Hi everyone,
One group of our students in STEAM Club is working with Climate Cycle (climatecycle.org), and we have a bicycle (from last year) that generates electricity. We were interested in measuring and tracking the power output, and setting the bike (and two others that we're assembling) outside the lunchroom for students to recharge their cell phones during lunch periods. We could monitor power generated short- and long-term, and have a monitor displaying that information next to the bikes.
I found a project through Hackaday.com that attaches an Arduino pro mini to a power meter and then uses an antenna to send the power info to another Arduino. Here is the project URL: Gizmosnack: Power Plug Energy Meter - Now wireless! (and here's the preceding post, where he figures out how to sniff the data from the power meter: Gizmosnack: Power Plug Energy Meter Hack). We have the Arduino Pro Mini, the NRF24L01, and the same energy meter that he uses, and we'd like to emulate his project using the code he has provided. To that extent, no problem. The obstacle that we've run into is getting the connections correct between the Arduino, the antenna, and the power meter. I left a quick note on his blog, but am not sure if we'll hear back with the specific info we need, and after examining the pictures closely, we're not entirely confident in our analysis of the connections. The next obstacle I anticipate is correctly hooking the power meter up to the bike, since we're using it in a different setting. But hopefully that won't be too hard to figure out, since the bike already has a Watt's Up wired in. And then we may encounter difficulties with the code, but that's in the future. I loaded the first sketch into the Arduino IDE and was able to find and load the requisite libraries, so that it verified properly, but once we start actually using it I'm sure we'll need assistance.
My own technical knowledge is limited, just from two years of messing around occasionally, using projects other people have put together, as in this instance, and then modifying them. So what assistance do we need? For now, can anyone lend any insight, based on the pictures on his blog, into the specific connections we need to make between the Arduino, the nRF, and the power meter? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. And then as the project moves forward I'm sure we'll have more questions. thanks, Keith
