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power monitor — Parallax Forums

power monitor

ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
edited 2002-10-28 22:39 in General Discussion
I am new to the Basic stamp. have some medical problems and take quite
a few medications every day and tire easily. I have a detached shop and
I wanted to monitor some 110 & 220 Volt things. I some times go in the
house to rest and may not go out to the shop again that day. From what I
have read I think it would be quite easy to have one stamp out in the
shop and one in the house that are hooked up by I2C. Now the question
here is what size wire is needed and what length can one use? 1000 feet?
2000 feet?
The reason for the long length is I have another thought in mind for a
later project.
Next what is the least expensive way to monitor 110 or 220 volts and go
direct to a stamp input.

The Idea would be to have a stamp in the house that would have several
LEDs connected to the outputs to tell what is on or is it below
freezing.
If I under stand right the stamp output cannot drive an LED directly?
Yes or No?
can I get by with just the basic stamp chip or am I going to have to
have some support chips?

It is not that I am lazy but winter is almost here in Wisconsin and if I
do not need to get dressed up to go out and check things when it is a 30
below wind chill and a 30 MPH wind with snow 2 foot deep and drifting.
I think it would be a pain for even a healthy person.

Bob nelson

Comments

  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2002-10-28 19:12
    The stamp would do what you want but I would look into the x10 or
    Radio Shack remote controllers as long as the shop is on the same
    Power transformer as the house.

    larry
    Original Message
    From: "robert nelson" <rinelson@c...>
    To: <basicstamps@yahoogroups.com>
    Sent: October 28, 2002 9:44 AM
    Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] power monitor



    I am new to the Basic stamp. have some medical problems and take
    quite
    a few medications every day and tire easily. I have a detached
    shop and
    I wanted to monitor some 110 & 220 Volt things. I some times go
    in the
    house to rest and may not go out to the shop again that day. From
    what I
    have read I think it would be quite easy to have one stamp out in
    the
    shop and one in the house that are hooked up by I2C. Now the
    question
    here is what size wire is needed and what length can one use?
    1000 feet?
    2000 feet?
    The reason for the long length is I have another thought in mind
    for a
    later project.
    Next what is the least expensive way to monitor 110 or 220 volts
    and go
    direct to a stamp input.

    The Idea would be to have a stamp in the house that would have
    several
    LEDs connected to the outputs to tell what is on or is it below
    freezing.
    If I under stand right the stamp output cannot drive an LED
    directly?
    Yes or No?
    can I get by with just the basic stamp chip or am I going to have
    to
    have some support chips?

    It is not that I am lazy but winter is almost here in Wisconsin
    and if I
    do not need to get dressed up to go out and check things when it
    is a 30
    below wind chill and a 30 MPH wind with snow 2 foot deep and
    drifting.
    I think it would be a pain for even a healthy person.

    Bob nelson



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  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2002-10-28 20:41
    On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 12:44, robert nelson wrote:
    > shop and one in the house that are hooked up by I2C. Now the question
    > here is what size wire is needed and what length can one use? 1000 feet?
    > 2000 feet?

    I can't help you here...

    > Next what is the least expensive way to monitor 110 or 220 volts and go
    > direct to a stamp input.

    Take a look here for some ideas on building a low-cost power monitor:
    http://www.edcheung.com/automa/power.htm

    There are other places that sell ready-made inductive current coils, I
    use a few from Cutler-Hammer around my own house. They'll above an AC
    voltage in proportion to the current being drawn. You can measure this
    with an ADC (after going through a full-wave bridge) to get an output
    that will follow the current use, or through any number of other
    methods. There was an article in Nuts N Volts maybe 18 months ago about
    a PIC project for a wood shop that used a current sensor to trigger a
    dust collector to come on, that might be useful as well.

    > If I under stand right the stamp output cannot drive an LED directly?
    > Yes or No?

    It sure can, with the proper current-limiting resistor.

    > can I get by with just the basic stamp chip or am I going to have to
    > have some support chips?

    Depends on how complex you want to get, if you just want to know simple
    temp setpoint and/or if a device is on or off, than "just a stamp" would
    probably work.
    --
    There are only 10 kinds of people in the world.
    Those that understand binary. And those that don't.
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2002-10-28 20:42
    On Mon, 2002-10-28 at 14:12, Larry Gaminde wrote:
    > The stamp would do what you want but I would look into the x10 or
    > Radio Shack remote controllers as long as the shop is on the same
    > Power transformer as the house.
    >
    Good thought, but the OP mentioned a distance of 1000+ feet... This is a
    long way for an X-10 signal to travel reliably.
  • ArchiverArchiver Posts: 46,084
    edited 2002-10-28 22:39
    Go RS485 -- you can do thousands of feet with some 18ga Belden cable.

    One of the products we sold at my former job worked very well at 9600 baud
    sending data to a remote PC and printer.

    **********

    > I am new to the Basic stamp. have some medical problems and take quite
    > a few medications every day and tire easily. I have a detached shop and
    > I wanted to monitor some 110 & 220 Volt things. I some times go in the
    > house to rest and may not go out to the shop again that day. From what I
    > have read I think it would be quite easy to have one stamp out in the
    > shop and one in the house that are hooked up by I2C. Now the question
    > here is what size wire is needed and what length can one use? 1000 feet?
    > 2000 feet?
    > The reason for the long length is I have another thought in mind for a
    > later project.
    > Next what is the least expensive way to monitor 110 or 220 volts and go
    > direct to a stamp input.
    >
    > The Idea would be to have a stamp in the house that would have several
    > LEDs connected to the outputs to tell what is on or is it below
    > freezing.
    > If I under stand right the stamp output cannot drive an LED directly?
    > Yes or No?
    > can I get by with just the basic stamp chip or am I going to have to
    > have some support chips?
    >
    > It is not that I am lazy but winter is almost here in Wisconsin and if I
    > do not need to get dressed up to go out and check things when it is a 30
    > below wind chill and a 30 MPH wind with snow 2 foot deep and drifting.
    > I think it would be a pain for even a healthy person.
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