Transforming the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx into a USB ammeter

Transforming the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx into a USB ammeter

Last week, we presented our brand new USB voltmeter, the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx enabling you to measure voltages with an accuracy of the order of a ten of µV. Obviously, some of you asked: "Can we have the same thing with an ammeter?". Good news: it's almost trivial to transform the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx into an ammeter.

The Yocto-milliVolt-Rx, a potential ammeter
The Yocto-milliVolt-Rx, a potential ammeter


Some theory

At school, you certainly learned about Ohm's law. It's one of the basic principles in electronics which says that the voltage V in volts at the ends of a resistor equals the value R of this resistance in ohms times the current I, in amps, that goes through it. In short: V=R.I.

The voltage at the ends of a resistor equals the product of the resistance and the current going through it
The voltage at the ends of a resistor equals the product of the resistance and the current going through it


We can rewrite this law in another shape: I=V/R. And now, everything is clear: if we insert a small resistor in a circuit and if we measure the voltage at its ends, we can deduct the current going through by dividing the measured voltage by the value of the resistance. Note that this doesn't say that your can use any resistor you have handy, you need to perform a few basic computations first...

If we insert a resistor in a circuit, we can measure the current going through with a Yocto-milliVolt-Rx
If we insert a resistor in a circuit, we can measure the current going through with a Yocto-milliVolt-Rx


Selecting the appropriate resistor

The only real difficulty is therefore to select the most appropriate resistor, taking into account all the constraints of the system.

  1. You must define the current range that you want to measure. The Yocto-milliVolt-Rx is based on a16bit analog/digital converter able to measure positive and negative currents. It can therefore report 216 / 2 = 32767 positive and 32767 negative distinct values. Therefore, the ratio between the greatest value and the smallest value that you want to measure must not exceed 32000. Working around this constraint is not possible.
  2. To obtain the best possible resolution, the voltage range obtained at the ends of the resistor must correspond as much as possible to one of the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx measuring ranges: [-250mV ... +250mV] , [-500mV ... +500mV] , [-1V ... +1V], or [-1V ... +2V].
  3. The resistor influences the circuit: the voltage you are measuring at the ends of the resistor is subtracted from the voltage available for the remainder of the circuit. Let's imagine that your circuit is designed to be powered with 3.7V, with peaks at 2 Amps. If you use a 1Ω resistor , when the circuit requests 2A, the voltage at the ends of the resistor is of 1Ω x 2A = 2V, and only 3.7 - 2 = 1.7V remain for the remainder of the circuit. It's then likely that the circuit won't work as planned. You must therefore select a resistor small enough so that it has a negligible influence, but large enough for the voltage at its ends to be measured by the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx.
  4. Some of the energy going through the circuit is dissipated by the resistor . This energy equals R.I2. We must therefore select a resistor able to dissipate this energy, and we better count large, to make sure the resistor doesn't heat up. A resistor that heats changes its value.


Implementation

We know that some of our customers use the Yocto-Amp to measure smartphone power consumption. The Yocto-Amp has a 2mA accuracy. Let's see if we can do better with a Yocto-milliVolt-Rx.

Let's say that we want to measure currents as low as 0.1 mA with peaks at 2A. Let's select the smallest measuring range of the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx: -250mV ... +250mV with a 0.01mV sensitivity. The smallest resistance value that we can select is then 0.01mV/0.1mA = 0.1 Ω. When 2A go through this resistor, the voltage at its ends is then 0.1Ω *2A =0.2V, which fits in the -250mv..250mV range that we selected. A 0.2V voltage drop during consumption peaks is a bit high, but still acceptable. Finally, the energy dissipated during consumption peaks is of 0.1Ω x 2A x 2A = 0.4W.

We therefore selected a 0.1Ω, 1%, 1W resistor. The 1% accuracy is not extraordinary, but 1‰ resistor are expensive and hard to find. Moreover, it is possible to improve this accuracy.

Yocto-milliVolt-Rx + resistor = USB ammeter
Yocto-milliVolt-Rx + resistor = USB ammeter



To build our USB ammeter, we must simply put the resistor in the screw terminal of the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx and power the circuit from there. However, we must keep the wires as short as possible: the phone was probably not designed to have its battery at the end of a long wire.

Wiring of the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx to measure a smartphone power consumption.
Wiring of the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx to measure a smartphone power consumption.



Configuration

We still need to configure the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx so that it directly translates into mA the voltage that it measures. We selected the -250..+250mV input range and a 0.1Ω resistance, this gives us a -2500..+2500mA output range. We simply need to configure the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx with these values and we obtain an ammeter. The configuration is saved in the module permanent memory, you have to do it only once.

Configuring the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx with the VirtualHub
Configuring the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx with the VirtualHub



Test

To make the experiment easier, we printed a battery holder that fits in the phone and that enables us to interpose the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx in the power supply. Here is the result.

  



Conclusion

We transformed, without spending too much money, our Yocto-milliVolt-Rx into a ammeter with an accuracy of about 1%. The accuracy depends mainly on the resistor used, which was given at 1%. You can obviously better the accuracy by selecting a more precise, but more expensive, resistor. But you can also use a classic ammeter as a reference to fine-tune the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx configuration and thus obtain a USB ammeter with a data logger as precise as your reference.




1 - ismail Sunday,march 05,2017 9H43

I am looking for this USB ammeter. I want to measure a "low side DC current" in the range of 1 micro amps to 1000 micro amps from a 3000 V power supply. I am planing to use 10 k shunt resistor so that the voltage across the resistor will be 0.01 V to 10 V max. Can I use your module to measure the current. (Note: since this is low side current monitoring, the current wont be higher than 1000 micro amps)Regards.

2 - martinm (Yocto-Team)Monday,march 06,2017 6H07

@ismail : The Yocto-MiliVolt-rx impedance is much larger than 10Kohm so it won't be a problem, *but* you will able to keep the voltage across the shunt below the 2V limitation. Note however, that the Yocto-MiliVolt-rx insulation is only 1000V, a ground failure in your 3000V circuit is very likely to have devastating effects.

3 - evansharp Monday,september 04,2017 17H55

Hello,
For measuring much higher current than a cell phone, would using a 500 amp-50 mV shunt in place of the 0.1 resistor work the same way? Also, is the Virtual Hub configuration of this device capable of doing the math to determine amperage using a less-standard shunt like a 100A/75mV?

4 - mvuilleu (Yocto-Team)Monday,september 04,2017 19H00

@evansharp: yes, you can use it to measure much higher currents, even with non-standard ratio.

The only thing that you should be careful about is the voltage level to which you are about to connect the output, for safety reasons: the Yocto-milliVolt-Rx features a 1kV basic insulation only, so it is not designed to be connected to hazardous voltages, which require a 3kV reinforced insulation.

5 - evansharp Tuesday,september 05,2017 6H14

Thank you for the quick reply @mvuilleu!

My voltage requirements are low (nominal 12v system, peaks at ~15.1), but the current can be 50>30A. Since I am installing real-time meters using shunts, it would be tidy to also connect the yocto leads to these same shunts. Just working to map everything out before ordering!

And just to clarify, I will be able to determine both the voltage (to .1) and current using this method?
Thanks again,
Evan

6 - mvuilleu (Yocto-Team)Tuesday,september 05,2017 6H26

@evansharp Yes, the Yocto-millivoltRx uses the YGenericSensor class, so you will have one method get_signalValue() that will return the measured mV and one method get_currentValue() that will return the corresponding amperage based on the mapping you have defined. Note that the data logger does not record the signalValue, only the computed value, but since the mapping is linear, you should not really need to record it...

Yoctopuce, get your stuff connected.