A little home electricity monitoring project

Website · Post by **simplemind** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:02 pm

Hi,

I found this site a few weeks ago. The nicest thing what happend was that this site poored some water over my old electronics roots [:D]. It started growing and what once was my old prefession is now a growing leisure. I'm busy in the office automation and besides that always been interested in programming and interfacing with electronic devices.

I saw here the electricity monitor and got enthousiastic. Now I'm building my own opto circuit. However I don't use 1-wire technology at the moment because my router is in the meter cubboard and a network connection was easyer to realize than pulling a cable to it.
I'm using the Basic Stamp 2, PINK netburner and the PICAXE. The last controller is very cheap and it can be mounted on a circuit board in no time.

The status at the moment is that the opto circuit is working very well and I'm busy to program the BS2 and PINK to collect the pulses, 1 pulse for every 1Wh. The PINK has an webserver on board and the results of the BS2 counting can be send serially to the PINK. Very nice material! The PINK can also send emails and send/recieve UDP messages.

Besides that, I'm using Alpha Five. It is an database program with a very powerful basic language on board: XBasic. In this language it is possible to grab complete webpages such as the PINK webpage and collect the data that is shown on it.

So far for now. Any progression will be reported.

Groet,

Marcel

Post by **Richard** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:13 pm

Great initiative simplemind,

Your site looks verry nice and neat, i will come back and take another sneak peak at it.
I would say... keep us/(me) informed and go on with the good (interesting) work.

Richard Donckerbergh

Post by **Bwired** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:25 pm

Agree, ziet er strak uit!
Please let us know how the project comes along etc.
Thanks

Website · Post by **simplemind** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:57 am

Richard and Peter,

Thanks for the encourageing words and of course, I'll keep you informed about progression made.

Regards,

Marcel

Post by **MindBender** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:01 am

Perhaps you'd like to check out my metering project too:
http://www.wisclub.nl/punksmurf/metermaid/
I started it over two years ago as an educational project, but I never finished it. The software works however. It's a stand-alone embedded software solution, running on a eZ80 board (www.zilog.com) with Ethernet, TCP/IP and HTTP server.

Website · Post by **simplemind** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:43 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by MindBender
 Perhaps you'd like to check out my metering project too:
http://www.wisclub.nl/punksmurf/metermaid/
I started it over two years ago as an educational project, but I never finished it. The software works however. It's a stand-alone embedded software solution, running on a eZ80 board (www.zilog.com) with Ethernet, TCP/IP and HTTP server.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

MindBender,

Nice clean work, very structured. I still learn from other programmers code.

Why not finish it. It is just the hardware you have to do [:D]

Regards,

Marcel

Post by **Bwired** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:02 pm

I had the same conclusion as simplemind also I could not find the hardware where I'm very intrested in.

Post by **MindBender** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 10:50 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Bwired
I could not find the hardware where I'm very intrested in.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
For the watermeter I used a separate LED and photodiode. At first it didn't work properly, but using a blue LED on the red little cog inside the meter did the trick. Make sure to use a photodiode that's sensitive to that wavelength. An properly setup opamp and a schmitt-trigger do the rest.

For the gasmeter I used two reflectometers (IR LED and photodiode in one small housing). I used two instead of one to prevent jitter if the meter stops with the endge of the reflective surface under the reflectometer: When the first is looking at the edge, the oher is looking in the middle of the surface, or not at the surface at all. A pulse is only counted when both sensors have seen it.

In my other house I had an electricity meter with a pulsating LED on it. So I just used a photo diode. Now I have one with a rotating wheel inside it. I've been doing experiments using the sensor from an optical mouse to detect it's speed, but I just have too little time to work on it.

I think at the end I'm better off buying in-cirquit sensors for gas, water and electricity...

Website · Post by **simplemind** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 2:38 pm

Hello MindBender,

I have the same problem. I wanted to use the little round black disc with reflection mirrors on it. But it does not work. I think I have to make my detection unit more versatile with a poti and I put a oscilloscoop on the unit to see if something happens on this wheel or as you say on the red little cog. Maybe I have the trigger to high and the hysteresis margin to width.

Besides, I've found a link to Sensus. They made the watermeter, http://www.sensusesaap.com/newd_item.as ... goryid=805.

Regards,

Marcel

Post by **MindBender** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 3:28 pm

Looks nice, the LS 8100. What do they cost and where do we get them?

Website · Post by **simplemind** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 8:20 pm

There is a link "I would like to buy this product, please contac me.". You can ask the information you want.

Regards,

Marcel

Post by **Richard** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:51 pm

MindBender, if you have some more info about it, can you post it here... i'm 'also' interested into it.
(the price i mean)

Richard

Post by **MindBender** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 10:04 pm

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by simplemind
 There is a link "I would like to buy this product, please contac me."<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

'Saw that one, but it doesn't apply to me: I don't want to buy it, I want to know what it costs [;)]. And if the price is right, then I want to buy it. And I definetly don't want them to contact me becuase I'll probably end up receiving spam for the rest of eternity.

But seriously; I'm a bit reluctant with this. Vendors who don't publish their prices, usually don't have very attractive prices.

Website · Post by **simplemind** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:05 am

Hello MindBender,

You are right about the price, because these devices are bought by large service organisations and not people like us they can ask what they want.

Though I tried another time with my own circuit and had success. This evening I changed the small infrared led for another one. This one came from a TV remote control. It was just a matter of shining with a candlelight or with a spotlight. The last did it.

This bright led delivers enough power to reflect enough IR light on the mirror facets. Now I have to alter my electronic circuit (make it less sensitive) and tune it to the trigger levels of the mirrors.

I saw a nice circuit that Bwired used for his gasmeter. I'll study that. You can find also fast response phototransistor circuits on http://www.discovercircuits.com/DJ-Circ ... otonpn.htm

Regards,

Marcel

PS.
About the watermeter: I asked for dealer information at the Sensus site and contacted also VITENS for information. I'll let you know ...

Post by **Bwired** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:48 pm

Hi all
For Water meter I use a simple one from www.alaxa.nl. It's a water meter with a standard pulse counter in it. The meter gives a pulse every half liter. So flushing the toilet is 14 pulses

The water meter I very simple installed behind the existing one. The water meter is capable of handling hot water as well, so I installed one the hot water supply as well. I now can Monitor cold and hot water. The pulse counter is connected to my 1-wire network with the TAI8585.

Pieter