Best energy monitor ideas please?

[Other-Power]

Hi All,

I am after an accurate energy monitor that will measure accurately down to watts.

I purchased a unit of ebay that was listed as 'new' but is not working, seller sent a 'new' one out and this also does not work, Heinz.

So if you have got any comments it would be great.

Thanks

Jonathan 

[EccentricAnomaly]

Are you talking about a whole house monitor or a plug-in monitor for a single socket?

If it's a single socket type then you might give due consideration to the one our gracious hosts sell:

http://www.navitron.org.uk/product_detail.php?proID=339&catID=67

which has been specifically selected for its ability to measure small power levels, unlike some devices of this type.

[Other-Power]

Hello,

Thank you for that link, I am after a whole house monitor although I only want to use it for only on device at a time.

Thanks

Jonathan

[guydewdney]

I use a currentcost. It has three meter tail clamps - which I can clamp round any one 'fuse' wire - so I can see what power, for example, the living room sockets are taking. It will have induvidual appliance doohickys - but that is in development.

[noelsquibb]

the owl sits on the dining room table and continues to scare me.


http://www.electricity-monitor.com/wireless-energy-monitors-owl-c-37_30.html

just clamp the sender unit around the cable you want to monitor, i.e. whole house on a meter tail and the data is transmitted to the base unit, up to 30m away.

[wyleu]

Perhaps if you took a picture of your fuse board we could provide lots of constructive criticism.

[Moxi]

Other power,

You should be able to get a FREE whole house energy monitor by signing up with your power supplier to thier "eco option" power supply.  I'm with S&SE and switched to thier eco tarrif (same costs as the tarrif I was already on) and recived a free £40 monitor.  It measures small changes of 1 or two watts as well as the larger 6kw (two electric ovens  ) and as an added incentive I get 10 or 20 pounds a year if I reduce my power consumption by 10 or 20% - result!

So far this year the free meter has saved us around 230 pounds including some expenditure on low power lights and auto / remote switches.

Moxi

[roscoe]

Brultech Ecm1240 tops the bill.

~ $200 usd including current transformers gives you 7 physical channels.
plus it can count pulses and also do virtual channels
eg total - everyelse = what you never logged

Also handles import/export really well for the microgenerates amongst you

It has no front end, but a great dashboard and even works with Google PowerMeter

Why buy just one ! hook up to 6 units via the free engine software.

http://albacontrols.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/brultech-googlemeter-arrives/
http://albacontrols.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/ecm1240r1/

[tony.]

wait wait and wait for a onzo power meter!!

thats what im doing

Tony

[Rooster]

wait wait and wait for a onzo power meter!!

thats what im doing

Tony

Seems you might be waiting a long time! Was supposed to out mid 2009 and they don't seem to be available yet.

[roscoe]

Onzo ! pah

All talk and no trousers...... great marketing spiel but device is limited CT no voltage ref, slow sampling copy, only trick is batteryless sensor - trying to do the apple design mind games but at the end of the day looking to get a volume product and go for selling to the utilities rather than end user or Tesco.

Wouldn't be suprised if they either

 a- ran out of money and folded
(looking at all the fancy staffers)

b- land a couple of big contracts and sell out
(presume this is the secret masterplan)


Sometimes waiting for a product saves you a fortune (ie buying cars) and provides endless hours of window shopping enjoyment but can't apply the same logic here !



http://albacontrols.wordpress.com/