Off grid energy monitor

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1

As background, I’m new to digital electronics, but have worked a bit with analog stuff. Grew up in the vacuum tube era.

I live off the electrical grid, using solar and wind for our electricity. I have wanted to be able to monitor what is going on in our electrical system, but have balked at the price of commercial monitors that don’t do everything I want. Found your site with current sensors, and the Logomatic v2 logger, but need to know how to use this stuff, along with your current sensors, and resistive voltage dividers as input, to get output to a computer reading in watts, watt hours per day, and if possible graphing of watts, amps and voltage, both for individual inputs, and individual uses of electricity, as well as total input and use. Is there software code out there to do any or all of this? I feel daunted at learning to code.

2

Hello.

Unfortunately, we do not know of resources out there to help you do this on your own, and we do not have any specific advice for you. This sounds like a difficult and potentially dangerous project, so we recommend seeking expert assistance if you decide to pursue this.

-Derrill

3

Hi,

You might want to
(A) prioritize what you want to monitor. Do it in chunks, so you don’t have to do everything at once. This might end up involving a few extra microcontrollers and a higher cost, but is more manageable.
(B) Research DIY off grid energy monitor…I suspect there are other people who have made some of this more DIY accessible, because you are part of a small but still non-existent crowd of off-grid peeps.
© Look into arduino, it offers a manageable introduction to coding. You can use pololu’s excellent sensors.
(D) lean towards “hall effect” current sensors whenever you can, instead of voltage dividers and shunts, because you want to isolate yourself from the more powerful power lines.

Good luck :slight_smile: