Hi ,
I would like to have a plug that could transmit power consumption to a base station. It should not use much power itself to do so. Is there a way to build this feature into a standard (German ) wall plug. Without affecting the plugs normal look?
Re: Plugs with capability to transmit power consumption
Do you mean "plug" or the socket on the wall? If you really meant plug, probably not. If you are making it yourself, my guess is that you will need a box roughly the size of this adapter to contain the necessary sensors, computing power, transmitter and a power supply.
Re: Plugs with capability to transmit power consumption
Is there a guide of how I can build this kind of plug? Where would I start?
Re: Plugs with capability to transmit power consumption
Ok I guess this is a question with no easy answer.
let me explain what I want to do maybe someone will be interested in helping me out.
i want to write a software that can evaluate all your houses plugs, or at least the ones that have an adapter.
i am an experienced programmer but lack the knowledge to get these plugs to send consumption data to a central system.
Btw Robert thanks for your response
Re: Plugs with capability to transmit power consumption
If you're an experienced programmer but have no experience with mains electrical circuits and working on live equipment, DON'T DO IT. One slip or one oversight and you could easily end up as a fatality.
Having said that, the "GIVMon" adapter's design and construction should give you an indication of what you need to do on the mains side. If the only connection to the outside world is by radio, you won't need the isolation in normal use, but you will need it while you're working on the plug and developing your software. I suggest you read that article and remember that it was written by a professional electrical engineer with very many years experience.
Re: Plugs with capability to transmit power consumption
when talking about plugs are you talking about things like wemo insight ? Cause that's basically what i'm doing. I have 3 wemo insight's and 4 other branded plugs that can monitor consumption of appliances. The last 4 are not availible for purchase anymore but wemo insight's, although costly are availible.
i then created a (windows) delphi program that connects to the ip of the wemo insight (it's a wifi plug) reads the power and sends it to my local emonscms installation however you can also submit it to emoncms.org.
So i monitor groups of appliances as wel as single appliances like my refrigirator etc. my total watt consumption according to my meter last month was 143 kwh, according to emoncms with my 7 plugs monitoring it was 127 kwh. Since i'm not using plugs for my washing / laundry machine and electrical cooking fire nore for my lights that's where the diffrence of 17 kwh comes from.
My setup is this:
Intel nuc: running wamp with emoncms locally (can use emoncms.org), runs my program day and night to read the data from the wemo insight's and post it to an emoncms installation
a router is needed to connect wemo insight's.
A word of advice though i had problems with the wemo insights finding my wifi network due to interference from all the other wifi signals near me (aroubnd 32 of them). But i found out that if i changed mu network from wireless N to the slower wireless g the wemo insight's had less problems.
The program basically does a http post / soap request to the wemo insight and you get the data it's as easy as that.
Is it that what you are looking for ?