5224E meters have a clock and back-up battery to keep it running during power cuts.
What times is the meter switching between the 2 rates/registers? As others have said, many people would be happy to have 7 hours at the cheaper rate starting earlier or ending later.
Posting photo in tinypics hosting site of meter hasn't worked. Here is a new link in Flickr site:
scribd has a copy of a manual for it.
The site itself is archived here. The domain today, is squatted.
Maximum Demand values and 4 Time of Use (TOU) registers are available for each measured quantity on the 5224. This provides energy retailers and distributors with an advantage when developing new tariffs in the new competitive environment.
Additional Features
Internal Clock <==== implies battery maybe Reverse Energy Registers Tamper detection switches Inductive Serial Port Optional RS232 Optional No-Power Read <==== implies battery maybe
Technical Specifications Power Supply Rated Voltage 220 -240Vac 50Hz Current Range 5 -100 Amps Approvals BS EN61036: 2000 class 1.0
The unit also has an optical interface, but whether that has a battery status or not, who knows. You'd have to find the scribd version of the manual, and I can't find it anywhere else.
5224 Ampy Meters User Manual and Technical Specfication*******
OK, looking in Bing, got me this -- a very twitchy site and not all that trustworthy. If you click the "I am not a robot" and then "Save to Local", it works. The "this is an executable file", click "cancel". It isn't really an executable file. A PDF got dumped in my Downloads. But Firefox was outputting stuff to the console I launched it from, that it should not. I scanned it on virustotal.com .
https://idoc.pub/download/5224-ampy-meters-user-manual-and-technical-specfication-k5462g6vyql8 Name: idoc.pub_5224-ampy-meters-user-manual-and-technical-specfication.pdf Size: 733,292 bytes (716 KiB) SHA256: B073F4921E7A5CADF14C1C862872796D9F3D42FFC771E6DF768F8BB89B102379
It has two batteries, or one true battery and a second "power source" that is available to it when mains is off. The product has a 20 year life. (There is no procedure listed for changing the RTC battery.)
The Display can list the RTC battery level. Not in volts of course, as that would make too much sense.
The manual does not hint at any calibration methods it uses for the Real Time Clock. We know it has a battery. We know it has a drift spec for the quartz reference. This means it could drift with time. If the RTC battery goes absolutely flat, and the mains power goes off, I would expect the clock to start with a random relationship to reality.
There was mention elsewhere, that in the event of loss of RTC operation, it sticks with the full rate register for the entire day. You would want to check the device, and see if any "units" are being recorded in the Economy 7 register at all. If none go in there, maybe the clock is disabled.
The manual claims it uses "Ferro-electric Random Access Memory", some sort of scheme for saving the registers, that does not require any power at all. All part of ensuring the thing is as reliable about storing the correct totals, as the old rotating platter meters.
Paul
Worked for me and others: see responses in your original thread.
I read what you say. However, both meters clearly "state property of SSE" (let's not go down the SSE/OVO route!). When the (timed) meter was faulty shortly after I moved here 5 years ago, EDF could not change it. I had to migrate temporarily to SSE so that they could change it. A right PITA! Also, there is only one radio signal "supplier", although the times for cheap supply vary according to what "Group" you are. That said, SSE could have been wearing their metering hat rather than their DNO hat.
Thank you for the info. I hope your mother's change over goes smoothly. The man who did mine was very quick and efficient. As so often happens, the operational side seems miuch better organised than the admin. (Are you listening, Virgin?!)
My mother's equipment says 'Property of SEB (Southern Electricity Board)'. Pre privatisation of course. The confusion is that a few years ago the DNO did indeed look after everything in the chain right up to and including the output terminals of the meter(s) and timeswitch(es) . When my dad built the house in 1966, it was the SEB who also wired the entire place (Gave the best quote !) Today the DNO responsibility ends at the output terminals of the 100A fuse. Your energy supplier has adopted the meters and timeswitch
My mother has simply drifted from the SEB, into SSE (who are the result of privatisation, and the merging of SEB with Scottish Hyrdo(?))
I've tried in recent years to migrate her to someone more 'progressive', but any attempt fails as her, quote; 'tariff and equipment is in compatible with our billing systems', so she's trapped in arms of SSE Retail (aka OVO) Once she has had the Smart metery installed, I'll attempt a migration for her again
Yes, Scottish Hydro merged with SEB in 1998. Headquarters in Perth.
Yes, that's the problem I had with my equipment. EDF were the only supplier prepared to quote. That said, they are much cheaper thahn SSE, and because they consider me to have a "complex meter", I phone/email directly to the "complex metering" department, who I have found very helpful. It remains to be seen what will happen when SSE switch off the radio signal.
R4LW is for the chop in March 2024, presumably the radioteleswitch data service will cease at that time?
Yes. Presumably with good records-keeping, the companies will know their gadgets are not working.
The transmitter cannot run forever, because they're running out of spare vacuum tubes.
The date selected for shutdown, allows time for consumer teleswitches, to be rotated out.
Paul
Its simply money. Tubes last a long time if you look after the heaters. I believe this is the usual "marketing poo". Getting rid of R4 long wave allows them to remove a lot of ancillary stuff as well
I think its the other way round. The contract to provide the Teleswitch service has not been renewed and it runs out at the end of March allowing the BBC to end the Radio 4 service.
Dave
There are modern solid state transmitter products available (up to the megawatt level), so they could replace it if they wanted. They don't, so they parrot the stuff about transmitter valves.
Theo
There was a time when spare valves could be bought from Russia, but ....
I'm sure a new transmitter wouldn't come at zero cost. Certainly a bit more than a new valve.
Yes, but the BBC (in common with many other first world broadcasters) are abandoning AM broadcasting.
The audience is tiny, and the electricity, and OPEX bills are large.
SSE used to have an E10 tariff which also allowed some cheaper hours during the day. Switching supplier if you were on this tariff was 'tricky'.
LW was a huge boon for fishing boats as it punches a long way
You cant pickup anything else in the middle of the North sea
With DSL on the way out there's not much else going to be using that band at all
Their combination of diesel generators and vacuum tubes, is certainly a spare-no-expense way of doing it. The solid state would have more room for efficiency, and less cooling water. And there would be no 300 ampere filament current :-)
But here at least, on upgrades to solid state, the power level always seemed to drop. The megawatt, might not be an off-the-shelf design.
For example, when it came to the replacement of a 250kW transmitter in New Brunswick, the decision was made to just shut it down, and leave nothing. That suggests solid state isn't always free. But at 198KHz though, some parts of it could be relatively simple. You are not doing a megawatt at UHF.
There was also a plan afoot, to do a version of Loran again. As a backup system for GPS. That would transfer the cost of running it, to another department :-) Very similar low frequency transmissions. It would not be a drop-in replacement, but who knows what services you could pack into it.
Paul
The tariff my mother is on, includes an 'afternoon boost', designed for
1960s storage heaters (of which she still has four in her house working) I can remember helping my dad change the elements in them about thirty years ago. I'm hoping (and so is she) they manage to outlive her (I was hoping the same for R4 LW but hey !)
My parents' house has an E7 meter (Dad used to do kiln firings overnight) British Gas managed to get the day/night readings wrong in their online system, when I complained they adjusted the bills and switched to identical rates day and night (I still have to submit both readings though).
The actual meter has 8 registers, with a push-button to alter which is displayed, but only 1 and 2 are used, there isn't any register that shows the total.
It is:
Theo
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