Why do my phases seem opposite or wrong? (picture inside)

[sofakng]

Here is the wiring diagram of my panel:

Here is a snippet of my esphome yaml:

sensor:
  - platform: emporia_vue
    i2c_id: i2c_a
    phases:
      - id: phase_a
        input: BLACK
        calibration: 0.0194
        voltage:
          name: "Phase L Voltage"
          filters: [*pos, *pos]
      - id: phase_b
        input: RED
        calibration: 0.0194
        voltage:
          name: "Phase R Voltage"
          filters: [*moving_avg, *pos]
    ct_clamps:
      - phase_id: phase_a
        input: "A"
        power:
          name: "Phase L Power"
          id: phase_a_power
          device_class: power
          filters: [*moving_avg, *pos]
      - phase_id: phase_b
        input: "B"
        power:
          name: "Phase R Power"
          id: phase_b_power
          device_class: power
          filters: [*moving_avg, *pos]
      - { phase_id: phase_a, input:  "1", power: { name:  "Circuit 1 Power", id:  cir1, filters: [ *moving_avg, *pos ] } }

However, if I use phase_a for circuit 1 it doesn't work (ie. displays zero). I need to use phase_b but this is not the correct phase according to my panel.

What am I doing wrong? It's easy enough for me to specify phase_b instead of phase_a for circuit 1 but I want to understand why this seems wrong?

[wadesherman]

if you remove the *pos filters from your configurations do you get negative values? You may need to invert all the sensors.

My panel is setup just like yours and I had to invert all of them.

[sofakng]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, if I remove the *pos filter then I see negative values.

Any idea why this is happening?

[wadesherman]

Either the label on the CT is incorrect or the Vue3 reads the values opposite of the Vue2? Not sure. But you can either flip the clamps around or use the *invert filter.

[sofakng]

Thanks again so much!

I was really frustrated because I needed to assign the incorrect phase which I really thought was wrong. It worked (and I don't know why) but it seemed wrong.

[wadesherman]

Yeah I hear you. I must have checked the continuity of all my connections a dozen times before I realized that the filters were discarding data and masking the misconfiguration.

[sofakng]

I spent several hours last night and this morning trying to troubleshoot what was going on and was really pulling my hair out.

I originally suspected the CT clamp labels were wrong and also asked on Reddit/Discord. The black/white wires on the CT clamps seemed to be in opposite positions (on the clamp itself) compared to pictures on the Emporia Vue website. They also worked if I swapped the black/white wires or reversed the clamp but both seemed wrong (ie. the clamp label would be 'facing' the wrong direction or the black/white wires would be inserted in the wrong colors on the device).