ENERGY SAVER PROJECT USING MICROCONTROLLER - ATMEGA8A

LINKS TO THE PROJECT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFCSOy9yTtE , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzaA0oub7FQ AND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2SA4aJbiYo

Overview

This ‘Energy Saver’ device will give you a lot of power / energy saving though a bit at a time. At present the device is connected with home fountain and it will be activated / de-activate based on the presence of some person in its vicinity (nearby). The range and duration for activation / de-activation can be programmed/ adjusted. This device may be used on various other home appliance also and for that imagination ‘Sky is the limit’. Some examples are ‘Bathroom Lights’, ‘Staircase Lights’, ‘Passage Lights’, ‘Exhaust fans’ installed in some basement or other confined places etc.

The main reason and inspiration I received for making this device / project is from the fact that the devices like fountains etc remained ‘turned on’ even after we move from the room, where they are running and this will not only waste energy in the form of power but also shorten the life of motors and other mechanism installed in that appliances / gadgets etc.

How it does the things

This device is using ‘ATMEGA 8A’ and PIR Motion Sensor for detecting human presence in the room or the area for which it is installed and activates/ ‘turn on’ the appliances (fountain in the present case) when some one comes in the proximity of the device / fountain say 7 feet and ‘turns it off’ when the person leaves the area. This way the device will save spillage of energy / electricity and also saves the life of the motor / lights installed in the fountain. This device will save little bit energy each time and in long run it will save a lot of energy.

This device is prepared using ‘arduino board’by burning the bootloader on ATMEGA8A chip(making a bridge for transferring the code of arduino into the Atmega8A chip). I have already uploaded instructable using aduino board separately (https://www.instructables.com/id/ENERGY-SAVER-PROJECTARDUINO-BASED ). I have made this project using a microcontroller because it will be more power conservative as its own power consumption is far less that arduino based device(because arduino itself needs power to function, where as the Microcontroller- ATmega8A’s power consumption is lesser i.e. 3 to 11 mA against 42mA of Arduino board.

To function the device properly, it may be placed in the proper place where no obstruction is between it and the open space of the room.