The Atmel ATM90E36A chip looks very interesting
I am just starting on a project that will monitor a 3 phase motor with the purpose of both data logging it and also being able to do some IoT with the unit.
To be honest, the ATM90E36A is well above my pay grade,
I have two questions.
is there any benefit to using such a chip over the more established openenergymon approach ?
has anyone tried using this chip ?
is there a preferred way to monitor 3-phase ?
If you’re not happy to design around this i.c., then you’re probably wasting your time and money. Otherwise…
You’ll still need another processor to handle the higher level communications, either driving a local display or sending the data onwards for whatever purpose.
You’ll still need to use voltage and current transformers to give you isolation from the supply. These will introduce errors, so don’t be drawn in by the accuracy claims - those are for the i.c. itself, not for a working system. If you don’t isolate in front of this i.c., you’ll need to provide an isolated power supply and isolation at the digital interface to the second supervising processor, and you’ll need to observe all the attendant handling and safety requirements.
If you can overcome those hurdles, then yes, it could well provide benefits; no, I don’t know of anyone else using this (though others have looked at similar); and the preferred way to measure 3 phases is correctly.
This guy: Confused Life - Reloaded: ATM90E26 appears to have made a low voltage breakout board of its single phase little brother IC, and has an Arduino sketch to talk to it. That’s probably the easiest and safest way to come up to speed on how the IC works. I’ve not looked at the Atmel energy ICs in detail, but generally once you’re familiar with a vendor’s single phase IC you’ll find their 3 phase IC extremely familiar… typically just 3x of everything you already know.