Alternative Lower Cost Touch Screen PC's?

Energy & Power Metering

Hi muppets,

If you multiply current with time you don't get energy (KWH) rather you get KAH - you would need to multiply with the voltage as well but then you need to take into account the phase difference between voltage and currents?
This method does sound like a lot of work and even after doing all that you won't know how accurate your measurement is and have still have to find a presentable means to display that information for the user?

This issue has been discussed in another forum at http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5533
I dont think that clipsal have an energy meter that will do the job but
apparently there is a third party energy meter that will connect directly to CBus from synctek.com.au

 

I had a look at the Schneider EN40 power meter, its just a simple pulse meter it doesn't store the energy readings and you still have to get some kind of counter input interface and do all the work in programming energy meter functions to keep track of the energy pulses, log them against time/date come up with graphing routines, work out how to recall histories etc - sound like an awfull lot of work is it worthwhile?

Also, if Homegate/piced comes down or goes off line you lose all the data over that period and cannot track or correct for the drop-outs once your back on line?

I don't know what the new release updates for PICED/Homegate do as yet, but they would have to be very significant updates to accomplish all the necessary functions to provide functional and useful energy monitoring system with a pulse feed, let alone the amount of additional programming needed.

ashleigh - can you pls advise on the approx. price of the EN40 pulse meter?

If anyone has used the new software release can you please post your comments ?

 

It depends on what you want to do. If you use the EN40, setting up PICED or HomeGate to work with it takes less than a minute. The measured value can then be displayed on a graph to show the readings over 24 hours or whatever you want. This will only take a couple of minutes too.

If you want to do something more complicated than this, then a bit of work will be involved.

The graphed data gets restored automatically following a power failure/re-boot.

Have a read of the help file for more info.

It is awesome

 

Previously I was quoted around $250ea for the EN40 Pulse meter which starts to get expensive if you want to monitor 3 seperate phases or 3 seperate single phase circuits (like the Synctek energy meter) then your looking at maybe $750 . On top of that you would need a Cbus General Input module ( I think $400+) to count those energy pulses.

If you also want to monitor water and gas consumption like the Synctek energy meter then you will probably need another Cbus General Input module?

Then add the time needed to develop your software for each project $?

 

Somehow, using pulse meters doesn't seem to stack up - has anyone been successful in this endeavour?

If the EN40 needs estimates of Voltage & PF then it cannot be called a true power meter as these variables are unknown in any particular installation and may vary considerably during the day especially in industrial/commercial situations?

If thats the case, the EN40 may not be any more accurate that the "CENT-A-METER" product?

And not being an accumulation meter means possible loss of meaningfull data?

Seems there are some doubts whether the Bus Coupler can do the job because of response times - so we may need to use more expensive Cbus interface?

Issues about safety/isolation may require other measures or Input devices?
Homegate programming development to provide energy displays, charts, histories and energy managment may be somewhat time consuming?
Costs may be significant if we want to monitor more than one load circuit?

Has anyone been successful in using pulse meters and can give us an idea of costs, performance and time involved?
From a systems integrator point, our margins are being constantly squeezed by competition and the high costs of Cbus components so the time required to do the job is very important.

 

There will not be many people who have used this yet, since the feature has only been available in the software for a few days. A few people have tried this out during the field trial phase of testing, and it has worked very well.

As Ashleigh has said, the EN40 measures voltage and current and calculates the power factor. It is designed for commercial use and my understanding is that it is as accurate as the electricity company meters which are used for billing.

The real-time power reading is quite meaningful and useful. The accumulation is possible with a small amount of logic.

This has already been covered. It depends a lot on what you want to do. If you can give additional details, we may be able to provide a simple solution, or provide suitable features in future releases. It is important to understand that the work done so far is not the end of it. This is just the first step in what may become a major feature.

As discussed above, it is a bit too early to have much information about this.