Thanks for sharing this stuff. It got me looking at the CircuitSetup offerings... it seems to be exactly what I'm after for monitoring my entire house load. I currently have an Enphase Envoy and a Sense module. I'm quite happy with the Envoy but the Sense is a joke. I've found that I really want to have more resolution on what my demand looks like... at the individual circuit level would be great!
I really want to monitor Power Factor and I saw that you can get it from the CircuitSetup 6-way device. I'm in the United States so I have 2-phase at my meter/panel and I figure I'll need to monitor voltage from both legs of the panel. Reading the docs, I see that you can separate the voltage monitoring by cutting JP12 and JP13 and using the VA2 pins with a separate 9-12V AC supply. I'm trying to figure out how best to map out the correct voltage with each CT sensor so this calculation is accurate for every circuit.
Reviewing the design of the boards, it looks like VA (the primary 9-12V AC supply) gets passed down the stack, the bottom-most pins. However, the second supply VA2 does not get passed down the stack. I think this means to monitor two phases most accurately across something like 36-42 circuits, the best method is to leave the JP12/JP13 intact and just build two complete stacks (separate ones for monitoring each phase). Do you agree?
Edit
I just found this alternate method for tracking 3-phase power on the bottom of the GitHub site:
- Locate the bottom most pins (i.e. those which the ESP32 does not plug into), marked "VA-" and "VA+" for each add-on board. These normally provide the voltage reference to the add-on board from the main board
- Cut these pins off
- Solder a connector, or the wires from a transformer, in the bottom right holes marked "VA2" on the add-on boards. Polarity does not matter (if you are getting negative current readings, reverse the CT on the wire)
- Do not sever JP12 and JP13
I think with this method, I could build a stack like this:
- 1x - main board
- 2x - add-on boards
- 1x - add-on board with VA pins cut
- 1x - add-on board with VA2 wired up for second 9V supply
- 3x - add-on boards
Then I would have access to all 42 circuits with accurate power factor calculation based on the correct AC voltage supply, I think... the CT sensors on the top 24 inputs would go to one voltage rail in the panel and the bottom 24 inputs would go to the other voltage rail in the panel.