@transcender: Please remember that the Kill-a-watt uses a transformerless power supply, and you have to be extremely careful if you're attempting any kind of interface to external electronics. It must be optically isolated, with an independent power supply on both sides of the optoisolators. Not sure if you already know this or not, I just wanted to make sure.
Basically, there is a 5V potential difference between the microcontroller's Vdd and Vss rails, but there is *not* a potential difference of 5 volts between the microcontroller's Vdd rail and mains earth - the 5V rail inside the kill-a-watt will in fact be at about 120VAC or 240VAC relative to mains earth. All the components inside are at the live AC mains potential relative to mains earth.
So if you just bring out a digital line - I2C or serial or whatever it is - from inside the Kill-a-Watt's microcontroller and connect it to another external microcontroller with a conventional power supply, that external microcontroller will see 120 VAC on that line, relative to its own DC ground. Which is a Bad Thing.
missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
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Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
The products at Adafruit are great and tutorials very helpful. One such tutorial is the one for Tweet-A-Watt - It seems that P3 has changed their on-board chip, once again , to LW2902 instead of the LM2902N as mentioned on the tutorial. Here are some pictures below. Is there a way to get this chip working as there may be a difference in the pin config. For some reason I cant seem to find any spec sheets or rough schematic sheets for this chip to identify the pins on it. Could you help?
- Attachments
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- Image showing the LW2902 - (instead of the LM2902N)
- KAW-Back.jpg (183.42 KiB) Viewed 14944 times
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- Image showing the PCB's (P/N:6522022P01 r:A)
- KAW-Front.jpg (120.15 KiB) Viewed 14944 times
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- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:51 pm
Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
Spec sheet is on TI's website. http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm2902.pdf
Pin 1 is SW of El Paso on your KAW.
Pin 1 is SW of El Paso on your KAW.
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
Thanks riro424 for sharing the link for the spec sheet. I really hoped there'd be one for the LW2902 as well. TI's website has no sign of that anywhere.
Does it matter that the Kill-a-watt has the LW2902 instead of the LM2902N chip. I could give it a shot with the on-board LW2902 but if I did without being sure that it was similar to LM2902N, I could potentially fry $20 (price for KAW ) - Is there an alternative way to establish their similarity?
Lols @ "SW of El Paso" but at this point, I'm not sure where North is
It would really be helpful if this way Is pin 1 is closest to R4, R7, R20 or R18?
note: blackend and underlined alphabet is just to make sure that there are no typos in the part number.
Does it matter that the Kill-a-watt has the LW2902 instead of the LM2902N chip. I could give it a shot with the on-board LW2902 but if I did without being sure that it was similar to LM2902N, I could potentially fry $20 (price for KAW ) - Is there an alternative way to establish their similarity?
Lols @ "SW of El Paso" but at this point, I'm not sure where North is
It would really be helpful if this way Is pin 1 is closest to R4, R7, R20 or R18?
note: blackend and underlined alphabet is just to make sure that there are no typos in the part number.
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
Anyone else with some info on the new chip, and the options on using it with the tweet a watt.
- ImaginaryAxis
- Posts: 267
- Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2010 3:16 pm
Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
It certainly has the TI logo on the topside, but no where in the datasheet does it list an "LW" for any package let alone a 14 pin SOIC. It has been a while, but the date code looks suspicious too.
I call it as a fake part. You can call TI and ask them to verify the topside marking, but if not pull it off and replace it with an LM2902.
Fun fact, "LM" stands for Linear Monolithic.
I call it as a fake part. You can call TI and ask them to verify the topside marking, but if not pull it off and replace it with an LM2902.
Fun fact, "LM" stands for Linear Monolithic.
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
I have the same board as shaheerulasar and I've soldered lines from pins 1, 7, 8, and 14 of the LM2902 (or LW2902?) though I've only gotten 2.3 volts from each one, even with a load. Does anyone know if this is what I'm supposed to read, or perhaps where I could find the voltage or current?
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
Hi zaqsaw, were you successful in getting it to work yet? Thanks!zaqsaw wrote:I have the same board as shaheerulasar and I've soldered lines from pins 1, 7, 8, and 14 of the LM2902 (or LW2902?) though I've only gotten 2.3 volts from each one, even with a load. Does anyone know if this is what I'm supposed to read, or perhaps where I could find the voltage or current?
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
I found I was having the same trouble too. Using at 2012 KAW with a surface mount LM2902. I would see a voltage vary between 2.3 and 2.5V. It wasn't until I removed the XBee from the XBee adapter that that the voltage rose up to 6.0V. Placing the XBee module back on the adapter, it then ran ok, send pulses every two seconds and the Python script on my laptop was receiving the data ok.zaqsaw wrote:I have the same board as shaheerulasar and I've soldered lines from pins 1, 7, 8, and 14 of the LM2902 (or LW2902?) though I've only gotten 2.3 volts from each one, even with a load. Does anyone know if this is what I'm supposed to read, or perhaps where I could find the voltage or current?
If I remove power and the big capacitor discharges too far, then I have to remove the XBee module in order for the cap to charge back up again.
So I believe this must be related to the smaller cap which is supposed to hold the XBee reset line for a few seconds after power up to keep this from happening... but I'm not sure where the issue is. Is it in my assembly technique? Or has the design requirement changed since Adafruit developed this 2009? (I know chances are it's my assembly that is at fault
For reference, here's videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6yt0_Ca ... Je&index=1
and photos:
https://plus.google.com/photos/11754200 ... banner=pwa
Any tips/advice would be appreciated... Thanks!
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
turns out it was just my fault - I had the cathode of the cap soldered into the wrong hole. After correcting, it's all working correctly. I just need to figure out how to stuff it all inside.
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
I had decided to revisit this project and am glad to see people active on this thread (somewhat). The plan was to use the LM2902 chip and as seen in the picture posted earlier by me, would use the leftmost pin on the side of the 'dash' on the chip as Pin # 1. I went ahead and soldered the wires as instructed to pins yellow-->Pin#1, White-->Pin#4, Black-->Pin#11 and Orange-->Pin#14.
[Pl. see attachment below - its an illustration of the assumed pin numbers on this illusive LM2902 . The EXTRAs are there in case this pin number selection fails; I would then reverse the setup which if need be will document.]
I then proceeded to following these steps to check/update the firmware on the XBee modules since I hadn't touched this project for some time.
The following issue came about:[Advisory:This is a tangential issue but does relate to the Tweet-a-Watt setup because this issue relating to XBee could arise in someone else' setup as it did in mine ]
Having followed the above steps, selecting version 10ED. and after doing a "write", one of my XBees is now refusing to respond. There is no blinking green light and X-CTU is complaining about failure to enter command mode for this specific XBee module. This is the message I get:
Failed to enter command mode
Check connections and try again.
Read parameters..Failed.
Failed steps taken to troubleshoot:
1. I tried reinstalling the FTDI cable driver from windows
2. I uninstalled the windows' version of the driver and downloaded one from FTDI Friends. That did not solve the problem.
3. With the FTDI cable connected and XBee module inserted in to the XBee Adapter that I built using these instructions, I tried to do a reset by connecting the GND and RST pins; it did not resolve the problem - how can I confirm that its been reset..?
Observation:
I tried testing connectivity with the second XBee module that comes included in the Tweet-a-watt kit, and it seems to communicates fine with X-CTU. I didnt update its firmware and its at 10EC at the moment.
Could the problem be with the XBee module and loading the latest firmware (10ED) updating it from its prior (10EC version). Please help on a way forward..thank you.
[Pl. see attachment below - its an illustration of the assumed pin numbers on this illusive LM2902 . The EXTRAs are there in case this pin number selection fails; I would then reverse the setup which if need be will document.]
I then proceeded to following these steps to check/update the firmware on the XBee modules since I hadn't touched this project for some time.
The following issue came about:[Advisory:This is a tangential issue but does relate to the Tweet-a-Watt setup because this issue relating to XBee could arise in someone else' setup as it did in mine ]
Having followed the above steps, selecting version 10ED. and after doing a "write", one of my XBees is now refusing to respond. There is no blinking green light and X-CTU is complaining about failure to enter command mode for this specific XBee module. This is the message I get:
Failed to enter command mode
Check connections and try again.
Read parameters..Failed.
Failed steps taken to troubleshoot:
1. I tried reinstalling the FTDI cable driver from windows
2. I uninstalled the windows' version of the driver and downloaded one from FTDI Friends. That did not solve the problem.
3. With the FTDI cable connected and XBee module inserted in to the XBee Adapter that I built using these instructions, I tried to do a reset by connecting the GND and RST pins; it did not resolve the problem - how can I confirm that its been reset..?
Observation:
I tried testing connectivity with the second XBee module that comes included in the Tweet-a-watt kit, and it seems to communicates fine with X-CTU. I didnt update its firmware and its at 10EC at the moment.
Could the problem be with the XBee module and loading the latest firmware (10ED) updating it from its prior (10EC version). Please help on a way forward..thank you.
- Attachments
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- LM2902 - with assumed pin numbers
- LM2902-2.jpg (167.94 KiB) Viewed 11815 times
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Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
After posting the picture of my killawatt board with the chip, I am noticing that its indeed the LM and not the LW2902.
Sorry for the confusion but if you look at my earlier posts, the picture clearly looks like the 'M' is a 'W' when in fact the chip is a LM2902.
[The most recent picture taken/attached above was taken with a 13 mega pixel cell phone camera. Worthwhile shot I must say ]
Sorry for the confusion but if you look at my earlier posts, the picture clearly looks like the 'M' is a 'W' when in fact the chip is a LM2902.
[The most recent picture taken/attached above was taken with a 13 mega pixel cell phone camera. Worthwhile shot I must say ]
- coryjfowler
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:52 am
Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
I think a small bit of kynar (wire wrap wire) would work better for the surface mount versions...mrtz wrote:some more pics of finished project
Just my two cents there.
- jrv
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 1:23 am
Re: missing op-amp chip in kill-a-watt?
Good idea! I'll give that a try on mine. I just received a new KAW from Amazon today, P/N 6522022P01 r:A. Serial number from the back of the device is YFKF3356.coryjfowler wrote:I think a small bit of kynar (wire wrap wire) would work better for the surface mount versions...
Just my two cents there.
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.