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Final Project idea: Home Energy monitoring

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MacX

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Hi everybody!

My idea is to monitor the power consumed in a house and plot the results in cosm.com
Searching in the web I found this page: openenergymonitor.org that basically is the same idea I had... (damn it, I thought I was original xD) So I decided to follow similar steps. Mi idea is:

-Sensor of current and Voltage connected to an ATMega328 who sends the information via RF to another device with RF receiver and ethernet so I can upload the info to cosm.com

Is this correct? or am I forgetting some step?


As I am going to do the final project during my stay in England (Erasmus from Spain) in the second semester, I would like to know if you think its an affordable project considering I do not know to much about RF and ethernet, but there is a lot of info in openenergymonitor website?

Thank you very much!
 
you might look through the ATMEL appnotes on their site.... I think I saw one that described an energy monitor...
 
Hey ...

This kind of project is referenced as one of what we call wireless sensor networks applications, applied as home energy monitoring system. you can check that in the web, it is widely used.
for the RF technology, i advise you to choose Xbee modules, they are easy to use, also they are well documented in many applications, you can check, for example, its interfacing with an arduino , this one you can find easily on youtube (videos of James Bloom i think).

i dont know in detail your objectif, your questions are welcome any way.

good luck
 
Thank you for you answer Mike Odom and fermat7! I found 2 apps notes of ATMEL very useful for understanding the concept!

And yes, in the web there is a lot of info, plenty of them and very similar to what I am trying to do.

My intention is to usea arduino IDE so I'll probably use the ATmega328 with optiboot loaded so it can runs libraries of openenergymonitor.org.

I found this IC in similar applications on the web: ADE7753 . It is quite good for my purpose.

More details:
Finally I think I will only monitor the total power consume of the house, instead of the 3 or 4 circuits (kitchen, lights..etc)
With a CT sensor, a voltage sensor and the ADE7753 I will get all the information I need. I will control this ADE7753 with an ATmega328, which will also control an RFM12B transceiver. This would be a "whole" box next to the electrical "wardrobe"

Next to the router of the house there would be another "box". This one would be compound of another RFM12B that receives the info from the first "box", another ATmega328 and ENC28J60 ethernet controller that would allow to send the information to the web cosm. Ah, and probably and EEPROM or SD card to store the data received am I right?

I selected this MCU because I can load on them the optiboot uno that allows me to use arduino sketches.

It would be a prototype, so I will try to mount everything in breadboards (something it would give me problems...but well) If I had time and it works, the next step would be designing the PCBs.

About the power system for each box...here I have questions. What can I do? In the first box using normal AA batteries wouldn't be enough right? I Know you don't know the consume of every chip, but from your experience, what do you think?

And the second box, if is just a prototype, would I be able to supply 5V by the laptop?
 
I would use walwarts at 12V, then use a local 5v regulator on the board. You don't want to route 5V to a board and then use it on the board. Not only do you inject noise (both into and out of your board), but you have line drops to worry about. You could supply 5v to your board, and run it on 3.3V. I know the AtMEL will run at this voltage, but not sure about the other chips you plan to use???
 
by walwarts you mean a comercial 110/240VAC to DC12V adapter? I haven't view in detail all the chips yet, I will take a peek later.

Thank you!
 
Hi MacX, I am also doing similar project as a Digital energy meter using ADE7753.But i am confused what about getting current and voltage sensors.
can u help me What is the Current transformer you are using ?
 
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