Logging mains voltage: Arduino or Raspberry Pi?

Good luck getting 250V looked at, the ESQCR says 216-253V is permitted.

Reply to
Andy Burns
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In other words, equipment should be able to perform adequately over this range without malfunctioning.

Reply to
NY

So while spending money on an arduino and all the hassle of setting it up j ust to prove that the voltage goes to 250V and blows a wallpaper stripper e lement will do what exactly, might be fun to do if you have the time on you r hands and like doing this sort of thing fine. But I would have brought a differnt wallpaper sripper long before that if t he one I had kept going faulty after just one or two elements.

Reply to
whisky-dave

photonicinduction seems to get kettles up to 320-440V before they pop...

Reply to
Andy Burns

We can all overload stuff :)

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Reply to
whisky-dave

250V is within the tolerance for UK mains voltage!
Reply to
dennis

Indeed so: 216.2 - 253.0 V is the range.

Reply to
charles

Reply to
newshound

Three different types of element so far. I've been looking for an excuse to play with one of these for some time, and this provides it. I have other uses for it once I have climbed the learning curve. Like other posters, I am deeply skeptical that it is over-voltage. But that is one possibility that is comparatively easy to test.

Reply to
newshound

Then maybe those kettle elements weren;t meant to run on UK electricity or just wasn't spec'd right a bit like certain types of cladding. I don't remember seeing a link to these elements that kept needing to be re placed.

Of course one problem of running a kettle element in a wall paper stripper is that kettle elements are designed to be switched off immedaitly after th ey have reach their temerature whereas a wallpaper stripper is meant to ke ep boiling or be kept very close to boiling point for mins if not an hour o r more.

Reply to
whisky-dave

up just to prove that the voltage goes to 250V and blows a wallpaper stripp er element will do what exactly, might be fun to do if you have the time on your hands and like doing this sort of thing fine.

if the one I had kept going faulty after just one or two elements.

What are these differnt types ?

true this sort of thing can be fun, people thought I was strange because I brought a webcam so I could see cats in my garden and observe my cat flap 2

4/7.

That's good Arduinios can be fun to experiment with and quite amazing for t he price and size. 14 in/outs 6 analogue inputs.

True but testing it accuratly over time might not be that easy with an ardu nino but it depends on what's actually being tested and the timescale.

I could be used to monitor various points in the house to see where such vo ltage spikes might be occuring is it everywhere or just one place. Maybe the earth isn;t 'correct' and floating or something.

A webcam looking at a DVM display would also work and less hassle. I'm recycling arduinos from last years projects have abou 6 so far that I t hink might still work, another dozen or so to go.

Would be an interesting project for students but there's no way I'd let the m record anything much over 30V.

Reply to
whisky-dave

Shifts to get the nearest power of two and then.

Sqrt(1+x) = 1 + 2x/(4+x)

suitably scaled.

It seems to me even less likely that a kettle element device will even notice a mains transient. A thin filament bulb might blow and ours used to sometimes when the local pumping station was able to create big transient glitches on the mains. It was fixed by a new (bigger) cable.

Sounds more like you are boiling it dry or using water so hard that in

20 minutes the layer of clay is enough to cause a thermal cutout.

If the mains was 5% high then you get 10% more power dissipated in the heater element since it is run at almost constant temperature of boiling water. Worst that should happen is 10% more steam out unless the steam cannot escape fast enough. Mains going 50% high might easily break it but would have disastrous effects on many domestic appliances too.

If you are not blowing filament light bulbs as well then the fault more probably lies with the device that is failing repeatedly.

Reply to
Martin Brown

Whilst not the fun of playing with an Arduino for such things, I wonder what sort of peak voltage one of the plug-in mains power monitors might be able to store (thinking I had seen such a function on one of mine?).

Knowing how bad my 'roundtuit' timer can be I was considering using one of the USB dataloggers to monitor some 12V battery applications.

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If you had your mini-mains transformer, a bridge rec and suitable cap (to match the characteristics of the monitor to give the fastest response) I wonder if that might give you something that would be quicker to setup and equally useful for other (battery monitoring) type experiments?

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

This thread must take the biscuit for the most absolute BOLLOCKS ever written on Usenet (and that's saying something). I hope no one in the future looks through some of the replies from certain people here and ends up getting themselves killed from the 'advice' given.

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

5 kVA to be scrupulous about it. I had 3 x 500VA isolating trannies but gave one away to a friend who was having to work with live switchers direct from the mains. I'm kind like that. ;-)
Reply to
Cursitor Doom

Not about "safer voltages" (whatever that means) at all. A pure mains isolating transformer takes 230V in and gives ~230V out. The key differences are that the insertion of the IT into the supply limits the amount of energy you can draw vs. the bare mains. The IT also breaks the ground reference that bare mains has to Earth (this important safety aspect seems to go over most folks' heads!)

Reply to
Cursitor Doom

Maybe if it was under a tenner. I don't see that being particularly versatile, and at that price you are approaching Arduino territory (given that I have a fairly good collection of "useful bits). But I appreciate the suggestion.

Reply to
newshound

Fame at last!

Reply to
newshound

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