Saint Louis University

School of Engineering and Architecture

Department of Electronics Engineering

The Power Factor Meter

Activity No.8

Modeling and Stimulation Laboratory Project

7:30-10:30 TH H306

SUBMITTED TO:
ENGR. RAUL MABITAZAN
The Power Factor Meter
Activity No.8

I. INTRODUCTION:

Two different types of powers are associated with electric power system. Active power is
consumed by load while Reactive power energizes capacitive as well as magnetic circuits. Reactive
flows in system but it is not utilized. The utility companies restrict the flow of reactive power to a
certain value. To determine the amount of reactive power, a quantity called power factor was
introduced.

Power factor is defined in two different ways. One is related to the flow of power in the
system.

It is the ratio of the active power to the total power of the system.

Where as

Also power factor is defined as cosine of angle between the voltage and current.

Where Φ is the angle between voltage and current of the system.

In this activity, an Arduino based distance meter which can measure power factor is
designed.

II. OBJECTIVE(S):

1. This activity is intended to demonstrate how to design a basic single range digital
instrument to measure power factor.
 2. This activity is also intended to demonstrate how to use a calibrated power factor
measuring device to tune/calibrate the single range digital instrument to measure power
factor.
3. This activity is also intended to demonstrate the process of using EXCEL in selecting the
“best fitted” equation to represent the set of power factor measurements which will then be
integrated in the design of the single range digital instrument to measure power factor

III. APPLICATION:

1. An Arduino based power factor Meter is designed in this activity which can be used to
measure power factor.
2. The circuit can be extended to even monitor the value of power factor with slight
modification in circuit and code.

IV. SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM

V. EQUIPMENTS AND MATERIALS:

Instrumentation and digital control systems experiment board

IC LM324
IC 7486
 4 Diode 1N148
Resistor 1k ohm
2 Resistor !M ohm
Resistor 1 ohm / 1 W

VI. PROCEDURES:

1. Verify your connections:

a. The Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) to the Arduino Uno Board:
- Pin 2 of the Arduino board to E pin of the LCD
- Pin 3 of the Arduino board to RS pin of the LCD
- Pins 4, 5, 6, 7 of the board to D4, D5, D6, D7 pin of the LCD
b. Connect the circuit shown below. The output of this circuit, Vout, must be
connected to pin A0 of your Arduino board.

2. Open your Arduino IDE. Modify the program you encoded in testing the analog to digital
conversion of the MCU.

3. Download the assembled program to your MCU.

PROGRAM LISTING :
VII. OBSERVATION:

In this experiment we have completed a power factor meter. Throughout the

experiment, we have observed that the power factor circuit that we have assembled
alongside with the Arduino program uploaded to the circuit works properly once it
was done corrrectly. Also there is a great similarity between how the circuit functions
in combination with the output reading of the Arduino module and the lectures that we
have taken in circuits.

VIII. CONCLUSION:

We therefore conclude that the output reading of the Arduino module on the
LCD along with the program that was uploaded to the module perceives the same
properties on how the power factor is computed which is defined by the cosine of the
angle between the voltage and the current on the cartesian plane and defines whether
the power factor is lagging or leading or is in the state of “unity” or is equal to 1 which
was the value used during our testing.