vestal pewter
Been forgetting about clothes in the laundry recently. Being in the US dryers are 240v appliances and don't really have the choice for an energy monitoring smart plug like I used to alert me on the washer. Decided to jump on the CT clamp gang and designed and printed a small case to be attached with magnets to the dryer and alert me of power usage changes.
foggy grove
If you end up reprinting it I think the magnets on the inside of the case would be a better solution. Would be easier to print and wouldn't need a glue or anything to hold them in
vestal pewter
They aren't very strong magnets. Just what I had laying around. It's only the second prototype case. First one was too short since there are no CAD models of that esp board. Need to redesign the lid and make the USB charging port larger as well.
bronze quartz
That board is unfortunately very bad at deep sleep. If you do put it to sleep and want to extend battery life, consider removing the uart chip and regulator, and replacing it for an ht7333 or similar.
If i recall correctly, my deep sleep current went from 15mA to 30uA. I think I also had to remove the 5v booster chip and feed the battery directly to the LDO
old vortex
talking low deep sleep current: the bee s3 looks like a good candidate (claims <20uA)
vestal pewter
That board is unfortunately very bad at deep sleep. If you do put it to sleep an...
Wanted something quick and dirty for my first attempt. I'll keep this in mind.
bronze quartz
It has veen running since june 🙂 I also used espnow to avoid the 7 second wifi connection, so kind not really representative of normal usage
I actually lost the board in the house for a month with the battery inside 🤣.
normal ocean
I thought clamp-based monitoring requires to put it around a single wire? How does it work in your case?
For dryer I decided to monitor status led - it goes green while working, and off when done. So I'm just measuring voltage to see if it's on or off
*led voltage
foggy grove
I thought clamp-based monitoring requires to put it around a single wire? How do...
A lot of appliance cords you can easily separate a single line on because of their construction
vestal pewter
Correct. Most dryers have a 3 terminal black that the plug is connected to. I was able to fit the clamp around one live wire just before the block. I won't get true power usage statistics, but I can decide if the dryer is on or off.
foggy grove
Correct. Most dryers have a 3 terminal black that the plug is connected to. I wa...
I think adding a second clamp would give you true power usage.
vestal pewter
Yeah I believe you are correct. However I'm less concerned with knowing that vs when the dryer is on and off.
vestal pewter
Actually, just double checked and I believe my dryer uses L1 to power both heater and motor, so clamping it gives me a pretty good idea of total power consumption. That is, now that I actually fixed the 3.5mm connection.
pliant agate
If anyone else wants to do this, you can absolutely monitor 240V on US appliances with a sonoff pow - ignore the neutral, and connect it to the two live wires. My biggest expense was the enormous and overengineered connectors.
vestal pewter
Looks like it's only rated for 20a though
pliant agate
Yeah, 15A. Washers/dryers use way less. There's also a fuse inside of the sonoffs.
My dryer maxes out at 10A
foggy grove
My dryer maxes out at 10A
I think that's kind of low for a dryer, most are hooked to a 30AMP outlet and 10 amps is only 2400 watts for drying. would think the heating elements would take more that that peak at least
pliant agate
The outlet might be rated for more, but in Europe they're regularly installed on 240V/16A breakers. This one is from a German manufacturer. I don't know if dryers from American manufacturers use up a lot more, but it'd surprise me.
vestal pewter
America isn't exactly known for efficiency
vestal pewter
That board is unfortunately very bad at deep sleep. If you do put it to sleep an...
You weren't exaggerating. It zapped that 18650 real fast.
bronze quartz
You weren't exaggerating. It zapped that 18650 real fast.
Yeah, it's designed with zero consideration. Even the ttl-usb chip gets powered nonstop. It would be so much better if it didn't have the voltage booster and used a real LDO fed directly from the battery. And either no usb chip, or just freaking feed it from the usb 5v line :/.
I bought 4, so very disappointed.
But you can remove all chips and put an h7333 (cheap as dirt)
vestal pewter
I didn't have super high expectations given there's no published schematic or cad rendering
bronze quartz
Then you get months of battery
vestal pewter
I'll probably look into that specially since mine arrived with a dead uart chip anyhow
bronze quartz
I hope someone from #hardware-design makes a good one some day.
vestal pewter
Yeah I have plenty of 18650s laying around so it appealed more than a JST lipo pack
bronze quartz
The best part is that the on-off switch doesn't actually disconnect the battery. IIRC, the booster still runs and drains it
bronze quartz
Yeah I have plenty of 18650s laying around so it appealed more than a JST lipo p...
Same here.
vestal pewter
Maybe that'll give me something to do in kicad for months and never get around to getting past a prototype board
My last venture in PCB design. Left out a couple pull up resistors on the i2c line.
bronze quartz
Now that there is true BLE support in HA, maybe there is the option of getting good battery life with an esp32 (without the esp-now trickery)
Nice! What is its purpose?
I see your dog liked it too btw
vestal pewter
Smoker controller. Started as an ESP project as well. After I caught two dev boards on fire and decided I was too lazy to write C+ code (didn't know about esphome at the time) I scraped it to redesigned as a pihat for a 0w. Idea was using a fan and shutter for regulating smoker temperatures on my UDS. Nothing original but I don't want to pay $250 for someone else's lack luster system.