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Current measurement
Current measurement with Rogowski coils ..................................... 2
Current measurement with iron-core current clamps .............................. 4
Current measurement with Hall-compensated AC/DC current clamps ................. 6
Current measurement with zero-flux transducers ................................ 8
Current measurement with current transducers of public grid ..................... 14
Current ............................................................... 16
Current measurement ..................................................... 17
Current measurement with conductor interruption .............................. 18
Current measurement without conductor interruption ............................ 20
Software sensor correction ................................................ 22
Current measurement with DEWESoft ........................................ 26

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Current measurement with Rogowski coils

Rogowski coil
Rogowski coil is a simple measurement device which allows us to measure AC current without
splitting the conductor. It consists of a helical coil of wire with the lead from one end returning
through the centre of the coil to the other end so that both terminals are at the same end of the coil.
This coil must be wrapped around the conductor where the current measurement will be done. This
allows us a measurement without cutting, disconnecting or stripping the wire. The alternating current
in the conductor will cause a voltage induction in the coil. Measurement with the Rogowski coil has
several advantages. Rogowski coils are available for measuring very small currents (some 100mA)
up to very high currents (>100 kA). The coil itself is flexible, thin, light and robust. Since there are no
magnetic materials, the Rogowski coils cannot saturate and, therefore, have a high overload
withstand capability. They are very linear and immune to DC currents which allow for measuring
small AC currents with the presence of a large DC component. The bandwidth of the Rogowski coils
depends on the type and price and can go up to several MHz.

There are also some disadvantages. Because the principle of measurement with the Rogowski coil
is the measurement of the induced voltage caused by the current flowing inside of the coil, which is
proportional to derivate of the current, we must use an integrator circuit on the output side to make
the output voltage proportional to the current flowing through the conductor. Therefore, an external
power supply is necessary. It’s not possible to measure DC currents (exception: special types of
Rogowski coils can measure DC currents). The biggest disadvantage of the Rogowski coil is the
phase shift. The phase shift also depends heavily on the positioning of the coil (vertical and
horizontal). This positioning error of the coil cannot be compensated using the Dewesoft sensor
editor.

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 ROGOWSKI COIL I

I FILTER

R C
UC TOR -
C OND
+
E
VOUT
INTEGRATOR

When we specifically need to measure an AC current we can simply use the DEWESoft current
sensors which work with the use of the Rogowski coil. These sensors have, same as the MSI shunt
adapters, built-in TEDS chip with all the configuration data stored.

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Current measurement with iron-core current clamps

Current clamps
Current clamps allow us to measure the current with galvanic isolation. Clamps have two jaws that
open and allow us to clamp the sensor around the conductor. The measurement with clamps is
based on the Hall's effect or current transformer technology, which means that the magnetic field of
the flowing current is used to cause a voltage output of the current clamps.

- Iron-Core clamp

The iron-core clamp work on the principle of a transformer. Depending on the number of windings
on the primary side compared to the secondary side (ratio), a certain current will be induced on the
secondary side. Like any transformer, this only works for measuring AC current.

I1 I2

B1(N1 ) B2(N2 )

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The advantages are that the current clamps are cheap, they don’t need an external power supply
and available from small to very high current measurement ranges. The disadvantages are that they
are heavy, inflexible and it is not possible to measure DC currents. Furthermore, the bandwidth is
limited (maximal 20 kHz).

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Current measurement with Hall-compensated AC/DC current clamps

Hall-compensated AC/DC current clamps

The Hall Effect is conveniently used to measure both the AC and DC current with a wide amplitude
and frequency range (up to 100 kHz) with high sensitivity. This is why we should use the Hall Effect
based current clamps to also measure DC currents.

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 solid core part air gap with Hall sensor housing

Ub

amplifier
A
current-carrying
conductor ender hinge measurement display

closing spring

movable core part lever for opening the pliers

The advantages of a hall-compensated AC/DC current clamps are the high accuracy (0,5 %), a high
bandwidth (100 kHz), the measurement of AC and DC currents and the circuit doesn't need to be
opened.

We can choose DEWESoft current clamps which are using Hall effect for measuring current.

The voltage output of this kind of clamps is also directly proportional to the current. But current
clamps also produce a phase shift which is up to ~10°, but if we use really good clamps this phase
shift can be less than 1°. We must also know that the phase shift of every current sensor changes
with frequency, which can be very important when power measurement are made.

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Current measurement with zero-flux transducers

Zero-flux current transducers

Current transducers allow us to measure the current with galvanic isolation. They reduce the high
voltage currents to a much lower value. The conductor with the measured current must be guided
through a loop of the sensor because they are using the principle of the transformer, which means
they have a current output signal and this low current signal should be measured with the DAQ.

Zero-flux current transducers are not simple transformers, they also have a sophisticated
construction and electronics. They have two windings which are operated in saturation to measure
the DC current, one winding for the AC current and an additional winding for compensation. This
kind of current measurement is very precise because of the available zero flux compensation. This
is a very important thing because the magnetic core of the transformer stays magnetized with the
residual magnetic flux, which destroys the accuracy of the measurement. In this transducers, the
parasite flux is perfectly compensated. Therefore current transducers are used for measuring
currents with high precision, but they are inappropriate for simple and fast measurement like clamps
or Rogowski coil. Zero-flux transducers allow us to measure currents with the highest accuracy for
AC and DC with a high bandwidth (up to 1 MHz). They are very linear and have a low phase and
offset error.

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 MEASURING HEAD

DC sense circuit
oscillator

Lh3
peak detector
ZERO-
FLUX-
primary DETECOR
current

Ip Lh2 compensation
winding
Ic (-n * Is = Ip)
Lc
Lh1

AC sense BURDEN optional output

RESISTANCE
windning burden resistor
GND

How to connect MCTS to Sirius

This document explains how to connect the MCTS zero-flux transducers to a Sirius system. The
connection of the zero-flux transducers is shown by means of MCTS-400 transducers.

What do we need for setting up?

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Step1:
At first connect the zero-flux transducer IT 400-S with the D9m-D9f-5M-MCTS cable to the SIRIUSi-
PWR-MCTS slice at Sensor 1 input.

The D9m-D9f-5M-MCTS cable is a simple extension cable and can be used for all zero-
fluxtransducers (60A up to 1000A).

Step 2
Then take the DSI-MCTS-400-03M cable and use Output 1 of the SIRIUSi-PWR-MCTS and connect
it to the first LV input of the Sirius PWR amplifier.

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Note: The DSI-MCTS-XXX cable only can be used for the certain zero-flux transducer. The
cables have a build-in shunt which fits only for the certain transducer. See in the following
table which shunt cables belongs to the according zero-flux transducer.

Shunt Cable Zero-Flux Transducer

DSI-MCTS-60-03M IT 60-S
DSI-MCTS-200-03M IT 200-S
DSI-MCTS-400-03M IT 400-S
DSI-MCTS-700-03M IT 700-S
DSI-MCTS-1000-03M IT 1000-S

Repeat Step 1 and 2 for all zero-flux transducers you want connect to the system.
For measuring a three-phase system in star connection the connection will look like this:

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You will find how to connect voltage and current transducers to the system for different wiring
configurations (DC, 1-phase, 2-phase, 3-phase delta-star-aron-V, etc.) in the Dewesoft PRO training
course “POWER ANALYSIS”
http://www.dewesoft.com/pro/course/power-analysis-...

Software Configuration

In the DSI-MCTS-XXX cable is a TEDS chip integrated, where data about scaling, calibration etc. of
the zero-flux transducer are stored. If you connect this Shunt cable to the Low-Voltage input of the
Sirius amplifier all these configurations are done automatically. Therefore the MSI adapters and
TEDS sensors have to be activated. Please check at “Settings” – “Settings” if this option is
enabled, see screenshot below.

After connection of the sensor (e.g. MCTS 400) you will see at Ampl.name the current transducer
(e.g. DSI-MCTS-400) and also type of measurement will be changed to “Current”.

Finally you just have to set a suitable measurement range and set a low-pass filter if necessary.

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Page 13/30
Current measurement with current transducers of public grid

Current transducers in public grids

Current transducers in public grids are used to monitor the current flow in the public grid and protect
the equipment from overload. A current transducer is easily explained as a transformer which is
operated in short-circuit on the secondary site (or with only a small load). On the output (secondary)
side of the current transducer, we get a low current signal which is directly proportional to the current
on the primary side. In public grid operation, the secondary current is standardized with a level of 1A
or 5A.

There are different measurement classes of current transducers which describe the accuracy and
the phase shift of the transducers. The classes range from 0,1 to 5. Class 0,1 means that the
accuracy of the measured amplitude is 0,1% and the phase shift is ± 5 minutes. At class 5 the
accuracy is 5% and the phase shift ± 120 minutes.

The description of the current transducers also defines the overload factor, the rated power (load)
and the application of the transducer (protection, measurement). The load (input resistance of the
measurement device) is important because it influences the overload capability of a current
transducer. If the load is higher than the rated load, the transducer will go into saturation
prematurely and, therefore, will lose the overload capability.

Please also consider the bandwidth of current transducers when measuring Power Quality
parameters like Harmonics.

Attention: Never operate current transducers in open-loop mode on the secondary side. This creates
high voltages which can destroy the transducers and can be hazardous for people.

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ip

is
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Ns

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Current
Now let's return to our water analogy of electricity to explain what a current is.

The electric current is a physical quantity caused by voltage and means a flow of electrons between
different electric potential. So if we look at the water system this means the electric current is analog
to the water flow rate. An electric current is the flow of the electric charge.

This is a simple DC (direct current) where the electrons (current) travel in one direction, but we also
know AC (alternating current) with the constantly changing direction of electrons (in the public grid
50 to 60 times every second), which is kind of hard to explain with the water analogy, because the
water usually flows in one direction. Since the reader gets the simple idea of electric current he will
be able to imagine AC electric systems without any problems.

The cause of the direct current is "direct" or constant voltage, for example, a battery. But for
generating an alternating current we need a source of alternating voltage, which is, for example, an
AC generator in the power plants.

Direct Current Alternating Current

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Current measurement
Now let's look at how measurements of the current are done. The simplest way to do it is the
measurement with ampere-meters. Therefore, the circuit has to be opened and the ampere meter
has to be connected in series into the circuit.To affect the flowing current as least as possible, A-
meters must have a very low impedance.

Since there are many current transducers available for use with DAQ devices, we can measure the
current in different ways. We divide the current measurement in two major groups. One is a "direct"
when our conductor must be disconnected and a sensor is connected in series with the circuit. The
second type of sensors allows a measurement of current flowing through a conductor without
opening the circuit, which means we can measure the current with a galvanic isolation of the sensor
from the conductor.

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Current measurement with conductor interruption
First let's talk more about a the "direct" way of current measurements. This is the only way that we
can measure the current directly without any additional logic circuits. Most common measurement of
this kind is done with the shunt resistor. When making a measurement with shunts, the conductor is
interrupted because a the shunt must be in serial connection with the other elements in the
measured circuit.

What is a shunt resistor?

A shunt resistor is a resistor with a very low resistance that is accurately predetermined by the
manufacturer. We connect a shunt in series with the circuit that the current is flowing through and
then simple measure voltage drop on that resistor. Voltage is directly proportional to the flowing
current according to the Ohm's Law because we know the exact resistance of the shunt. Choosing a
shunt with high accuracy is essential because it will actually define the precision of the
measurement itself.

With this method, we can measure AC (alternating) or DC (direct) current but we should be careful
with a few things. First one is that we don't exceed the declared current of the shunt because that
can burn the resistor. But the shunt will also heat up and overheat if a maximum declared current
flows through it for a longer period of time. The resistance changes with the temperature and if the
shunt gets overheated it can be changed permanently. Due to this problem with overheating, shunts
are usually used for measuring currents which are up to 60% of the declared shunt current value.

One of the problems is also the common mode voltage which was already mentioned before. We
can encounter this problem early on with the current measurement. Let's look at an example: We
want to measure the current flowing through our room lamp. With a use of a shunt resistor voltage
the difference at our amplifier will be very small, but our measured "voltage points" are still high
above the ground, they can go as high as the grid voltage. If we connect grid voltage directly to 10V
range amplifier, we will surely kill the module and probably "measure" nice sparks. To get rid of this
problem, use of isolated measurement device is recommended.

For easier measurement with DEWESoft instruments, we can choose between two different MSI
adapters with a shunt resistor. These adapters include shunt resistor for current measurement. For
example inside MSI 20mA there is 50 Ohm 0.01% 0.25W shunt. There is some information about
this shunt adapters in the table below.

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Measurement with these two adapters is simple, we don't need to do any calculations, because
adapters already have built-in TEDS for automatic recognition of "sensor" in software, which saves
us time for setting sensor configuration. But after all we must still split conductor for that kind of
measurement and connect it to the adapter.

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Current measurement without conductor interruption
Because interruption of the conductor with the current we wish to measure sometimes is not
possible, we can also measure the flowing current with current sensors. This kind of measurement is
possible because the flowing current causes a magnetic field around the conductors and current
sensors measure the intensity of the magnetic field around the conductor in many different ways
and are galvanic isolated.

Let's take a look at the sensors and how they measure the current via the magnetic field. All of these
sensors are obviously isolated from the conductor which means easy, faster and a safer
measurement. Safer for us and for the measuring equipment because galvanic isolation eliminates
the problems with a dangerously high common mode voltage, which is present when measuring
high voltage currents with shunt resistors.

We must bear in mind that this kind of sensor has a phase shift of the output voltage compared to
the measured current. The extent of the phase shift depends on the type of the current sensor and
also for different frequencies. With high accuracy current sensors the phase shift is nearly zero; with
very cheap sensors the phase shift can be more than 10° at the fundamental frequency and even
more at higher frequencies. Phase shift itself can be problematic but if we have this in mind when
setting up the configuration of measurement, this shouldn't cause any problems at all. Furthermore,
Dewesoft offers an additional sensor calibration in the software (Sensor Editor) which can improve
the accuracy and phase shift a lot.

We will describe the following different current sensors:

Rogowski coil
Iron-core clamp
Hall compensated AC/DC clamp
Zero flux transducers
Current transducers in public grids

Overview
The following table shows the main differences between the different types of current transducers
and also shows the applications where in which sensors are used.

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Page 21/30
Software sensor correction

Now let's take a look at the classic 40 W light bulb. The first thing to notice is that the load on the
grid is linear to the voltage . The measured power is exactly 40 W, but the vector scope looks
strange. In fact, since the light bulb is a purely ohmic load, the voltage and current should be
perfectly aligned, but as we can see, they are not. What is the reason for this? Remember the
voltage and current tutorial where we have seen the difference between the current clamps and the
shunt resistor? Since we are using the current clamps, we have amplitude and phase errors. As a
result, the current clamp is the main source of the calculation error in this case.

In DEWESoft we have a chance to compensate for these errors. Let's take a look how.

As it was explained before every current sensor has a frequency dependent behavior regarding the

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amplitude and phase. In Dewesoft, it is possible to correct this behavior in the Sensor editor and
make the sensor even more accurate as the manufacturer of the sensor specifies it. This is unique
in the market.

Let's choose the Settings Sensor editor... menu item. We get a list of all possible sensors. Now let's
Add one sensor and enter the Sensor type and Serial number. Enter the Physical (input) unit, which
is A (amperes) in our case and the Electrical (Output) unit, which is V (volts).

Next let's enter the SCALING factor. Since the sensor is linear with amplitude, we only need to enter
the scaling factor, which is 1 in our case (1A=1V). Do not worry about the polarity of the sensor, it
can be reversed in the channel setup.

Now we come to the most important part - the definition of the transfer curve. In the table under the
TRANSFER CURVE column, we select Yes to signify that a transfer curve will be defined. Now we
need to enter the points of the curve. We need to enter the a[dB] - amplitude deviation in dB and the
phi[deg] - phase angle in degrees. The next question is: where do we to get this transfer curve?
There are a lot of transfer curves for the most common sensors that have already been measured,
so it's worth checking if it already exists. A second option is to copy it from the calibration sheet of
the sensor if the calibration sheet includes a transfer curve. The third option is to measure it with the
FRF option, but this requires some equipment. When we get this transfer curve, we need to enter it
in the table. We see that at the 50 Hz, the angle is around 10 deg, which could explain phase shift
we saw in the measurement.

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Save the sensors with the Save file button and close the sensor editor with Exit. Now let's go back to
the analog setup and choose the sensor for the current channel. Open the Sensors tab and select
the serial number of the sensor previously entered in the Sensor field of the editor. Nothing much
happens, but note that we can't enter the normal scaling or sensitivity any more. To reverse the
polarity of the sensor you have to choose the Scaling by function and select Sensitivity. With clicking
the ± button, you can reverse the polarity.

That's it. For the next setup we don't have to define a sensor anymore, instead we can just select it
from the sensors list.

Now let's see what the effect of sensor correction on our measurement is. The results are much
better. The phase angle is virtually eliminated and the power is calculated correctly.

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Page 25/30
Current measurement with DEWESoft
Now we will make some current measurements with DEWESoft software and a measurement
device.

We will measure the current which is consumed by a classic 40W light bulb and 11W energy saving
light bulb. For this measurement, we will use two approaches, the first will be the direct voltage
measurement on a shunt resistor and the other will be a measurement with current clamps.

Before the measurement, we must do some calculations that will help us choose the SIRIUS
amplifier and range of the amplifier and current clamps. If we turn on both light bulbs the declared
power will be 51W and the RMS value of the grid voltage is 230V, so let's take those numbers into
our calculations.

After the rough calculations, we get the results that our RMS value of the current is approximately
0.22A.
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After all needed the calculations are done we can start with our measurement. Now we will use two
different SIRIUS amplifiers, LV and ACC. Let's see how the connection for our measurement looks
like. Current clamps are directly connected to the ACC module and the MSI SHUNT 5A adapter is
connected directly to the LV module like on the photo below.

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As you can see in the photo we must split the wire for shunt installation. This can be dangerous
because of the grid voltage and we should be careful when doing this at home. Now let's see how
the configuration of channel 1, on which is connected shunt, is done. First we rename the channel
as Shunt current so we will later know the output of which sensor's output we are looking at when
the measurement is in progress. Physical quantity should be set to Current and Unit is set to
Amperes(A) by default. Once these settings are done we should "calibrate" our sensor. We will
choose calibration by two points in this case because we already know that 1V equals 10A. We just
simply type this two values in the prepared place. If we set all the parameters correctly and the
classic light bulb is turned on, we can already see the sine form of our current in Scope mode on the
left bottom side of the setup window.

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For channel 8, where we have connected the Current clamps, the settings will be a little different
because we are using HV module for this measurement. Since the current clamps are set on 10A
range they provide 1mv/1mA on the output (scaling factor is 1). That means we can't get more than
10V on output and range of our amplifier should be set to 50V to achieve greater resolution of the
measurement. We should also set the Physical quantity to "Current" and measured unit to
Amperes.

In the next snapshot, you can see the combined waveform of the energy saving bulb and the light
bulb. The waveform changed mostly due to the non-sine waveform and the high crest factor of the
energy saving light bulb.

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Now when we switch to Measure mode, we can see the phase shift of the current clamps compared
to the shunt resistor. At first sight, there is no big phase shift(around 10°) on the picture below, but
with applications like the power measurement phase shift is very important for correct results. The
phase shift is around 10° in the picture below, and can influence the measurement results for
detailed power analysis significant (especially reactive and apparent power). The phase-shift of this
current can be compensated using the sensor editor.

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