Hi there
Love the project and the community.
Is their an opportunity for an Australian Plug (AU) on the new emonPi Solars PV?
Also I'm just wondering, will I need a seperate emonTx if I want to understand the usage across different switches? All up I would like to understand how much I'm importing into the grid, how much I'm creating, how much I'm exporting (which I assume will be creating minus usage) and also the individual usage of my ducted aircon and solar hot water pump. Or can the emonPi Solar PV do it all?
Thanks!
Re: emonPi and AU Plug
I don't think you can do all that on your emonPi. You have a single phase, 230 V supply? The emonPi can measure two currents, implying two separate powers. So Nett Grid power is one, PV infeed is the second. For any more (up to 4) you need to add an emonTx and ac adapter, which would give you two spares on the emonTx (or on the Pi, or 1 on each - depends on where you locate everything in relation to the cable installation in your premises).
Conventionally, we call Import positive, so Import is the positive only part of Nett Grid power transfer, export is the negative only part.
Re: emonPi and AU Plug
I'm across the ditch in NZ and I run an EMONTX V3 and a EMONBASE running the EMONCMS monitoring software, the EMONTX has a UK Power supply on a socket converter and I measure:
Grid Import / Export on Channel 1
Solar Output on Channel 2
Solar Hot Water power diversion on Channel 3
SPA Heater power diversion on Channel 4
In my case the Solar goes into the house via a basement subboard and the grid enters via an in wall meter cabinet. I have a Current Transformer around each cable to provide the readings.
Re: emonPi and AU Plug
This is perfect, thank you so much guys.
I'm guessing from a voltage point of view, I will just need to buy the UK Plug which I assume preships at 240V. I'll read the manual, but I assume I don't need to do anything to ensure it operates at 230V?
Can an EMONTX V3 connect to a EMONPI SOLAR PV (for net Nett grid and PV infeed (Thanks Robert)? This would be an ideal setup for me as the EMONPI Solar PV for total net usage then expand when I have saved some more money to the EMONTX for monitoring of individual circuits).
Re: emonPi and AU Plug
The ac adapter is fine at 230 V for the Pi, and for the emonTx provided you don't have too many temperature sensors. That's because the current available is limited to prevent the current pulse drawn by the half-wave rectifier from causing too big a dip in the waveform that is also being used also for the voltage measurement.
You can connect (by radio) any sensible number of emonTx's, the limit comes from multiple transmitters sharing the same frequency.