Energy distribution items, because the identify implies, are indispensable instruments to have accessible in a server rack. They will deal with an enormous quantity of energy for calls for of intensive computing and do it in a manner that the wiring is managed pretty effectively. Loads of off-the-shelf options have distant management or automation capabilities as effectively, however discovering none that match [fmarzocca]’s wants or value vary, he ended up building his own essentially from scratch that powers his home automation system.
As a result of it’s the energy provide for a house automation system, every of the twelve retailers on this unit wanted to be individually controllable. For that, three four-channel relay boards have been used, every pushed by an output on an ESP32. The ESP32 is operating the Tasmota firmware to maintain from having to reinvent the wheel, whereas MQTT was chosen as a protocol for controlling these retailers to permit for simple integration with the present Node-RED-based residence automation system. Not solely is management in-built to every channel, however the system can monitor the ability consumption of every outlet individually as effectively. Your complete system is housed in a custom-built sheet steel enclosure and painted to mix in effectively with any server rack.
Including a system like this to a house automation system can simplify a whole lot of the design, and the scalable nature implies that a system like this might simply be made a lot smaller or a lot bigger with out a lot extra effort. For those who’d favor to maintain your fingers away from mains voltage, although, we’ve seen comparable builds primarily based on USB energy as an alternative, with this one able to push around 2 kW.
