Measure DC Voltage and Current with Arduino

This is the first of two videos on measuring voltage and current with an Arduino. In this video, we will be working with Direct Current.

Article with code samples: https://dbot.ws/dcvc
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Dedicated post on the forum for this video: https://dbot.ws/dbfdc

There are many reasons why you might want to measure voltage and current using a microcontroller. You might want to measure the current consumption of your project, test the output of a solar cell or monitor the charging and discharging of a LiPo battery.

Voltage and current measurement are fundamental techniques, and so I’ve decided to do a couple of videos about the subject. In this first one, we will work with DC or Direct Current. And, obviously, we’ll be looking at AC in a future video and article.

Although I use an Arduino Uno in these experiments the principle of operation applies to pretty well any microcontroller.

We’ll start with DC voltage measurements, using the Arduino’s analog to digital converter, or ADC. We’ll see how we can employ a voltage divider to increase the range of measurement, and how a precision external voltage reference can be used to improve accuracy.

Then we’ll move on to current, using both a Hall Effect and resistive sensor. That last sensor is pretty unique as it can measure both current and voltage at the same time, and it uses an I2C connection instead of the Arduino’s ADC.

Here is what you’ll find in today’s video:

00:00 – Introduction
01:54 – DC Voltage Measurement Principles
05:35 – Basic DC Voltage Experiment
11:07 – Using an External Voltage Reference
14:49 – DC Current Measurement Principles
16:54 – Using the ACS712 Hall Effect Sensor
27:36 – Using the Adafruit INA219 Sensor

As always you can get the code I used and fined more information in the article on the DroneBot Workshop website at https://dbot.ws/dcvc

And in a few weeks I’ll follow-up with a video about measuring AC voltage and current, so if you haven’t subscribed yet please join us so you don’t miss anything.

Hope you enjoy the video – now go out and measure something!

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