

curt2go · Joined: 21 Nov 2003 Posts: 200

I basically just did this.. All I did was used a hall effect chip ASC712 for the current sensing and just put a diode in for half wave rectifier and voltage divider into the A2D. Then you have to write a whole bunch of softare to track everything. The hardest was to get the power factor but it can be done by taking the zero crossing of the voltage waveform and then find out how long before the current gets there.. Its a VERY tough exersise. But if you are looking for metering precision that you will be charging for then this may not be the best. I did compare it to a Kill a Watt and it tracked the same.... You do have to run the pic at high speed to get the accuracy on reading the waveforms... I am running at 64 MHz on a 18F65K22....

Not sure if any of that helps.. But.. Smile

TTY

here is the datasheet
http://search.digikey.com/ca/en/products/ACS712ELCTR-05B-T/620-1189-2-ND/1284593

Mike Walne · Joined: 19 Feb 2004 Posts: 1785 Location: Boston Spa UK