RE: CurrentCost

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Uncanny...

I hadn't been paying much attention to this thread, since I don't (now
didn't) have a CurrentCost unit, but lo & behold, what should postie
bring me this morning but a free one sent from E-on...

So, I now have one of the CurrentCost classic units, and from what I have
remembered from following this thread, I believe the RJ45 port on the
bottom is a serial port, and I see I can buy an RJ45-USB cable direct from
CurrentCost, and this cable includes a USB-to-Serial converter...

My question is then: can I instead use an RJ45 direct to DB9 serial cable
instead and connect it to a "real" serial port? - I have plenty
of free COM Ports on my HA PC, and I also have the wherewithal to make my
own cable...

If the answer to the above is yes, does anyone have, or know where I can
find, the pin-out details I need to make my own cable? - I'll be using a
normal RJ45-RJ45 straight through cable, with an RJ45-DB9 converter on one
end. I just need to know what cores to connect to what pins in the serial
plug...

Also, I see on the CurrentCost website there is a software downloads link
for the unit, but unfortunately, it doesn't go anywhere... :-(  So, does
software already exist for getting data out of this unit into a PC? -
ideally I'd want to get it into Homeseer (and ideally, I'd prefer not to
have to roll any of my own code!) I don't currently have the xAP or xPL
plugins installed, but I wouldn't be averse to using one of these if that's
what it takes. (A dedicated Homeseer plugin would be preferable though).
Note that I'm most interested in getting the real-time "Energy
Now" figure out of it into a Homeseer virtual device....

Sorry if these questions have been answered already in this thread!

Paul G.




> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf
> Of Paul Gale
> Sent: 28 February 2009 10:33
> To: UKHA Group
> Subject: RE: [ukha_d] CurrentCost
>
> Was wondering where you get the base elec cost from - I'm with
Scottish
> Power and I (think) we have a dual rate tariff - up to a certain usage
> is charged at one rate and higher usage is charged at a slightly lower
> rate - how would you deal with that (or can't you)?
>
> Paul.
>

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