WEEK12 FYP2

Activity : Designing and Assembly of the components.

When the energy meter is finally arrived at my place, i can start my designing of the project as in the circuit diagram. The assembly of the components was started and shown below.

After it is finish assembly, the connection between the components was tested by using the continuity test method. After all the test, I proceed the project by soldering it all the components and try to upload the program to the WIFI module.

Direct soldering to the WIFI module is a bad idea since ESP8266 have 17 GPIO pins that needed to be solder very close to each other. If the soldering technique is not correct, the WIFI module will be short and getting a lot of heat making the WIFI Module fried. The solution for the project is by using the Node MCU shield board instead of direct soldering it to the board. By doing so, all the connection have to redo and a lot of jumper wire will used.

After redesigning the project, all the components were connected, and the program runs successfully. By using a box to cover all the jumper wire shown. The strip board is been cut in half to make the prototype in smaller size. The energy meter is connected in series to the Current sensor ACS712 to take reading about current that being consumed. Two plugs is use to make sure the energy meter get enough reading for a 1kW per pulse. The switch is to change the project from a normal mode to a theft mode. The theft mode is when the wifi module is failing to get the pulse that given by the energy meter, but power is still consumed in the system. Below are the full picture of the hardware of the prototype:

Conclusions :

The protoype is finish and ready to be use in the Demonstration Video and the presentation slide. A lot of testing need to do before the presentation day on week 14.