Measuring power network frequency using junk you have in your closet
10 months ago
- #electricity
- #DIY
- #DSP
- Baltic states' electricity grid is switching from Russian to European synchronization on February 8, 2025.
- The process involves disconnecting from the Russian grid, operating independently, and then synchronizing with the EU grid.
- Author explores measuring power network frequency using improvised methods due to lack of professional equipment.
- Uses an audio cable connected to a PC's line-in, wrapped around a power cable, to detect mains hum.
- Initial attempts with Audacity show no signal until normalization reveals a noisy 50Hz sine wave.
- Develops a Python script with a large FFT size for better frequency resolution at low sample rates.
- Compares results with Sympower's professional frequency monitoring tool, finding surprisingly accurate matches.
- Script runs continuously to log frequency changes during the grid synchronization event.
- Update on February 9, 2025, shows successful detection of synchronization using data from f50hz.de API.
- Visualization clearly shows the moment of synchronization between the Baltic and EU grids.