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Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

(OP)
Just ordered 5 of these with the intention of installing permanent current sensors in each of the important wires in my multiply parallel setup (3 strings of panels, 2 strings of lead acids, the diesel powered charger, and the inverter input) if I can sort the electronics out. At the moment I have a clamp on ammeter, and a single permanently installed current shunt which doesn't seem to measure quite what I'd expect.

http://www.allegromicro.com/~/Media/Files/Datashee...



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

RE: Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

Yew, +/-200A through 4mm wide terminals separated by 6mm. Sounds finicky to install but ought to be a neat result. How are you intending to wire to the chip?

RE: Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

I'm pretty sure you have it wrong; the measured current goes through the little horseshoe, which seems to have a terminal at each end. The three terminals on the chip that's adjacent to the horseshoe are power + and - and an analog output, all electrically isolated from the horseshoe.

Clamp-ons for Hall Effect sensors are difficult to make reliable because the magnetic impedance of a ferrite loop with a swinging gate of any sort is _extremely_ sensitive to the dimensions of the air gaps, and especially to any changes in those air gaps after calibration.

Honeywell used to sell a little circuit board with a projecting ferrite ring that you put your own wire through, and three terminals for + - and analog output. Factory calibration roughly doubled the price, ISTR.

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

(OP)
I agree, sorry for the confusion, I've only just had a chance to read the datasheet. The Honeywell units are about 50 bucks a pop, these are 4. Well that's annoying but you can't beat physics.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

RE: Hall Effect Current sensor for Solar panel and battery monitoring

Greg,

LEM-HEME make a range which are a lot friendlier to interface to. Most clip over a conductor or allow it to be fed through a reasonable-sized aperture. The output is usually 0-10V or 4-20mA or similar, and most take a 24V supply. ebay is often a good place to go looking: use the search term 'lem transducer' without the quotation marks. Can't help with the $4 but they aren't crazy money: plenty around the £25 mark.

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