“Thanks to an innovative module, it analyses the electrical grid parameters and the consumption, by supplying them – via USB – to a computer, on which a dedicated software enables to display, collect and use the data for different applications. First installment.
It is common to worry about how much electrical energy is consumed, at home or at work. In order to carry out the measurings as for voltage and current, in addition to the related measures concerning the power absorption and the power consumption, we take advantage of a series of tools that have been designed for this purpose. It may be some simple lab tools, such as for example a voltmeter or an amperometer, so that the different electric power quantities may be manually calculated, or maybe some more sophisticated tools such as the Power Meters (for example, the WT230 by Yokogawa, or similar ones) that autonomously calculate the apparent/real/reactive power, the cosφ (power factor), the network frequency, etc.
Moreover, different measuring instruments for the DIN rail are available for sale (that’s the ones you may mount in your electric panel), they carry out the measurings for the electrical quantities and calculate the apparent/real/reactive power and the amount of energy absorbed by the network.
The purpose of this article is the one to show you an integrated circuit manufactured by Microchip. More precisely, that’s the MCP39F511. Thanks to two delta/sigma analog-to-digital converters, it enables us to carry out the measurings as for the instantaneous voltage and the instantaneous current and to calculate the related electric power quantities.
In order to interface the A/D converter to the 230Vca home electrical system, we will respectively use a VT (a voltage transformer for the electrical measuring) and a CT (a current transformer for the electrical measuring). In this way, we will be sure to be galvanically isolated from the 230Vca network and will be therefore able to connect the abovesaid integrated circuit to a personal computer, so to carry out the calibration procedures of the same, and the reading of the electrical parameters.”