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Step 4Putting it all together
I had a piece of wood cut to measure to make a stand the size of 25x25x8 cm.
Attached to it the meter, an avory-white plastic box containig the input and output cabling and the
current transformer. Finally attached a gray plastic box with all the electronics. The relay I put
close the wiring points of the meter. This also adds to safety.
The wiring runs at the back of the stand. I dremel-led the paths for the wires in the wood and kept the wires in place with duct tape. Next step will be to add a 3-4 mm thick piece of plywood to cover everything.
Now, check the wiring again, make sure you did not connect in parallel anything supposed to be in series, this applies expecially to the meter.
Rotate both gain and hysteresis potentiometers counterclockwise (minimum resistance, i.e. minimum gain and wider hysteresis window).
Connect the electronics you want to test. Plug the meter.
1.) Turn off your electronics. Rotate the hysteresis potentiometer clockwise until the relay energizes (and the LED turns on) and the meter wheel starts rotating. if nothing happens rotate the hysteresis potentiometer clockwise until the relay energizes.
2.) Turn your electronics on and the relay should de-energize. If nothing happens, turn the gain potentiometer a little further clockwise (higher gain).
Repeat the 2 steps above again to trim.
Should you find difficult or impossible to set the threshold, likely the stand-by mode current is close to the operating mode. This means your equipment consumes almost the same regardless powered on or in stand-by.
Once you know the energy (in Watts per hour) used by your equipment, you may also want to know the average power dissipated by your electronic device. This can be done if time is counted along with the energy. That is, if 10 Wh were metered in 100 hours, an average of 10/100 = 0.1W is the power dissipated by the equipment. For this purpouse a battery operated wall clock timepiece can be connected at the points +/-1.5V in the schematic.
The timepiece will be powered (and then advance) only when the relay is on.
Attached to it the meter, an avory-white plastic box containig the input and output cabling and the
current transformer. Finally attached a gray plastic box with all the electronics. The relay I put
close the wiring points of the meter. This also adds to safety.
The wiring runs at the back of the stand. I dremel-led the paths for the wires in the wood and kept the wires in place with duct tape. Next step will be to add a 3-4 mm thick piece of plywood to cover everything.
Now, check the wiring again, make sure you did not connect in parallel anything supposed to be in series, this applies expecially to the meter.
Rotate both gain and hysteresis potentiometers counterclockwise (minimum resistance, i.e. minimum gain and wider hysteresis window).
Connect the electronics you want to test. Plug the meter.
1.) Turn off your electronics. Rotate the hysteresis potentiometer clockwise until the relay energizes (and the LED turns on) and the meter wheel starts rotating. if nothing happens rotate the hysteresis potentiometer clockwise until the relay energizes.
2.) Turn your electronics on and the relay should de-energize. If nothing happens, turn the gain potentiometer a little further clockwise (higher gain).
Repeat the 2 steps above again to trim.
Should you find difficult or impossible to set the threshold, likely the stand-by mode current is close to the operating mode. This means your equipment consumes almost the same regardless powered on or in stand-by.
Once you know the energy (in Watts per hour) used by your equipment, you may also want to know the average power dissipated by your electronic device. This can be done if time is counted along with the energy. That is, if 10 Wh were metered in 100 hours, an average of 10/100 = 0.1W is the power dissipated by the equipment. For this purpouse a battery operated wall clock timepiece can be connected at the points +/-1.5V in the schematic.
The timepiece will be powered (and then advance) only when the relay is on.
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