Krodal:
smeezekitty:
Krodal:
That's a hall current sensor. They are cheap an easy to use, but they can never ever get the accuracy of a special high-side current opamp.What would you suggest? I need to read down within about 10mA and handle up to 5A. I also need the results to be within 5% of so.
Did you find a high-side current sensing opamp yet ?
LadyAda choose the INA219, but it's only 3.2A and uses I2C (slow): NEW PRODUCT – INA219 High Side DC Current Sensor Breakout – 26V ±3.2A Max « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!
I found these: MAX4172, LT1787, LT1494 (maxim and LT have more like these).
Mixed-signal and digital signal processing ICs | Analog Devices
The best choice would be a high side current sensing opamp that operates at +5V with an output that can be connected to an AVR analog input.I don't know if your project will be Arduino compatible, but the people at http://www.avrfreaks.net are more into electronics. They would probably know a good high-side current sensing opamp.
What about a Texas Instruments INA202? It gives a voltage gain of 100x which means it should give a swing from 0-5v with a 0.01 ohm shunt resistor. The datasheet looks good and looks dead simple to use.