This is the large version of a simple carrier for Allegro’s ACS72981LLRATR-050U3 Hall effect-based, electrically isolated current sensor, which offers a…
The “ACS72981LLRATR-050U3 Current Sensor Large Carrier 0A to 50A, 3.3V
SKU: POLOLU-5272 Brand: Pololu” looks like a good fit for the current side of my application, which is monitoring the voltage and current of a nominally 12VDC and 30A appliance. However I haven’t found a good fit the the voltage sensor: I need one that is isolated and outputs an analog voltage that is in a ratio with the input voltage.
I don’t think you can “isolate” a voltage measurement. The current is OK as the Hall effect device provides separation between the active element and the measuring system. But a voltage measurement requires some sort of connection between positive and negative. The negative or ground being the common point or the positive can be common depending on how everything is configured
A circuit or schematic of what you have and what you intend would be helpful.
Cheers Bob
I don’t think that you will find it as a hobbyist item, but the component distributors have the components available, with example circuits. See, for instance: ACPL-C870/A/B Optically Isolated Voltage Sensors - Broadcom | Mouser
Note that the suggested applications include “Isolated DC-bus voltage sensing in solar inverters, wind turbine inverters” which seems similar to your requirement.
If you are prepared to build it from scratch a good option would be to use a coil and a hall effect sensor, where the magnetic effect of the voltage through the coil generates a proportionate reading in the sensor.
There are NO Zener diodes in this circuit. The 1N4148 is a small signal device. Used here to clamp the input to 5V+0.7V or Gnd-0.7V. Normally would use schottky diodes here to limit to 0.3V or so above and below extremities.
On another note thank you Liam and Jeff for enlightening me regarding liner opto isolator availability. Due to my late wife’s illness I have not worked full time since about year 2000 and unfortunately have failed to keep up with developments.
Your links jogged the old memory a bit and I recall coming across such a beast in the 1990’s. I did question this at the time by asking (the right engineer) how come you are trying to transfer a varying voltage with a current operated non linear diode (LED in Opto Coupler). Turns out ths unit ws a linear opto coupler and could actually be used for video!!!. It came up in the circuit as a pretty normal opto coupler and not the fancy units linked. At the time this unit was pretty rare and correspondingly expensive. This was the only one I ever came across and I forget now which project I was involved with at the time.
Cheers Bob