How to check if a machine is working

Using Arduino Project Guidance
#1

Hello,

I´m a newbie in arduino and did just a few projects, but now I had an idea and whant to know if it is feasable.

I work in the industry and need to know how much time a machine is working during the day.

My idea is to use a current monitoring with non-invasive sensor to check when the machine is working.

Then I need to send this data to a computer by wi-fi.

In the computer I will analyse how long the machine worked and compare it whit the time that it could had worked.

Is it feasable?

Is there a easy whay to do it?

Regards
Rafael

#2

rafaelmw:
I work in the industry and need to know how much time a machine is working during the day.

My idea is to use a current monitoring with non-invasive sensor to check when the machine is working.

In the computer I will analyse how long the machine worked and compare it whit the time that it could had worked.

Is it feasible?

Is there a easy whay to do it?

Depends on what machine it is, and depends on what you mean by 'working'. When a machine is powered 'on', you could consider it to be working as well. So it all depends on ----- what's your definition of working? As in .... doing some computations? Moving? A motor turning on? etc.

#3

Southpark:
Depends on what machine it is, and depends on what you mean by 'working'. When a machine is powered 'on', you could consider it to be working as well. So it all depends on ----- what's your definition of working? As in .... doing some computations? Moving? A motor turning on? etc.

It´s a welding machine and my idea is to put a sensor in the wire feeder.

#4

A light sensor glued onto the machine's power light is the easiest and safest way.

There are lots of examples of Arduinos with light sensors.

#5

MorganS:
A light sensor glued onto the machine’s power light is the easiest and safest way.

There are lots of examples of Arduinos with light sensors.

Nice,
I didn´t thought it and its a sensor that I already have.
Realy appreciate your idea, i will look for more information
Thank you

#6

I did it with a nodemcu and a light sensor.

I update the value of sensor to google sheets, but the nodemcu crashes after some time and i need to reset it.

I´m thinking in other possibilities, may be I could store the values into the nodemcu (with a sdcard ou not, I don´t know the storage size) and in the end of the day send this values to the google sheets.

Will it be the best way?

#7