Mains monitoring devices

[Caecilius]

My office premises suffers from occasional power cuts - I had one phase down this morning, caused by a problem at the substation apparently.

At the moment, I get notification that there's some kind of fault from my alarm company, but I need to travel to the office to find out if it's my problem (e.g. RCD or MCB trip) or the supplier's problem.

Does anyone know if there's an affordable mains monitoring solution that could be installed before the CU and would send a message via SMS if the power failed?

Something that could provide stats over IP somehow (Ethernet or wifi) would also be useful, but when the power goes down the routers and switches will often go down as well, so SMS would probably be the best option. Although I guess I could also consider putting the routers and switches on a UPS.

[Chris Bartram]

Put the routers etc on a UPS with an SNMP card in, and use something like MRTG, Cactii etc to monitor it. If you have 3 phase, you'll either need a 3 phase UPS or three smaller ones, though, to monitor all phases.

[Bob Eager]

That doesn't solve the stated problem, which is to determine if the power failure is before the consumer unit, or a tripped RCD/MCB.

[newshound]

Webcam looking at CU?

[charles]

a camera pointing at the distribution board - assuming it has a tranparent cover - would show tripped MCBs/RCDs. Or, I'm pretty sure there are RCDs with auxiallry contacts. Feed these all in series and any one off will give an indication.

[Caecilius]

I did think of capacitive coupling some neons from live to earth through the cable insulation like unpowered volt-sticks, and then pointing a webcam at those. Seemed a bit heath-robinson though, and something that someone must have thought of before and done much better.

[Peter Parry]

Add the paid for version of ISpy

for about $8 per month and you can use it's built in motion sensing to detect the circuit breaker which has tripped and send you an SMS.

[Tim Watts]

It does not need to be before the CU as such - it needs it's own MCB (not RCBO) on a non RCD busbar which feeds nothing but the monitoring device.

[Tim Watts]

On a UPS - is actually probably the simplest solution.

[Tim Watts]

If doing that, why not just make up a panel of indicator lamps wired to each circuit? Grid plate with neons would be the simplest for mains.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd guess to do all that properly would require a pretty expensive installation.

[Brian Gaff]

As long as you do not actually power it from the wrong side of the meter, I'd have thought this was very easy to do with some kind ofsmall transformer and simple levoltage threshold system of some kind suitable delayed so every glitch did not give a false reading. The hard part would be where to find the device to send the signal out. Brian

[Caecilius]

Because I'm not comfortable with working upstream of the CU. I don't know the regulations, and I'm wary of the energy levels available if I mess something up. So if it's DIY, I'd want to do something on the outside of the cable insulation.

But you've given me an idea, which is to ask an electrician to wire a panel of neon indicator lamps to the outputs of the meter in a way that complies with the regulations.

[Graham.]

I assesed the extent od a rodent problem using an old laptop and a programme called ISpy.

[Tim Watts]

You don't work upstream!

You stick a panel of neons on the *load* side of every MCB/RCBO plus one MCB with nothing else on it (that will never trip).

[Andy Burns]

No need to go upstream of the CU, as someone suggested one indicator lamp on the circuit of each MCB you care about, plus fit an extra MCB with an indicator lamp and nothing else on it (one per phase if appropriate).

The "extra" MCB is unlikely to pop with nothing on it, so a camera would let you differentiate between a supply fault and a popped breaker on circuits you care about.

[Graham.]

Perhaps I didn't read the EULA properly, but the free version I downloaded gave me all that and a lot more.

[Bob Eager]

One then needs a way of either interpreting the visual information, or taking a picture and sending that with the SMS.

[Bob Eager]

One moght need to have a way of sampling both indicators in order to generate the correct SMS.

[Peter Parry]

Don't think the free version gives you SMS notifications as ISpy have to pay for that.