Simple Datalogger using an Arduino & Raspberry Pi

I already spent quite some time learning about how to build AC voltage and current sensor using Arduino to record electricity usage for the air conditioner and wall mounted fan in one of the laboratory in my university.

One of my requirements is that it can be used as an electricity data logger. I don’t need a fancy web based monitoring system that can display the electricity consumption continuously. I just need the data to be recorded in a text file every minute so that I can use it for analysis later.

Last month I have spent most of the time building a temperature and humidity data logger using Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi record the temperature and humidity for every minute, then store the data in the test file in the Raspberry Pi’ SD card itself.

Since Arduino doesn’t have built in storage, I decided to program a Raspberry Pi to get the electricity usage data from the Arduino, an then store it in a text file in the Raspberry Pi’s SD card. The reason why I choose to use this method is because I am already familiar with Raspberry Pi and it might be faster for a beginner like me to do it. I plan to use wired connection for the communication between Raspberry Pi and Arduino.

Please advise if there is any other better way suitable for me. Thank you.

It sounds good to me. There is an old saying: the best way is the one you are familiar with.

Just one caution: If you are logging over a long period, beware the problems associated with wear of the SD card. This is the reason that the "low write’ version of emoncms was developed.