I have terminated.... 5 of these cables so far. This is 20 conductor 22awg cable. Good for 10 CTs each.
This is roughly the hardware I started with. A lot of CTs. A roll of 20 conductor cable. Lots of ferrules...
200+ % self-production!
Daily solar production. Still, need more panels, but, hitting 90% energy coverage.
Since, I have this odd obsession with monitoring and tracking energy data....
I have been busy working on a solution to monitor, ALL of the energy. Not some of the energy, but, ALL of the energy.
I initially was using CT Clamps, however, this gets very messy, and the quantity of cables becomes a problem. I ended up finding some 20 conductor cable, which has been working perfectly for this task, allowing me to monitor the 30 slot panel on the left, with only 4 total cables, and a single cable for the right panel which only contains 6x 240v loads.
The star of the show is the KinCony N30, running ESPHome. Yes... I should have picked up the N60. But- I didn't know I would be using 60 channels until it happened. So, instead I have a pair of N30s.
All of the data collected is fed into..... home assistant, MQTT, prometheus, emoncms, and my software, rpdu2mqtt (It originally just monitored my PDUs).
I have been COMPLETELY ripping out and replacing all of the energy infrastructure at this house which I moved into last winter... This is due to the solar build out I have been working on. My goals have been to more or less, eliminate having an electric bill.
Since, I am cheap, I have done 100% of the work myself. Trenching, Welding, Construction, Electrical, Plumbing... All of it.
As of this month, It is currently hitting 90% of my net usage, which is fantastic. But, I have another dozen or so panels to install to get this number boosted up a bit. Right now, HVAC needs are at the lowest time of the year. During the summer.... Significantly more energy is required here.
Suppose- thats all. Just sharing my project.
Edit- minor detail- but, all of the voltage references, and CT cables are phase-marked with heat shrinking. Split phase- so, not actually a phase- but, Do have to ensure breakers are correctly aligned to the correct pole/voltage sensor.
I am also PHYSICALLY mapping out all of the circuits in this house... and GFCIs.
There is some questionable wiring here... but, thanks to having all of the CTs, I can literally walk around with a 1,800w heat gun, and very quickly map outlets back to circuits....
Useful for finding problems such as.......
Microwave is on the same circuit as the lights.
Middle bathroom is on same circuit as master bedroom (and is not GFCI protected).
Middle bedroom, has a random outlet that is shared with the livingroom, oddly.
The livingroom has a different breaker for every wall nearly.......
This. This is the part that makes me want to do a project like this at my mom's house. There are so many outlets and switches that make no sense in her little 3bed-2bath 1300-sqft house. There's a switch that turns off the outlets on one wall in the living room.
Very nice. I monitor all mine also. One project that really saved me on energy is my hvac. It’s a heat pump and has an api. So naturally I made a project for it. Shelly BT sensors on all doors and windows. If one is open for more than 2 min, it shuts off the hvac system.
I've noticed from the data- my deep freezer apparently either needs to get cleaned out, or...... its going out on me.
Its also saved me before from the fridge/freezer going out.
100% on HVAC, I have three minisplits, a central 5-ton unit, and.... a fireplace. This data does help me with a few things. It helps me identify rooms/areas which have more leakage then expected... and.. well. Its extremely handy to be able to track the hvac usage across the handful of units.
Did you use the same maximum current rates CTs on all circuits? My led light circuits or fridge circuit will pull a few amps where as my EV charger or induction cooktop (or hot water unit) will pull 32A. My instinct is to size the CT to just above the breaker rating. Is the added complexity justified, or did you just use the same CT on all?
This kind of information might not be available (or accurate) for cheap consumer equipment but if you stay within the CT’s linear non-saturation window then you can probably experiment a bit with different ratios.
Can you elaborate on what you are using instead of single CTs on the individual Breaker? seems it's a 20-conductor cabel with small CTs on the end of each? Can you elaborate on which solid core CTS and how you wired them up? the setup looks neat
The 20 conductor cable, has 10 different color pairs. Red, Red stripe, Yellow, Yellow strip, etc.
Each pair supports a single CT. The CTs are connected to the cable using UL-listed butt-crimps. The UL-listed part is extremely important here.... The non-UL crimps are not nearly as thick, and do not create a secure bond with the cable. Every single one of the crimps was tug-tested too.... and the wire will break, before it pulls out of the crimp.
Then.... heat shrink wrapping the crimp connectors..... and then heat shrink on top of those, to keep everything nice and tidy.
So Each CT lead is joined to the 20-cable with a crimped butt connector. How did you do the second crimp? I also have one of those close-ended crimpers and the wire needs to be open to get the tool off the wire, no?
Where did you get UL rated Crimps? I also have some cheapo ones and they are trash.
My other thought was to use the solder filled heatshrink butt-connectors, did you consider those?
Well, I have quite a few pairs of crimpers, from nice to not nice... And honestly, the pair which did the best job, was one of the crappiest sets I had.
The nice set of crimps- the connectors kept getting stuck in them, and the crimps were just not as secure.
Where did you get UL rated Crimps? I also have some cheapo ones and they are trash.
> My other thought was to use the solder filled heatshrink butt-connectors, did you consider those?
I have a set of those I picked up a while back, and I absolutely hate them.... Maybe, I just have a really bad set, but, the plastic sheathing would usually be a molten puddle long before the solder finally melted and bonded to the copper.
That- and after using the butt connectors I linked above for this project- I'll be ordering quite a few more of these. These things were fantastic to work with.
Edit, actually went ahead and ordered them now.... in a few different sizes too. These things were outstanding to work with.
I'd say- after using these crimp connectors, I won't be soldering wires together anytime soon, with the exception of building/modifying PCBs.
These go in FAST too. When- I saw the wire will break before it pulls out, I was not kidding. I tested quite a bit before putting in the time and effort of doing all 60+ wire crimps!
lol, while I do run around and turn lights off and fuss about lights being left on....
I do acknowledge- I use most of the power.
Between- my office, and all of the monitors/computers here, and my server rack... I don't have much room to fuss too much about a few lights being left on. But- doesn't stop me!
Well, having used and experienced.... Iotawatt, CircuitSetup, Emporia Vue, and Refoss-
Hands down- these are my favorite solution so far. Open firmware, and hardware. The price isn't unreasonable. And, it runs firmware and does exactly what I want it to do.
Also- has direct modbus support, which is great, since I'm using modbus for collecting a ton of my solar related data.
That being said, A single N60 would be a bit nicer then two N30s. but- yea... stuff happens.
Frankly, you mind sharing so I can ask Codex to pick through and see if there's anything I've missed in my own projects? Things that you've already addressed or accounted for is my thought. I just started building my own boards out last week. Since I'm using a cheap stock aliexpress ESP32 dongle to my cheap inverter I'm still mostly at the start of data collection and resilience
Hey, I remember this install from a few posts back :)
I initially was using CT Clamps, however, this gets very messy, and the quantity of cables becomes a problem.
I ended up using cat6 for this. I wanted the small safety net of the wires having the internally twisted pairs. Still allowed for 4 ct's per "wire", but it definitely adds up to a big bundle-o-wires.
And, that picture of "applying the ct's to wires" slog...I feel that in muh bones. It's a LOT of stripping, clamping, and ferrul'ing. And you have to keep it all consistent!
minor detail- but, all of the voltage references, and CT cables are phase-marked with heat shrinking.
Less minor than that, imo. The kincony's use the phase data to calculate watts, so if you are readings amps from phase a, and volts from phase b, you'll get incorrect watts readings. Granted, in our 120/240 split homes, the voltage of the two phases are usually the same, or close enough to not matter, but it's not always the case.
> I ended up using cat6 for this. I wanted the small safety net of the wires having the internally twisted pairs. Still allowed for 4 ct's per "wire", but it definitely adds up to a big bundle-o-wires.
Funny you mention that- that is actually what I originally had done. (Literally- I had 80% of everything done, using CAT6)
But, I ripped it all out this weekend, and replaced it with the 20C cable instead. The 20C, works perfectly with the 20 pin connectors too. It was bothering me that each connector would fit two and a half cables, and I would either have to split a cable, or leave half of it unused.
Other then the minor non-issues I was obsessing over, cat6 worked just fine. I will be using CAT6 to run remote CTs to a few of the sub panels around the house soon though. Its literally perfect for it.
ALSO- a random note- keystones worked really good for this too.... The CTs slot right into a cat6 keystone.
> Less minor than that, imo. The kincony's use the phase data to calculate watts, so if you are readings amps from phase a, and volts from phase b, you'll get incorrect watts readings. Granted, in our 120/240 split homes, the voltage of the two phases are usually the same, or close enough to not matter, but it's not always the case.
Look close at the pictures on the main post- all of the cables are phase-marked. Either black heat shrinking, or red. Ignore the panel on the right, its all 240v.
I spent a good amount of effort ensuring everything was correctly aligned to the correct pole.
Not- that its going to make a huge difference, but, it did make me feel better when everything lined up perfectly.
Oh, we're fully in agreement. Should be done; likely wouldn't ruin the metrics, but it's good have it correct since doing so also gets you a proper PowerFactor.
BUT, keep in mind, the N30 calculates energy usage on an embedded chip, and it uses the voltage reference. If the reference is off- you will not get correct energy data.
Edit- the ESP32 READs its data from the underlying chips, and does not calculate the energy itself. Technically, you could do the calculations on the esp and pull the voltage reference from one of the other chips. but- fyi.
Yeah, the embedded arm units are doing all the real work. (Which, side note, are not super fun to update.)
To clarify what I meant: pulling the volts & amps and just multiplying them together would actually produce the wrong data.
What I'm talking about is the difference between VoltAmps and Watts. For a DC system, volts*amps=watts. Watts there is the same as voltamps. However, for an AC system that's not true. You can have amps the flow back and forth and do no "work" (ie: watts). They just are the noise of magnetic fields setting up and collapsing as the ac wave form cycles. Still counts as amps flowing through the wires, but doesn't get spent at the load.
If you take a close look at your metrics, you'll see that the reported volts * amps != watts that the unit reports, and this is correct. The difference will be very pronounced on things with motors (ac, heatpumps, etc) and much more minimal on items that are just electronics. Having worked mostly with ebike electronics for a while now (all dc) I didn't know about powerfactor much prior to configuring the N60 and thought the unit was busted, lol!
The reason those arm chips are in there is because they're doing a lot more than just snapshot volt/amp reading, but tracking the volt/amp waveforms and doing whatever fancy math is required to properly measure watts.
This all gathers up and measures out to kWh's used and charged for. The vast majority of places charge you at your watts used, and just ignore the powerfactor overhead of all the amps that are doing "non work". (Industrial locations, big heavy machines, much induction, don't get this consideration because if they have a machine that pulls 100A with a PF of 0.5, the power company has to support pushing 200A over the wires. Not something they'd be happy about :D)
There is mains-level surge protectors up at the distribution box!
But- all of those power bricks will be replaced/removed before this is officially "DONE".
I have a panel about 10' to the right, which contains inline surge protection, and dedicated DC power supplies. Once I bend and run another piece of 1/2 or 3/4" EMT, I will be running 24v directly from that panel to power these units.
Of course- this panel is not finished either, I need to move everything around, add another row, and do some more cleanup on these cables.....
But, little by little.
(Don't worry- the water fittings here, are temporary.... had to get that somewhat mocked out.)
Pretty nice, going to borrow a lot of your ideas! My electricity costs are way too high, drives me bonkers not having tools in place to know exactly why.
Looks good! I will spare you from my usual NEC / UL rant on installations like this. I love the visualization, I haven't seen that software before will have to check it out.
The software originally started as something to pull data from my vertiv rPDUs... I wrote by hand quite a few years back.
And...... then well, claude was strongly leveraged to allow me to scope-creep it into oblivion.
But, tldr; it collects, stores and reports on energy. Integrates energy with emoncms, prometheus, and home assistant. and mqtt. and supports collecting directly from modbus, mqtt, emoncms. and supports pulling directly from tigo optimizers too. And of course, has a floor planning tool, where I can trace/draw.
Oh you made that? Cool!!!! I actually have an application where I might have a use for it -I need to record power consumption over a few days. I have some modbus wattnode energy meters and was looking for a software to use with them.
Since you asked..... the NEC stuff I noticed at first glance and please correct me if I am wrong on anything,
-The energy meters have to be listed, those dont appear to be
-The CTs have to be listed, or be recognized components that are part of a field installed listed system, the ones pictured dont appear to be given the wire that's coming out of them.
-Wire splices (the ones from the CTs to your wire) have to be listed, not sure if whatever crimp you used and the heatshrink is a listed combination
-The energy meters likely need supplemental protection on their voltage inputs
-What is that 20c cable you used? What type is it, or what does the legend on it say?
All that said, it looks like you know what you're doing and put in the work to do it well. You wouldn't believe how many of these ive seen with the energy meter crammed into the breaker panel and cat5 run in the same conduit with power conductors.
Are you collecting data into a local buffer before sending it to HA or are you piping everything over to a remote server via mqtt or similar and then crunching it down? Curious about bandwidth considerations
Urgh when I did this, I used Emporia Vue2.. the damn channels started dropping over a few weeks with circuits showing no data/not connected. Panel off.. wiggle... repeat. Got fed up, called Emporia and got a new module. Easy enough to replace but then 3 months later...
2 are still down and I'm bitter about it. Thankfully the large CT's count total usage and give you a difference but still... I wanna know how much it cost to cook that roast for 4 hours!
Very impressive! How does the cost compare with smart panels? I'm specifically thinking of something like a leviton load center with the 2nd gen smart breakers. I got the panel but didn't do the smart breakers yet. If the cost per circuit was cheaper than those damn breakers, I'd heavily consider doing something like that instead.
I will not have ANY cloud dependency for any of my IOT or automation. None!!!!!!
(But- Yes- I did consider it very early on in the project, until I realized it would have a cloud dependency. )
I even built support to locally poll the tigo units from my solar panels, to remove myself from their cloud dependency. Because, they wanted me to pay for premium in order to see the voltage/amp data from optimizers that I paid for and owned.
Nice, thanks. That lead me down some rabbit holes till I found https://rar.github.io/esphome-tigomonitor/ which is more my style (just regular esphome + ha stats; nothing mqtt fancy more than that). None-the-less it'll be one less cloud adapter to think about :D
Way more expensive and cloud dependent. (OK, technically they have a local API now, but they only added that extremely begrudgingly because hackers reverse engineered their first non-open api. I award them no points for that.) The only perk to the span is load shedding, but I think that's over-hyped most of the time.
Since Span breaker boxes are an utter rip off due to the >$6,000 entry cost, and the fact that this OP DIY'd everything themselves, I'm going to go ahead and guess "No".
56
u/Hotfield 12h ago edited 10h ago
I love it when people just go that tiny bit too far, shows passion!
Very neat! Nicely done