Re: Re: Pump monitoring (again)

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Benfield, John (Penta) wrote:
>
> I already have the electricity monitoring sorted. By meter has a pulse
> output the triggers with every Watt used. My one wire system currently
> counts the number of pulses every minute. The only problem is that
this
> isn't logged into anything yet!
>
Hi John,

I have the same  sort of setup - a 100ms pulse per watt/hr  and the
inbetween period therefore represents inverse current consumption . I
initially used a xAP Netiom to count the pulses which was fine but as
they are 16 bit counters they were cycling every day at least . Now I
use a VIOM both to count (32 bit) and also to return that inbetween
period and with a  PC application it gives me near realtime consumption,
max, min and current £ cost. There are also figures for yesterday and
year to date (and that frightening estimate of annual cost).    The
output from this application  is also supplied via xAP although you
don't require xAP for it to work . The realtime is amazingly sensitive
in that switching on a 60W bulb actually shows a 60W increase. In a way
this could be used to confirm that an X10 signal was received by a lamp
- adding 'status' confirmation by brute force.   I also played with a
bulb blown application uaing my kitchen halogens  (6x50W) switched from
CBus - and when I removed 1 bulb I got the 'a bulb has blown message' on
my TV which was kind of inspirational.   I intend to release this
application eventually - and add some  logging and graphing and support
of multiple meters , and add support for those low cost DIN rail mount
ones for individual circuits. There are some inherent accuracy issues in
deriving the current consumption based on the 10ms timebase of the Viom,
and +/- 1 unit error  - and this means that as the consumption pulses
gets higher the accuracy gets less although the overall daily usage is
100% accurate to the meter pulses of course. For me having even a 'semi
accurate' realtime display has been educational, and seeing a minimum
continuous over 1 KWHr consumption is leading to some pruning of devices
running 24/7.

I have also added relays to my pumps for sensing in which mode my
heating is operating - and the boiler has a 7 segment display which
shows its mode - I have replicated each segment using a xAP message such
that the mode can be seen realtime in a web browser using xAP
Floorplan.  One of the reasons was that my boiler seems to be cycling
too much whilst heating the water (and it is a water priority based
system). this is I think due to the boiler being oversize for the task.
Although it modulates down to near 20% the hot water tank still cant
dissipate the heat so it has to cycle.  I hope to balance flow rate and
dissipation a little better to allow for continuous operation.  I also
have circulating hot water (pumped) which runs 24/7 - looking at turning
this on and off more intelligently to avoid wastage.  One problem I had
was a pump sticking - and I would really like to have pump monitoring
working more intelligently such that I can identify this, a realy based
solution - and even an inline current drawn solution wouldn't identify
this , and flow sensors or differential pressure sensors seem to be the
right route for this, although much more work to install.

Kevin

> JB
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