hey all, so a few months ago I talked about designing some kind of a smart grid project for my final year applied project. My team and I have put together a rough schematic that I would like to share with you.
the purpose of our project is to create a specially designed circuit that is powered from the mains line, and can be inserted into every receptacle in a persons home. This circuit powers a pic microcontroller (we are unsure of the exact model as of yet), which receives inputs from various sensors (lux sensors for example) and relays data from its input to a wifi module that sends the data to a hardware peripheral (perhaps a more beastly pic or a raspberry pi) which collects the data, and then relays it to a user through a GUI interface (which we will code and design)
the goal is to demonstrate to users the amount of power their loads are consuming (from each receptacle), and incorporate the use of sensors to automate their lighting settings (e.g. if it's bright outside, the lights in a persons home will be dim, or may even be turned off).
So with that in mind, here's my main question
1: If we power the device from the mains line by splitting the mains feed to a bridge rectifier, which is then stepped down by a voltage regulator to the pic, then how do we determine how much current is running through that circuit? Please take a look at the image below for more info.
the purpose of our project is to create a specially designed circuit that is powered from the mains line, and can be inserted into every receptacle in a persons home. This circuit powers a pic microcontroller (we are unsure of the exact model as of yet), which receives inputs from various sensors (lux sensors for example) and relays data from its input to a wifi module that sends the data to a hardware peripheral (perhaps a more beastly pic or a raspberry pi) which collects the data, and then relays it to a user through a GUI interface (which we will code and design)
the goal is to demonstrate to users the amount of power their loads are consuming (from each receptacle), and incorporate the use of sensors to automate their lighting settings (e.g. if it's bright outside, the lights in a persons home will be dim, or may even be turned off).
So with that in mind, here's my main question
1: If we power the device from the mains line by splitting the mains feed to a bridge rectifier, which is then stepped down by a voltage regulator to the pic, then how do we determine how much current is running through that circuit? Please take a look at the image below for more info.
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