Tweet-A-Watt Created by Justin Cooper
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Tweet-a-watt Created by Justin Cooper Last updated on 2019-12-31 05:15:10 PM UTC Overview Watch me make a Watt-watcher This project documents my adventures in learning how to wire up my home for wireless power monitoring. I live in a rented apartment so I don't have hacking-access to a meter or breaker panel. Since I'm still very interested in measuring my power usage on a long term basis, I built wireless outlet reporters. Building your own power monitor isn't too tough and can save money but I'm not a fan of sticking my fingers into 120V power. Instead, I'll used the existing Kill-a-watt power monitor, which works great and is available at my local hardware store. My plan is to have each room connected to a 6-outlet power strip which powers all the devices in that room (each kill-a-watt can measure up to 15A, or about 1800W, which is plenty!). That way I can track room-by-room usage, for example "kitchen", "bedroom", "workbench", and "office". © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 4 of 80 I spent about 10 minutes on this diagram .... can you tell? Each wireless outlet/receiver can be built for ~$55 with a few easily-available electronic parts and light soldering, no microcontroller programming or high voltage engineering is necessary! You can see my setup including graphs and reports at http://twitter.com/tweetawatt (https://adafru.it/ee5) If you'd like to build one for yourself 1. Buy a kit: (https://adafru.it/aJD) get all the parts you need, there's a starter kit at the adafruit webshop 2. Make (https://adafru.it/jbp): turn each Kill-a-Watt into a wireless power level transmitter 3. Software: (https://adafru.it/jbq) Download & run it on your computer to get data and save it to a file and/or publish it If you want to know how it was made, check out: 1. Listen (https://adafru.it/jbr): write simple software for my computer (or Arduino, etc) to listen for signal and compute the current power usage 2. Store: (https://adafru.it/jbs) Create a database backend that will store the power usage for long-term analysis 3. View: (https://adafru.it/jbt) Graph and understand trends in power usage © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 5 of 80 Make it! Before you start... You should only attempt this project if you are comfortable and competant working with high voltage electricity, electronics and computers. Once the project is complete it is enclosed and there are no exposed high voltages. However, you must only work on the project when its not plugged in and never ever attempt to test, measure, open, or probe the circuitboards while they are attached to a wall socket. If something isnt working: stop, remove it from the wall power, then open it up and examine. Yes it takes a few more minutes but its a lot safer! Your safety is your own responsibility, including proper use of equipment and safety gear, and determining whether you have adequate skill and experience. Power tools, electricity, and other resources used for this projects are dangerous, unless used properly and with adequate precautions, including safety gear. Some illustrative photos do not depict safety precautions or equipment, in order to show the project steps more clearly. This projects is not intended for use by children. Use of the instructions and suggestions is at your own risk. Adafruit Industries LLC, disclaims all responsibility for any resulting damage, injury, or expense. It is your responsibility to make sure that your activities comply with applicable laws. OK, if you agree we can move on! Make a tweet-a-watt To make the tweet-a-watt setup, we will have to go through a few steps 1. Prepare (https://adafru.it/eeb) by making sure we have everything we need and know the skills necessary to build the project 2. Build the receiver setup (https://adafru.it/eec) by soldering up one of the adapter kits 3. Configure (https://adafru.it/eed) the XBee wireless modems 4. Build the transmitter setup (https://adafru.it/eee) by modifying a Kill-a-Watt to transmit via the XBee 5. Run the software (https://adafru.it/eef), which will retreive data and save it to a file, upload it to a database and/or twitter 6. Expand and extend (https://adafru.it/eef) your setup © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 6 of 80 Prep Tutorials Learn how to solder with tons of tutorials! (https://adafru.it/aTk) Don't forget to learn how to use your multimeter too! (https://adafru.it/aOy) Tools There are a few tools that are required for assembly. None of these tools are included. If you don't have them, now would be a good time to borrow or purchase them. They are very very handy whenever assembling/fixing/modifying electronic devices! I provide links to buy them, but of course, you should get them whereever is most convenient/inexpensive. Many of these parts are available in a place like Radio Shack or other (higher quality) DIY electronics stores. There are great tools for all your kit making in the Adafruit Shop! (https://adafru.it/eeg) If you're just starting, and need a full set of tools, we suggest the "Ladyada's Toolkit" - for $100 it contains everything you need to get started (http://adafru.it/136) But there's also lots of great individual tools available in the Adafruit store, so take a look around (https://adafru.it/eeg) Soldering iron Any entry level 'all-in-one' soldering iron that you might find at your local hardware store should work. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. Upgrading to a higher end soldering iron setup, like the Hakko FX- 888 that we stock in our store (http://adafru.it/180), will make soldering fun and easy. Do not use a "ColdHeat" soldering iron! They are not suitable for delicate electronics work and can damage the kit (see here (https://adafru.it/aOo)). Click here to buy our entry level adjustable 30W 110V soldering iron (http://adafru.it/180). Click here to upgrade to a Genuine Hakko FX-888 adjustable temperature soldering iron. (http://adafru.it/303) © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 7 of 80 Solder You will want rosin core, 60/40 solder. Good solder is a good thing. Bad solder leads to bridging and cold solder joints which can be tough to find. Click here to buy a spool of leaded solder (recommended for beginners) (http://adafru.it/145). Click here to buy a spool of lead-free solder (http://adafru.it/734). © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 8 of 80 Multimeter You will need a good quality basic multimeter that can measure voltage and continuity. Click here to buy a basic multimeter. (http://adafru.it/71) Click here to buy a top of the line multimeter. (http://adafru.it/308) Click here to buy a pocket multimeter. (http://adafru.it/850) © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 9 of 80 Flush Diagonal Cutters You will need flush diagonal cutters to trim the wires and leads off of components once you have soldered them in place. Click here to buy our favorite cutters (http://adafru.it/152). Solder Sucker Strangely enough, that's the technical term for this desoldering vacuum tool. Useful in cleaning up mistakes, every electrical engineer has one of these on their desk. Click here to buy a one (http://adafru.it/148). © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 10 of 80 Helping Third Hand With Magnifier Not absolutely necessary but will make things go much much faster, and it will make soldering much easier. Pick one up here (http://adafru.it/291). Good light. More important than you think. © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 11 of 80 Receiver Overview We'll start with the receiver hardware, thats the thing that plugs into the computer and receives data from the wireless power plug. The receiver hardware does 'double duty', it also is used to update the XBees modems' firmware (which, unfortunately, is necessary because they come from the factory with really old firmware) and configure the modems. What you'll need The receiver is essentially, an XBee, with a USB connection to allow a computer to talk to it the XBee. Image Name Description Datasheet Distributor Qty A USB-to-serial converter. Plugs in neatly into the Adafruit XBee FTDI cable TTL-232R 3.3V or 5.0V Adafruit 1 adapter to allow a computer to talk to the XBee. I'll be using my own design for the XBee breakout/carrier board but you can use nearly any kind as long as you replicate any missing parts such as the3.3V supply and LEDs Adafruit XBee Adapter kit Webpage Adafruit 1 You will have 2 adapter kits but you should only assemble one for this part! The other one needs different instructions so just hold off! We'll be using the XBee "series 1" point-to-multipoint 802.15.4 modules with a chip antenna part # XB24-ACI-001. They're XBee module inexpensive and work great. This Adafruit 1 project most likely won't work with any other version of the XBee, and certainly not any of the 'high power' Pro types! Solder the Adapter Together! © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/tweet-a-watt Page 12 of 80 This step is pretty easy, just go over to the XBee adapter webpage (https://adafru.it/eeh) and solder it together according to the instructions! (https://adafru.it/eei) Remember: You will have 2 adapter kits but you should only solder one of them at this point! The other one needs different instructions so just hold off! Connect to the XBee Now its time to connect to the XBees.