Monitoring power consumption with the Unity Power Monitor

Moe · August 24, 2024, 10:43pm

I’d like to monitor the power used by my Mycodo set up using the Unity Power Monitor ( GitHub - David00/rpi-power-monitor: Power Monitor (for Raspberry Pi)). I have set up the monitor on a separate RPI to the one Mycodo is installed on and it works great. I’d like to set it up as an input on the Mycode RPI so I can add the input to a dashboard. The challenge is that the Unity Power Monitor shield covers the entire GPIO header. I’m assuming that is for convenience and it doesn’t actually use all the GPIO pins. I’m interested to hear what others have done to connect the Unity Power Monitor to their Mycode RPI.

Thanks!

KyleGabriel · August 24, 2024, 10:58pm

It’s a shame it doesn’t use a through header, like the image below.

I wrote a lot of documentation about creating your own custom inputs. It’s a fairly straightforward process.

KyleGabriel · August 24, 2024, 10:59pm

Actually, I have this hardware and I already wrote an input for this.

KyleGabriel · August 24, 2024, 11:02pm

Also see:

github.com/David00/rpi-power-monitor

Refactoring into a Class

opened 01:50AM - 25 May 22 UTC

closed 06:37PM - 13 Nov 22 UTC

kizniche

I wanted to share and see if there's any interest in further development. In ord…er to make installing and using this library easier, I turned your code into a Class, as well as created a setup.py to allow easy installing via pip, at https://github.com/kizniche/rpi-power-monitor. It can then be installed as a package with: ```bash python -m virtualenv ./venv ./venv/bin/python -m pip install git+https://github.com/kizniche/rpi-power-monitor.git ``` Then, for example: ```python from rpi_power_monitor import power_monitor rpm = power_monitor.RPiPowerMonitor() rpm.run_main() ``` This allows me to import it in a [new input module](https://github.com/kizniche/Mycodo/blob/master/mycodo/inputs/power_monitor_rpi.py) I created for [Mycodo](https://github.com/kizniche/Mycodo), which uses it like this: ```python from rpi_power_monitor import power_monitor phase_correction = { 'ct1': self.ct1_phase_correction, 'ct2': self.ct2_phase_correction, 'ct3': self.ct3_phase_correction, 'ct4': self.ct4_phase_correction, 'ct5': self.ct5_phase_correction, 'ct6': self.ct6_phase_correction, } accuracy_calibration = { 'ct1': self.ct1_accuracy_calibration, 'ct2': self.ct2_accuracy_calibration, 'ct3': self.ct3_accuracy_calibration, 'ct4': self.ct4_accuracy_calibration, 'ct5': self.ct5_accuracy_calibration, 'ct6': self.ct6_accuracy_calibration, 'AC': self.ac_accuracy_calibration, } self.sensor = power_monitor.RPiPowerMonitor( grid_voltage=self.grid_voltage, ac_transformer_output_voltage=self.transformer_voltage, ct_phase_correction=phase_correction, accuracy_calibration=accuracy_calibration) board_voltage = self.sensor.get_board_voltage() samples = self.sensor.collect_data(2000) rebuilt_waves = self.sensor.rebuild_waves( samples, self.sensor.ct_phase_correction['ct1'], self.sensor.ct_phase_correction['ct2'], self.sensor.ct_phase_correction['ct3'], self.sensor.ct_phase_correction['ct4'], self.sensor.ct_phase_correction['ct5'], self.sensor.ct_phase_correction['ct6']) results = self.sensor.calculate_power(rebuilt_waves, board_voltage) self.logger.info(f"Voltage: {board_voltage}") chan = 1 for ct in range(1, 7): self.logger.info(f"Power {chan}: {results[f'ct{ct}']['power']} W") self.logger.info(f"Current {chan}: {results[f'ct{ct}']['current']} A") self.logger.info(f"Power Factor {chan}: {results[f'ct{ct}']['pf']}") chan += 3 ``` Here's the module being configured and running in the web UI (only the first channel is enabled): ### Input Page ![input](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/838427/170158815-5272f0ea-5f35-4be4-9cb6-860ebdcd1f85.png) ### Live Page ![live](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/838427/170158863-42b2f6be-ab3b-4e86-a1f4-252326ae27d0.png) ### Dashboard Graph Widget ![dashboard](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/838427/170158870-2c8e4526-0f19-4e84-8adc-8e66f3fd09e3.png)

Blake_Fisher · July 18, 2025, 9:56pm

Hey Moe is there a software related reason you are running utility power monitor on a separate rpi? Why not run Mycodo and the utility power monitor from one rpi?

KyleGabriel · July 19, 2025, 5:13pm

This is a major issue if you want to connect anything other than the power monitor board…

Hence my post about the extended header.