Re: [time-nuts] Remotely read power meters
This is OT for time-nuts. Should we start another list for things like this?
nuts-overflow? nuts-OT?
I'd prefer one without politics. Do we need another list for the political
aspects of things like this? Would the people who send the political stuff
pay any attention to the no-politics policy?
How? Some marine refrigerators will chill down a large mass of coolant when
there is power and then shut off the compressor for up to several days.
Something like this could work at home by running at night when the power is
cheap.
I've worked at a place where they had an air-conditioning setup like that.
(I never got a tour of the machine room.) At night they cool off a huge tank
of salt water. During the day, they use it to cool offices.
That is where the power company will save money. Peak loads are expensive
to power.
I live in California. Peak time is summer afternoons/evenings. Afternoons
when all the office complexes are running their air conditioners. Evenings
when everybody gets home and turns on their air conditioners.
It's also peak time for solar. A friend says he's making money after
spending big $ to put a lot of solar panels on his roof. I don't know how
much of that was tax dodges and/or other political distortions.
He said it's important to hose them off occasionally (few weeks) or the dust
buildup reduces the output.
I have a PG&E Smart Meter. They have a SmartRate program with a reduced rate
most of the time but the rate goes way up from 2 to 7 PM on 15 SmartDays of
their choice during the summer. They send you announcements/warnings via
email and/or a phone call and it hits the local news.
I don't have an air-conditioner so my usage is pretty flat (mostly PCs). I
assumed flat and did the math and decided I would save a few pennies each
year so I signed up. They let you change your mind retroactively for the
first summer so I didn't have anything to lose. As expected, I'm saving a
few pennies each year.
We've already had 2 Smart Days this summer. There was a mini heat wave last
week.
I haven't noticed any pole mounted antennas in the neighborhood, but I
haven't gone looking for them.
It's obvious where the electric meter gets its power, but that doesn't work
for the gas meter. In some other context, somebody pointed out that they
just use batteries. They only have to last 10 years or so before they
replace (or are willing to replace) the meter. I've been here 30 years and
know they replaced it once for no reason that I know of. Then they replaced
it a year or so ago for the Smart stuff. A couple of D-cell sized lithium
cells is in the right ballpark. The devil is in the details.
The water people are also interested. My meter is underground. Google found
a few pages with things like an antenna that sticks up a bit and/or a cable
that runs over to an inconspicuous antenna in the bushes or next to a fence
--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.
I'm with you, Hal. I am very poorly educated with respect to electrical
engineering and thus find this list a great place to listen and learn. But
there are a handful of folks who seemingly cannot post without bashing the
government or the president or the FCC or anyone handy. IMO, this does
nothing but worsen the S/N ratio. Each of us has, I am quite sure, fairly
well developed opinions on the state of the nation. We're unlikely to have
our views changed by bitter comments about how stupid the FCC is, what a
"socialist" Mr. Obama is, and how requiring the use of seatbelts is part of
a grand conspiracy to take away our freedoms.
I will defend to the death--being a huge supporter of the first
amendment--the rights of these people and anyone else to hold forth on
topics in any way they wish. But it would be a good and joyful thing if
they would graciously volunteer to keep their political opinions off this
site.
Bill
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 1:15 AM, Hal Murray hmurray@megapathdsl.net wrote:
This is OT for time-nuts. Should we start another list for things like
this?
nuts-overflow? nuts-OT?
I'd prefer one without politics. Do we need another list for the
political
aspects of things like this? Would the people who send the political stuff
pay any attention to the no-politics policy?
How? Some marine refrigerators will chill down a large mass of coolant
when
there is power and then shut off the compressor for up to several days.
Something like this could work at home by running at night when the power
is
cheap.
I've worked at a place where they had an air-conditioning setup like that.
(I never got a tour of the machine room.) At night they cool off a huge
tank
of salt water. During the day, they use it to cool offices.
That is where the power company will save money. Peak loads are
expensive
to power.
I live in California. Peak time is summer afternoons/evenings. Afternoons
when all the office complexes are running their air conditioners. Evenings
when everybody gets home and turns on their air conditioners.
It's also peak time for solar. A friend says he's making money after
spending big $ to put a lot of solar panels on his roof. I don't know how
much of that was tax dodges and/or other political distortions.
He said it's important to hose them off occasionally (few weeks) or the
dust
buildup reduces the output.
I have a PG&E Smart Meter. They have a SmartRate program with a reduced
rate
most of the time but the rate goes way up from 2 to 7 PM on 15 SmartDays of
their choice during the summer. They send you announcements/warnings via
email and/or a phone call and it hits the local news.
I don't have an air-conditioner so my usage is pretty flat (mostly PCs). I
assumed flat and did the math and decided I would save a few pennies each
year so I signed up. They let you change your mind retroactively for the
first summer so I didn't have anything to lose. As expected, I'm saving a
few pennies each year.
We've already had 2 Smart Days this summer. There was a mini heat wave
last
week.
I haven't noticed any pole mounted antennas in the neighborhood, but I
haven't gone looking for them.
It's obvious where the electric meter gets its power, but that doesn't work
for the gas meter. In some other context, somebody pointed out that they
just use batteries. They only have to last 10 years or so before they
replace (or are willing to replace) the meter. I've been here 30 years and
know they replaced it once for no reason that I know of. Then they
replaced
it a year or so ago for the Smart stuff. A couple of D-cell sized lithium
cells is in the right ballpark. The devil is in the details.
The water people are also interested. My meter is underground. Google
found
a few pages with things like an antenna that sticks up a bit and/or a cable
that runs over to an inconspicuous antenna in the bushes or next to a fence
--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
In message BANLkTi=k9mxbGEWczrM5ZadqjhguAZq5gQ@mail.gmail.com, "William H. Fi
te" writes:
OK, can we just add a bit of postive here ?
If your meter is anything like the ones we have over here, they have
a two-way optical port marked "DLMS", "IEC-62056-21" or similar.
Hook up a IR-LED and IR-Photodiode to your serial port, open a
terminal program with 300,7,EVEN,1 and send
/ ? ! CR NL
And marvel at all the data it spews back.
Here is a python class which does the comms for you:
https://github.com/bsdphk/PyDLMS
Here is a blog entry in Danish about it:
http://ing.dk/artikel/120524-tal-med-din-elmaaler-og-ingenioeren
Enjoy...
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
They are not like the US meters, but interesting.
BTW, Google Translate works fine on the text and helps a lot.
OTOH, it is hard to see the benefit of such meters to the utility, because
the reader person still has to walk house-to-house.
-John
=====================
In message BANLkTi=k9mxbGEWczrM5ZadqjhguAZq5gQ@mail.gmail.com, "William
H. Fi
te" writes:
OK, can we just add a bit of postive here ?
If your meter is anything like the ones we have over here, they have
a two-way optical port marked "DLMS", "IEC-62056-21" or similar.
Hook up a IR-LED and IR-Photodiode to your serial port, open a
terminal program with 300,7,EVEN,1 and send
/ ? ! CR NL
And marvel at all the data it spews back.
Here is a python class which does the comms for you:
https://github.com/bsdphk/PyDLMS
Here is a blog entry in Danish about it:
http://ing.dk/artikel/120524-tal-med-din-elmaaler-og-ingenioeren
Enjoy...
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by
incompetence.
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
In message 2506.12.6.201.111.1309558264.squirrel@popaccts.quikus.com, "J. For
ster" writes:
OTOH, it is hard to see the benefit of such meters to the utility, because
the reader person still has to walk house-to-house.
Over here we read the meter ourselves, once a year, but they do random
spot-checks where they use a PDA with an attachment to do the optical
readout.
I would pressume the error rate would be much lower than if the meter
reader had to write down the numbers by hand...
--
Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.