wireless energy monitoring

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hi all,

I would like to make a wireless energy monitoring by using arduino board and shield. The input source of the project are the analogue current & voltage from the electrical appliance(e.g fan, television, radio and etc). Before the input goes to the microcontroller, i have to convert it to DC input. The 1st microcontroller(transmitter) will collect the power and energy usage for daily and monthly and display on LCD.
The 1st microcontroller(transmitter) will send the data to 2nd microcontroller(receiver) and display it on LCD as required daily and monthly.

In this project i plan to use arduino uno + wireless SD shield + LCD for my transmitter part, and arduino uno + wireless SD shield + LCD for my receiver part.

I would like to know:

  1. Whether the board i choose suitable the project or not.
  2. The arduino set i use able to do AnalogueToDigital conversion inside the program or i need to build another circuit outside the board.
  3. Do i need wireless SD shield to store 30days(monthly) data or i just need a wireless proto shield.
2

Measuring the power consumption of a mains voltage appliance is not a DIY project unless you are familiar with electronics interfacing to mains voltages and know how to do it safely. Any mistake here is potentially lethal for you or somebody else using the device in future.

In practical terms that means buying something to do the sensing for you. Devices to measure power consumption are commercially available and the easiest way to get hold of one would be to buy a consumer gadget that records and displays the power consumption. I suppose it might be possible to have your Arduino interface to a commercial product and collect/display the data centrally, although I'd question whether the value added was worth the effort to do it.

3

Check out Tweet A Watt by the folks at Adafruit.
http://www.ladyada.net/make/tweetawatt/

4

You cant measure voltage with a current clamp or a current sensor.
This sort of project is not for a beginner.
To accurately measue the energy consumption of an appliance you must measure the voltage and the current and the
phase angle between them , as not all loads are purely resistive.

5

you can use an arduino uno yes.
go here: everthing you want to do has already been done and excellently documented.
www.openenergymonitor.org

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