I am interested in using the EmonTx or Pi for monitoring of our NC machines and their respective power consumption during production of certain parts or when we trial new programs. However, we don’t wish to monitor the power consumption of the entire facility, just the three NC machines. Does this mean we can’t use the Emon system because this is not monitoring the power meter, instead the individual equipment power consumption? I am very ignorant of electrical circuits so forgive me if I am wrong here but I believe what I am asking is, can I use the Emon system to monitor the individual power consumption of 3, 3-phase cables? I am based in the UK, for reference.
You can certainly monitor one machine, provided you can access the cables that feed it. (Obviously, at some point you’ve got to involve your works electrician )
You’ll need an emonTx with the 3-phase sketch per machine (unfortunately), and an emonBase to collect and record the data.
One thing that would worry me is how to get the data from the emonTx to the emonBase. Normally (in a domestic environment), that’s by 433 MHz radio - but that might be problematical in a workshop. Adding an ESP8266 (or a Pi Zero-W) to use Wi-Fi instead could be a solution, or I believe you can have several serial ports on a Raspberry Pi (i.e. the “Base”) and use a wired connection. If you do go for a wired connection, if the distance is significant, you might want or need to use RS485.
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