Hi, I have an energy saving monitor (not Wattson) and having read Crispin's post I wonder if anyone has made a device so that it is possible to receive the signal from the sender on the meter directly into a computer and then record the electricity usage directly?
My present monitor just displays the usage in real time and if I want to keep a record of my electricity usage I just read my meter once a week and enter it in a spreadsheet.
Janice
How about getting a CurrentCost, which costs around £30? It has a serial port which squirts out power consumption data every 6 seconds. I've got one, and had much DIY fun building the hardware and software to interface it to a PC, but you can get that stuff readymade if you want:
base so all I need is a cable and software. Project for son as he is interested in electronics and computers
Janice
Please tell me more about this device, it sounds like it might send its output via ehternet to a syslog server.
AJH
i've got a current cost, i think they just use an rj45 socket as it's the most convinient locking socket with enough connectors for the purpous.
the meter connects to my computer via usb, some propietry software/hardware in the usb end of the cable is supposed to allow the devise to work without a driver, but it dosent on my version of vista.
from what i read about the current cost pc connection, it downloads the memory of the unit when connected to the pooter, some people seem to indicate that they do a download once a day and produce usage graphs showing when the most power was used during the day... i also read something about
30 or 45 days worth of memory, but as the lead wouldent work with vista i gave up with that side of it for now, too many other things to be getting on with.
No, the CurrentCost meter uses an RJ45 connector but outputs a serial data stream at TTL levels. The version of meter alters what data is available and the baud rate.
I see that there is a new one due out in January, longer history, more inputs, better looking.
I'm fairly sure that the monitors from Eon are rebadged currentcost ones. This seems to be the kind with the biggest community of hobbyists, so your son is in good company :-) . Google for CurrentCost and he should find plenty of info.
One thing to note is that the RJ45 socket is not ethernet (network) but TTL (low-voltage) serial. I don't know if plugging it into an active network would damage it (or the network device) but best not try.
Pete
Yep - earlier versions used to use USB sockets, again without actually being a USB device. I got one of these (the RJ45 version) from work when they were still prototypes, in order to test it and give feedback - the use of an RJ45 socket for a signal other than ethernet was something I brought up as bound to confuse people. I guess now they're selling the cables they're stuck with it for backwards compatibility.
Actually it only uses four of them, and only two are strictly necessary depending on what's at the other end.
Pete
My son has one of these in his student digs. He can pull up graphs of current and historic power use over the interweb.
Or at least, he could until it all died yesterday - we suspect something died when the house temp got below 12. They are all away for Christmas.
Andy
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