the effect i am attempting to demonstrate is the over consuption of electricity in the home.
I think you should save your money for hydro
the finished unit is a free standing 5x socket extension that plugs directly into mains.
It will almost be that way when you want extra features.
tri-coloured leds (housed inside the socket casing) indicate the Total current drawn by various devices plugged into it.
lots of High drain devices e.g computers,heater = a red colour
fewer devices/things on standbye or things like phone chargrers = a green colour.
make that bi-coloured LED's.
ideally the colours would phase nicely between these two extremes with diff levels of current used.
i have been told this isnt too complicated to do??
the problem is this has to be made quite soon. the casing is pretty much done and the guts of socket outlets are ready to be wired.
an alternative i would settle for is a system where the colour changes depending on the number of sockets in use rather than the total current drawn. the first would be ideal but if this is alot easier i think demonstrates the same principle.
Turns out that you want a special power adapter. I haven't done your idea before, but I can take a guess at the solution.
Every circuit connected to a power source has some kind of resistance to it. Your best bet is to connect one line from the power source to the units that are being plugged in.
I think it is better to settle for the second, because in my opinion, the 2nd idea will save you money.
Basically, you will need two decade counter IC, a clock circuit (there are billions of these on the net), and 5 AND gates, 1 for each socket.
When your circuit is done correctly, an internal clock will pulse at a constant speed. At the clock rate, the decade counter will increment by 1. As soon as it reaches 6, the clock is reset to 0, and both counters reset. If the clock is between 1 and 5, it will compare the corresponding socket number. if the socket number is used (has a low resistance), then the AND gate produces a high output. As soon as any AND gate produces a high output, another counter increments by 1.
But since you are dealing with high voltages, I doubt that you can just get away with AND gates. I think you will have to work with transistors.
Are you using 120 or 240 volts?
I dont know if any chip can handle such voltage.