Arduino Base Multimeter

ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
IJARSCT
International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT)
Volume 3, Issue 1, April 2023

Impact Factor: 7.301
Arduino Base Multimeter

Dr. S. Venkata Kiran1, Dr. A. Gokula Chandar2, T. Hemalatha3
Associate Professors, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering1,2
PG Student, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering3
Sri Venkatesa Perumal College of Engineering and Technology, Puttur, AP, India
Abstract: The main objective of this project is to build an Arduino nano based All in one multimeter, a
device that can be used to measure the voltage, current and the power consumed by a load. There are
number of ways that you can implement the Arduino nano based all in one multimeter Project. One of the
easy ways is to interface a Voltage Sensor and a Current Sensor with Arduino, measure the voltage and
current values and finally with some mathematics, you can calculate the Power in Watts. The Sensor Part of
the circuit is responsible for measuring the Voltage across the load and Current through the load. Both
these values, which are analog in nature, are given to the Arduino to its ADC. Arduino converts these
values to digital values and makes a few calculations as displays the results on the LCD.
Keywords: Micro controller, Sensor unit, Aurdino Board, Wattmeter, Measuring Instruments
I. INTRODUCTION
As electrical engineers, we always depend upon meters/instruments to measure and analyse the working of a circuit.
Starting with a simple multimeter to a complex power quality analysers or DSOs everything has their own unique
applications. Most of these meters are readily available and can be purchased based on the parameters to be measured
and their accuracy. But sometimes we might end up in a situation where we need to build our own meters. Say for
instance you are working on a solar PV cell and you would like to calculate the power consumption of your load, in
such scenarios we can build our own Wattmeter using a simple microcontroller platform like Arduino.
1.1 Measuring Instruments

A measuring instrument is a device for measuring a physical quantity. In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and
engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of real-world objects and
events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number
relating the item under study and the referenced unit of measurement. Measuring instruments, and formal test methods
which define the instrument's use, are the means by which these relations of numbers are obtained. All measuring
instruments are subject to varying degrees of instrument error and measurement uncertainty.
These instruments may range from simple objects such as rulers and stopwatches to electron microscopes and particle
accelerators. Virtual instrumentation is widely used in the development of modern measuring instruments.
1.2 Ammeter
The meter uses for measuring the current is known as the ammeter. The current is the flow of electrons whose unit is
ampere. Hence the instrument which measures the flows of current in ampere is known as ampere meter or ammeter.
The ideal ammeter has zero internal resistance. But practically the ammeter has small internal resistance. The
measuring range of the ammeter depends on the value of resistance. The ammeter is connected in series with the circuit
so that the whole electrons of measurand current passes through the ammeter. The power loss occurs in ammeter
because of the measurand current and their internal resistance. The ammeter circuit has low resistance so that the small
voltage drop occurs in the circuit.
Copyright to IJARSCT DOI: 10.48175/IJARSCT-9045 311

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Figure 1: Ammeter
1.3 Aurdino
In default the Arduino is not equipped with a display to visualize measuring-data, for example from your temperature or
your pressure Sensor. If you want to get the data shown you need a PC, printing the data to the console or mounting a
display directly to the Arduino. So there is no simple way to WIRELESSLY visualize measuring-data. In this
intractable Fig.2 will show how to transfer measured Sensor-data in real-time from your Arduino-Microcontroller to
your Android-Smartphone via Bluetooth.
Figure 2: Arduino
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION

It is difficult or sometimes even impossible to measure current, voltage and power at a time with ordinary multimeters
and watt meters. It is very expensive to measure low power ratings with normal wattmeter and multimeter
To overcome these disadvantages we are going to design a special type of meter with Arduinonano microcontroller
with the help of the Arduino Microcontroller we can measure voltage current and power at a time.
2.1 Existing Technology

The entire project can be divided into three basic blocks;
1) Power Sensor Unit
2) Processor Unit
3) Display Unit
The Power Sensor Unit allows the current to flow through a device whose power consumption needs to be measured.
The Sensor Unit produces two voltages, one is the Voltage output from the power supply and another one is a voltage
which ranges from 0 to 5V. The difference between these two voltages is proportional to the amount of Current flowing
through the Sensor unit. The Processor Unit can take two input voltages both in the range of 0 to 5V. This unit takes the
Sensor Unit’s output as input voltages and uses the ADC to read these voltages. An Algorithm is then applied to
calculate the Power consumption of the device. The unit then sends a 4bit data to the Display Unit to display the power

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consumption in Watts. The Display Unit takes the 4bit data from the Processor Unit and produces a 16*2 display for the
current consumption of the device.
Figure -3: Block diagram
2.2 Proposed Technology

The circuit is designed to fit into systems operating between 0-24V with a current range of 0-1A keeping in mind the
specification of small applications. But you can easily extend the range once you understand the working of the circuit.
The underlying principle behind the circuit is to measure the voltage across the load and current through it to calculate
the power consumes by it. All the measured values will be displayed in a 16*2 Alphanumeric LCD. For ease of
understanding the arduino wattmeter circuit is split into two units. The upper part of the circuit is the measuring unit
and the lower part of the circuit is the computation and display unit.
III. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION

The measuring unit consists of a potential divider to help us measure the voltage and a shut resistor with a Non-
Inverting Op-amp is used to help us measure the current through the circuit. The output voltage of a potential divider
can be calculated using the below formulae. The same be used to decide the value of your resistors, you can use our
online calculator to calculate value of resistor if you are re-designing the circuit. Next we have to measure the current
through the LOAD. As we know microcontrollers can read only analog voltage, so we need to somehow convert the
value of current to voltage. It can be done by simply adding a resistor (shunt resistor) in the path which according to
Ohm’s law will drop a value of voltage across it that is proportional to the current flowing through it. The value of this
voltage drop will be very less so we use an op-amp to amplify it. The circuit for the same is shown below. Here in our
case the value of Rf is 20k and the value of Rin is 1k which gives us a gian value of 21. The amplified voltage form the
Op-amp is then given to a RC filter with resistor 1k and a capacitor 0.1uF to filter any noise that is coupled. Finally the
voltage is then fed to the Arduino analog pin.
3.1 Working
The Arduino Nano has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other
microcontrollers. The ATmega328 provide UART TTL (5V) serial communication, which is available on digital pins 0
(RX) and 1 (TX). An FTDI FT232RL on the board channels this serial communication over USB and the FTDI drivers
(included with the Arduino software) provide a virtual com port to software on the computer. The Arduino software
includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to be sent to and from the Arduino board. The RX and TX
LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the FTDI chip and USB connection to the computer

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(but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1). A Software Serial library allows for serial communication on any of
the Nano's digital pins.
Figure 4: Schematic diagram
Figure 5 : LCD Circuit Connection

3.2 Arduino Uno
The Uno with Cable is a micro-controller board base on the ATmega328. It has 14 digitalinput/output pins (of which 6
can be used as PWM outputs); 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramicresonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP
header, and a reset button.It contains everything need to support the microcontroller; simplyconnect it to a computer
with aUSB cable or power it with an AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.“Uno” means one in Italian and is the
name to mark the upcoming release of Arduino 1.0. TheUno and version 1.0 will be the reference versions of Arduino,
moving forward. The Uno is the latest in a series of USB Arduino boards and the reference model for the Arduino
platform; for a comparison with previous versions, see the index of Arduino boards.
IV. RESULTS
This kit explains about the project “Arduino Nano All in One Meter” .In this project when supply is given arduino and
LCD are powered up. Power supply is adjusted to 24v with the help of RPS. When the load is connected voltage,
current and power values are displayed on the LCD.

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Figure 5: Arduino Nano All In Multimeter
V. CONCLUSION
This is a project based on Arduino board which can measures the voltage, current and power consumption of the
devices at a time. When we connect this wattmeter on to a device which is in operation, the 16*2 LCD displays its
voltage value in volts, current value in amperes and power consumption value in Watts. The project uses an Arduino
pro mini board whose ADC feature is used along with the concept of Ohm’s law and Voltage Divider circuit to develop
this Wattmeter. This project is cost friendly and have less complexity. This project gives more accurate results for the
parameters.
VI. FUTURE SCOPE

This Arduino based all in one meter project has many more upgrades that can be added to increase the performance to
auto data logging, plotting graph, notifying over voltage or over current situations etc. Also we can add other
parameters like energy , power factor etc by changing the source code. By changing the component ratings in the circuit
we can measure high loads.
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Arduino Base Multimeter

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ISSN (Online) 2581-9429

Volume 3, Issue 1, April 2023