What is the measuring range of the Amp sensor?
With a external amp sensor (ABB on multimeter) I'm measuring 400mA output of my PV installation.
And sadly there is no output readable in the syslog of the flukso (latest firmware)
Also changing from input 2 to input 3 gave no response.
The flukso channels itself are ok.
Tested it by moving my main sensor from input 1 to 2 and then 3.
But I don't like to dismount my main sensor to the pv wire due to a very tricky mounting position.
Attachment | Size |
---|---|
2013-02-01 11.33.59.jpg | 86.62 KB |
As the current transducer (the "clamp") provides a current proportional voltage from 0 to 5V (respective 0 to 1,1V in the FLM setup with parallel resistor) with a 10bit accuracy of the ADC it should be capable to detect down to 50mA (for the 50A clamp type). I, at least have no issue down to 10W displayed (equals the approx. 50mA@230V - but I must admit that I switched to a S0-counter for our PV setup as reactive power made readings not reliable)
Regards, Markus
Found the problem on this sunny day: the amp sensor was not working properly.
Luckely I ordered a spare one ;-)
That kinda confirms my findings as sometimes adding a 1W consuming device can result in a 10W measurement jump (eg. my subwoofer has 1.1W standby consumption but flukso reported 10W extra at night when I started using it).
For finetuning individual devices I now use an accurate powermeter, the flukso is only usable for the big picture...
Power factor is a big issue. Switching power supplies in particular can create over-inflated readings. Some of them (such as my MacBook Air power supply) have a cos-phi of 0.5.
If you want to be sure, use a power meter, as you suggest, or have a DIN rail meter installed and monitor its pulse output with the Flukso.
Michi.
True that... It's even worse for standby circuits. Good you mentioned it.
I replaced my clamp measuring my main electricity by a DIN rail meter as well to eliminate cos-phi misreadings... Eg. a 60 cm TL light measured as 80 Watt with the clamp instead of 25 Watt now :-(...
Then it would be interesting to add some sort of powerfactor correction possibility on the sensor page.
My PV installation uses a Sunny-Boy 1600TL-10 inverter with a powerfactor of 1 (see picture in original posting)
But this is probably not correct on the Amp sensor.
The cc sensors imo are only good for an indication that all is working. In the lower current levels they became inaccurate for me. I had to install DIN rail meters to connect to Flukso so I didnt see 'phantom; loads at night from my solar.
Bazzle