Re: How suitable would Xap be for monitoring Gas + Electric?

["Paul Bendall" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the detailed response Kevin. Not a million miles away from
what I was thinking. With the single DIN units providing the pulse
output how have you arranged the layout in the consumer unit? Does
the CU also have MCB / RCD's?

Paul

--- In xap_automation@xxxxxxx, Kevin Hawkins
<yahoogroupskh@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Paul,
>
>     I use a Current Cost unit and my own xAP software (not planned
for
> release) but the other Kevin 'T' has a xAP conduit that is
available.
>
>     In addition I use three of the standalone full rated  (63A ?)
energy
> meters - same as the ones supplied by the electricity companies but
with
> the digital pulse output enabled - My house is essential fed from
three
> consumer units - upstairs - downstairs and annexe and I ahve one on
each.
>
>     Then within each consumer unit I have several of the DIN
mounted
> single width 25A pulse output meters with the mechanical displays.
> These either feed single appliances or rings.
>
>     I also have added a pulse output gas meter (as a secondary
meter)
> and a pulse output water meter.  I'm a little disappointed that the
gas
> meter isn't more sensitive - more pulses per volume but I'm told
its a
> standard and there aren't more sensitive ones available.  It's not
too
> bad but could be better.
>
>     Each of the pulse output unit goes into a digital 'counter'
input on
> the xAP Netiom mentioned below (16 bit counters) and also I have
them
> going into some IDRANet module inputs that integrate with Cortex's
power
> monitoring and graphing.
>
>     I also played with using a Viom (another Phaedrus product) to
> measure the period of the pulse waveform out of the meters,
particulalry
> electric to provide a realtime electricity consumption figure. It
was
> fairly bandwidth intensive on the PC's serial port - had to reset,
wait,
> read counter, calculate, zero, restart timers all in one marker
pulse
> width - which IIRC was 10ms - it worked but it didnt work well with
8
> channels at high consumption, at least not when the 8 marker pulses
had
> any overlap.
>
>    I'm watching the 'Alert Me' product with interest but they are
not
> very responsive to any contact..  :-(
>
>     K



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