Develop own Hardware - detail question

Hi,

first of all: I was searching a platform for Energy Monitoring for a long time. And with the open source IoTaWatt Project I found exactly what I was searching for. THANK YOU for that great job you did !!

But to meet my requirements on the mechanical design (available space for the PCB), I have to design my own PCB, based on the schematic and Layout I can found on GitHub.

I’m familiar with PCB-Develpoment but Software development is not my favorite. So I want to use the Firmware unchanged. I have compiled the Firmware from GitHub already with VScode & PIO.

1st question: Can I use the V5.0 hardware-design as basis for my own design and use the actual Firmware without changes? Seems there are no big differences to v4.8. I think you added the jacks on ADC6 + 7 to use the Inputs to measure alternativ the voltage of 2 additional phases in a 3-phase system?!
Is there some kind of Releasenotes for the Hardware and which Firmware is compatible to which Hardware version?

2nd question: On the schematic the Crystal ist labled with 32KHz. Am I right assuming it is a 32.768KHz ?!

Thanks in advance and best regards,
Jan

Hello Jan,

I’ve moved this to the thread to the “homebrew” category.

Documentation is here, beyond that, what is in Github and can be gleaned by searching this forum. There are some release notes in Github and in the common.cpp source file.

That’s about it. The firmware runs as is on all versions of the hardware, but starting with the V5 hardware, the EEPROM is initialized in manufacturing to tell the firmware it’s V5 and to define the characteristics of some of the components like burden resistors and voltage reference shunt. There is a commented stub in the setup.cpp module that can be activated to do that to a virgin ESP8266.

Correct.

Good Luck.

OK

Thank you for this ample answer. I hope I will get it running fighting actually with Fusion 360 as follow-up for eagle…

Best regards & keep on going with this great project!

I have layed out my own schematic and PCB.

I copied the V5 schematic.

I bought unit from Smart Guy plugged into my 14 CT LIGHT BULB ( 80W halogen bulb 240VAC ) it reads correct current and PF (power factor ) of 1.

I put the same ESP32 from bought Smart Guys into my PCB and all the vales are the same EXEXPT
power factor is 0.98 on same test jig.

I have programmed another 3 ESP32 boards and the same result.

Can any body help?

I did try to change value of Burden resistors on software but same result

Thanks
Dominic
Centratech

No idea, IoTaWatt uses ESP8266.

Hi

It has a ESP8266 programmed board ( Platform IO ) that works on the original PCB and the original PCB has the ESP32 module marked 12S. Both work 100% on original PCB.

Note: You have to program SD card separately first.

I have put 3 x 9VAC transformers on PCB and calibrated them to correct AC voltage on web page.

I have tried to shorten and lengthen the CT wire length.

I used 0.1% 20 ohm Bleden resistors on my PCB. I did check with same multi meter they are the same value.

The 9VAC transformer 1K and 12k are only 1% not 0.1%

Do you Know where the PF calculation software file is done?

Thanks
Dom

IoTaWatt uses an ESP8266-12S, so I think you are somewhat confused. ESP32 will not work at all in the ESP8266 circuits.

IoTaWatt collects three fundamental metrics related to a CT input:

  • Voltage
  • Watts
  • VA

All other metrics are calculated from those values. Power Factor is simply:

Watts / VA

You can extract Watts and VA from both and see how those metrics compare.

One caveat: Although the script system will calculate PF for inputs that are added or subtracted, the result is essentially useless as it does not accurately reflect the net reactive power that results from the interaction of those loads with each other. The only way to do that is to combine the circuits into one input by passing their wires through a single CT.

Hi Overeasy

The ESP8266-12S shows large 12S on module wile the other modules show ESP8266MOD are they the same?

If I use 30 pin module on original PCB the power factor correction value is a mathematical calculation of original PCB =1 with a light bulb.

If i use the same 30 pin module the power factor correction value is a mathematical calculation answer is different because the PCB is slightly different 0.95

To fix the problem i would have to change the mathematical calculation to suit my new PCB?

Thanks
Dom

Hi Overesy

The other problem I have is with SD cards.

The one I has laying around 16GB i copied the file from SD folder is Platform IO and it worked.

I have bought a few different 16 and 32 GB SD cards and non pf them work. The LED just stays RED on power up.

I have tried to format the SC card the same as the working one. FAT32 64 sector but no luck.

Thanks
Dom