ACS712 Not working correctly with Arduino

Question

So I have the basic setup ready with one relay that is controlling a 200W bulb. The Phase of this bulb is passed through a current sensor acs712. While running a simple analog read example sketch, I get output 511 from ADC, which is as expected. Then I subtracted this 511 from my measurement and observed the results while turning on/off the bulb.

int sensorValue;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);  // sets the serial port to 9600
}

void loop()
{
  sensorValue = analogRead(0);       // read analog input pin 0
  Serial.println((511-sensorValue), DEC);  // prints the value read
  delay(100);                        // wait 100ms for next reading
}

Here is the output graph;

While the bulb is off, the current remains 0, but when I turn on the bulb, the voltage fluctuates over positive and negative side. Why is the sensor showing this behavior ?, I am not using any additional capacitor for noise reduction. Do I need to ? but I guess this is not noise. Is it ?

Answer 1

You are seeing that because that is what the current is doing. It's called AC - Alternating Current. It's what the mains current is.

To work with AC you have to rapidly sample over a short period to get the maximum and minimum values. Subtract one from the other and that gives you the peak-to-peak current. You can then use that to calculate the RMS current which is what you are (most likely) interested in.

• http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/root-mean-square-RMS