Monitoring gas meter - Landis & Gyr E6S

zagmund

Does anyone know if there is any external monitoring available for this meter? It was supplied last year by BGN, so it's presumably relatively new, although I did see some 6 year old ones for sale on ebay so it may not be that new.

From looking at external monitoring options, it seems like the usual suspects are ruled out -
1) optical check - on the old rotary meters you could count the number of times the black/reflective mark went around (might just be electricity meters) or there was a reflective element on the 0 digit - this is digital so there's no spinning disk or moving characters
2) other optical check - some meters have an LED that blinks when a certain quantity is consumer - I don't see any such LED
3) pulse output - some meters have contacts you can hook into that have a pulse on them at the same interval as the blinking light - I don't see contacts

I cant find a manual online anywhere, but I'm sure they must be out there. I don't want to go unsealing bits and pieces on the meter looking for the contacts either. It's hard to believe there's no way to monitor usage, either old-skool optical or newer.

Does anyone have a manual for this meter, or know what the metering options are? The alternative is me out there once a week with a pen and paper, but I would prefer a little more granularity than that.

z

[edit] looks like this - http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Landis-Gyr-E6S-Adaptive-gas-meter-like-smart-meter-/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/pJ8AAMXQhpdR4WXG/$T2eC16d,!ykE9s7ty!EiBR4W(FV+EQ~~60_35.JPG

ted1

zagmund wrote: »

Does anyone know if there is any external monitoring available for this meter? It was supplied last year by BGN, so it's presumably relatively new, although I did see some 6 year old ones for sale on ebay so it may not be that new.

From looking at external monitoring options, it seems like the usual suspects are ruled out -
1) optical check - on the old rotary meters you could count the number of times the black/reflective mark went around (might just be electricity meters) or there was a reflective element on the 0 digit - this is digital so there's no spinning disk or moving characters
2) other optical check - some meters have an LED that blinks when a certain quantity is consumer - I don't see any such LED
3) pulse output - some meters have contacts you can hook into that have a pulse on them at the same interval as the blinking light - I don't see contacts

I cant find a manual online anywhere, but I'm sure they must be out there. I don't want to go unsealing bits and pieces on the meter looking for the contacts either. It's hard to believe there's no way to monitor usage, either old-skool optical or newer.

Does anyone have a manual for this meter, or know what the metering options are? The alternative is me out there once a week with a pen and paper, but I would prefer a little more granularity than that.

z

[edit] looks like this - http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Landis-Gyr-E6S-Adaptive-gas-meter-like-smart-meter-/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/pJ8AAMXQhpdR4WXG/$T2eC16d,!ykE9s7ty!EiBR4W(FV+EQ~~60_35.JPG

I'd say you can rule pulse out. BGE require optio isolators and a number of years ago stopped allowing people to use there own and now insist and using the stupid chatterbox units. Which cost about 20 times the price of an opto isolator


Don't forget that you if you do get a signal it'll be in m3 as oppose to kwh so there will be a difference each month

DGOBS

What are you trying to achieve? Is it back to a laptop for monitoring or something?
Have you tried speaking with BGE?

Just always remember any tampering with gas or gas works would be illegal.

ted1

DGOBS wrote: »

What are you trying to achieve? Is it back to a laptop for monitoring or something?
Have you tried speaking with BGE?

Just always remember any tampering with gas or gas works would be illegal.

Over 900 euro to get them to do something

http://www.bordgaisnetworks.ie/en-IE/Get-Connected/Connecting-your-business/Costs-of-connection---business/Building-Energy-Management-Systems-BEMS/

And it's very unrealiable.

zagmund

Yep, it's for connecting to a computer for recording. Not quite home automation as I'm not currently controlling anything, but for home recording. I have stuff set up for recording the solar system (solar gain, tank temperatures at different heights, etc . . .), I'm working on the electrics side of things and the gas is next up on my list, with room thermostat monitoring to follow.

I presume one option which should be cheaper than the BGN one ted1 linked to would be to get a (registered & qualified) person to install a second meter which supports remote monitoring in line after the first one and then just monitor that.

Another option which I will have a think about is to read the digital display, use OCR to turn the image to numbers and then record the numbers.

z

DGOBS

The secondary meter may cause it's own issues with the gas installation as all meters exhibit pressure absorption, and this may reduce you gas working pressure to where appliances maybe affected (usually absorption of a 4mbar on a meter) so be careful in what you get done.

Re, the digit display via OCR, the display does not stay on, you have to press button A to wake, battery saving!

zagmund

DGOBS wrote: »

The secondary meter may cause it's own issues with the gas installation as all meters exhibit pressure absorption, and this may reduce you gas working pressure to where appliances maybe affected (usually absorption of a 4mbar on a meter) so be careful in what you get done.

Re, the digit display via OCR, the display does not stay on, you have to press button A to wake, battery saving!

Mine seems to stay on all the time. On occasion it seems to go all black and then redisplay within about a second or so, but in general whenever I open the meter box the display is up.

However, this does raise a related note. I can read it when I open the meter box *because* the meter box is open. When it's not open it will be dark and so it won't be possible to get an image of the meter. Problems, problems . . .

z

DGOBS

lol, the latest digi ones don't stay on.
Just be careful here also, as putting any electrical equipment in the meter box will get you in trouble (we are not even allowed the earth connection for gas service in there)

Is there no non-contact pulse reader that can be external on the pipework in the house?
Or some inline flow meter (turbine + hall effect sensor) that an RGI could fit?

zagmund

I haven't researched the options in much depth yet, but I'm not aware of anything you can clamp on the pipe. There may well be, but google has failed to educate me on that one yet. If you know of any such devices (or the inline flow meter) please point me at them. I'm open to all suggestions at the moment.

Regarding non-contact pulse stuff - my understanding there is that this would in theory be the LED on the meter sort of thing which you can read at a distance, but this meter doesn't have one.

Another option would be to measure at the only place we consume gas - the boiler. Sadly, when spec'd out monitoring was not a requirement. The next model up supports all sorts of cool monitoring (gas consumed, heat produced, etc . . .), but not the one we have. I would happily have paid the extra €100 or so it cost at the time *before* the boiler was commissioned but it's too late now.

z

DGOBS

http://www.bes.co.uk/products/035.asp#20478

One of these outputs to an external display unit, could possibly be adapted

zagmund

Thanks, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Those devices actually have wired pulse & modbus connections for monitoring so no need for adapting anything - just plug in and start recording. Modbus is an open standard, so that should smooth things out a little. The only thing is the price . . . £650 is a little more than I was thinking of. I'm glad to see they exist alright, but hopefully they aren't all in that sort of price range.

Alternatively, if anyone knows a way to measure gas consumption in/from/for a Viessman Vitodens 100W I'm all ears. Last time I looked, the 100W had no suitable monitoring connectivity, but the 200W (for ~€200 more, not €100 as I thought) did. I may revisit the documentation on the 100W to see if there was something I missed when I first looked at it a year or so ago.

z

ted1

zagmund wrote: »

Thanks, that's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Those devices actually have wired pulse & modbus connections for monitoring so no need for adapting anything - just plug in and start recording. Modbus is an open standard, so that should smooth things out a little. The only thing is the price . . . £650 is a little more than I was thinking of. I'm glad to see they exist alright, but hopefully they aren't all in that sort of price range.

Alternatively, if anyone knows a way to measure gas consumption in/from/for a Viessman Vitodens 100W I'm all ears. Last time I looked, the 100W had no suitable monitoring connectivity, but the 200W (for ~€200 more, not €100 as I thought) did. I may revisit the documentation on the 100W to see if there was something I missed when I first looked at it a year or so ago.

z

Give Hanley controls a call they may have a meter that you could use. I vaguely remember a client sourcing pulse output gas meters there.

DGOBS

Where are you going to fit the secondary meter though? (as said earlier could affect your boiler adversely by lowering your working pressure)

And if it's going to replace the primary meter, you have to go through BGNm you can't just get an RGI to swap it

zagmund

DGOBS - I'm only working through possibilities at the moment. Don't worry, I'm not about to go and do something illegal/dangerous. I understand your concerns about the working pressure and before any work was carried out would establish whether this was a concern in this environment. At the moment I'm assuming it is a problem and won't be planning any modifications just yet.

Thanks again,

z

whizbang

Is there no option to monitor the boiler.?
i presume the modulation is electronic or Pneumatic in the boiler, I don't know if it would be possible to monitor the setting?

antoinolachtnai

I have looked at this a lot. There doesn't seem to be any answer other than the €900 kit. There is a funny hole on the meter which looks somehow relevant but I can't find any documentation on it anywhere.

I am currently controlling my boiler with a raspberry pi and relay board, so at least I can count how many hours I've been running the boiler. If you want some code, you are welcome to it.

ted1

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I have looked at this a lot. There doesn't seem to be any answer other than the €900 kit. There is a funny hole on the meter which looks somehow relevant but I can't find any documentation on it anywhere.

I am currently controlling my boiler with a raspberry pi and relay board, so at least I can count how many hours I've been running the boiler. If you want some code, you are welcome to it.

What signal are you using from the boiler, just because its it on it doesn't mean it's using gas. I've seen people confuss actual run times before

antoinolachtnai

Certainly doesn't mean it's using gas, no. I don't have a way to read whether there is a flame or what rate the boiler is running at (it modulates). But at least I can get an average for how many m3 are used per hour of running for a particular season, if I also feed in some meter readings now and again.

If I could interface into the opentherm, that would be great. But there is no easy way to do that.

zagmund

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I have looked at this a lot. There doesn't seem to be any answer other than the €900 kit. There is a funny hole on the meter which looks somehow relevant but I can't find any documentation on it anywhere.

I am currently controlling my boiler with a raspberry pi and relay board, so at least I can count how many hours I've been running the boiler. If you want some code, you are welcome to it.

Thanks for the offer of the code. I may well take you up on that at some stage, but at the moment I'm still in the early days of this stuff so I'm not sure what I could/would do with it. Does it hook into custom hardware somewhere or does it hook into the boiler itself?

z

antoinolachtnai

no, is connected to a relay board. the relay board turns a 240v control signal to the boiler on and off (actually, two control signals, one for hot water, the other for central heating).

maurice1

I was thinking of doing something similar with a raspberry pi.
The Bord gais , Landis & gyr meter is designed to have a prepayment card reader attached.
I picked up one of these meters and card reader.
I took them apart & photo'd them so you could see the internals.

More photos on https://www.dropbox.com/l/hlJRplbqEP8ybrAix1Hwqp?

As I hope you can see (photos 223 + 224), there is an infared transmitter Led & receiver T2 on the back of the board which sends data through the window on the meter.

I presume that the meter sends data to the card reader to deduct credit. This data if captured should do what you want.

I have no idea how to decode it.

I am in Dunlaoghaire area so if someone wants the meter to build a datalogger with please pm me.

antoinolachtnai

IEC 1107, it looks like from reading around.

http://www.abacuselectrics.com/iec1107.htm#Can1

maurice1

I think I have one fo these:http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jun/16/faulty-british-gas-meter-bill-overpayment


Yes i think you are right about the IEC1107

Had a look around and found:
http://vrtp.ru/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=479865
It is from Elektor electronics about using the opto port.

Obviously i would hope that the TX RX into arduino would work.

Attached photo
Took front off meter to give everyone an idea of the PCB in the Landis & Gyr ETX6 meter Anyone identify the red component?
PCB soldered onto 6 pin sensor so not easy to remove.


Attached PDF shows meter model numbers as I was googling the wrong one

antoinolachtnai

I also found this.

http://www.domoticaforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6935 . There is a copy of part of the spec there.

whizbang

Anyone identify the red component?

It looks like it could be a magnetic sensor. As mentioned in one of the attachments, the reader uses a magnet to attach to the meter. Maybe the optical port isn't activated unless the magnet is detected.

antoinolachtnai

Someone suggested to me that the protocol on later Landis + Gyr meters could be DLMS. There is an open-source implementation here, apparently.

http://www.gurux.fi/index.php?q=GXDLMSDirector

maurice1

@Whizbang, I checked it again and it appears the red bit is a silicony material. I don't think it could be a magnet as there is a metal plate covering the PCB that just has a hole for the opto coupler.

@antoinolachtnai I hope its IEC1107, but we need to try and get some info out of the meter first.

I am thinking of trying http://kildal.dk/?page_id=117 first judging by his drawing at the bottom.

I have a spare Duemilanove with a TX and RX pin.
His circuit looks handy for breadboard.

If we presume that it is IEC1107, do you have an idea for the sketch to run to serial.read, and serial.write commands ?

zagmund

Have been away for a few days and am only getting to this now. It all looks very interesting in terms of meter reading.

Quick question (before I have a chance to read all the links) - does this point towards the possibility of reading the meter *without* disassembling it, or is disassembling it part of the process? I'm assuming disassembling a sealed meter isn't an option, so I'm hoping there's a way to do it without upsetting BGN.

z

Egass13

What is it you are all trying to read/gain ? Out of curiosity ...

zagmund

I'm trying to measure my gas usage on a more granular level - direct from the meter. It doesn't matter so much in the Summer when consumption is almost nil, but in winter it will give me an idea of how much gas it takes to heat the house.

z

Egass13

zagmund wrote: »

I'm trying to measure my gas usage on a more granular level - direct from the meter. It doesn't matter so much in the Summer when consumption is almost nil, but in winter it will give me an idea of how much gas it takes to heat the house.

z

Why not just take weekly readings ?

zagmund

I already do that. I'm looking for greater granularity. For me it's a hobby sort of thing. If I can't do it then nothing bad will happen, but it would be good to be able to do it.

Meter manufacturers provide this sort of function because there's a demand for it. It can theoretically help with overall efficiency, assuming I analyse the data I get, correlate with resulting room temperatures, external temperatures, etc . . . But first I have to record it in enough detail.

z

maurice1

@Zagmund, I am not planning on interfering with the L&G meter at all. Just add a photodiode TXRX to the front window on the meter. The photos i put up is a spare meter I found in the UK and stripped down

antoinolachtnai

maurice1 wrote: »

If we presume that it is IEC1107, do you have an idea for the sketch to run to serial.read, and serial.write commands ?

http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=119247.0 - might be a start?

zagmund

Thanks for the clarification, just checking.

So, do we know what is between the "Adaptive" and "E6S"? From what has been said above it sounds like it is a pulse output of some form, but I've never seen it flash. I did consider it originally when investigating, but I guess I forgot about it and didn't pursue.

Did someone mention infrared somewhere? If it's infrared then I'm sure that we can hack something up to record it. I have my Arduino monitoring the electricity consumption, so hacking the code a little to get it to monitor this shouldn't be beyond me/us assuming someone has an IR receiver.

In terms of the monitoring, I reckon that mounting the device on the outside of the box, with the receiver fitted through a hole in the box should be OK. It's not like it's attached to the meter, or the cabling, just to the door.

z

Dardania

What about a heat meter? And apply a standard efficiency value to the kWh consumption of heat to get kWh consumption of gas?

http://www.meters.co.uk/heat/hcm-4000-pulsed-output

antoinolachtnai

zagmund wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification, just checking.

So, do we know what is between the "Adaptive" and "E6S"? From what has been said above it sounds like it is a pulse output of some form, but I've never seen it flash. I did consider it originally when investigating, but I guess I forgot about it and didn't pursue.

It probably doesn't flash, and if it does flash it flashes an infrared flash.

It most likely has a little communications protocol of its own which is conveyed over infrared. It is a two-way protocol most likely.

Working with the protocol is likely to be the biggest problem, and it may be that the meter is 'locked' so you can only get data off it using a password.

Did someone mention infrared somewhere? If it's infrared then I'm sure that we can hack something up to record it. I have my Arduino monitoring the electricity consumption, so hacking the code a little to get it to monitor this shouldn't be beyond me/us assuming someone has an IR receiver.

In terms of the monitoring, I reckon that mounting the device on the outside of the box, with the receiver fitted through a hole in the box should be OK. It's not like it's attached to the meter, or the cabling, just to the door.

You can buy the optical leads or make 'em. They have both send and receive. They are a standard thing in the meter industry.

maurice1

I reckon antoinolachtnai is on the right track, As we know from the photos I posted on dropbox there is a receiving DB and transmitting T0 photodiode on the both PCBs, so as there is no LED there can be no pulses

I will try and make up http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?PHPSESSID=nu7vo733nq9aihqputogg96bj0&action=dlattach;topic=119247.0;attach=44151;image over the next few days, and attach it to an Arduino TX RX on Digital 0 RX and Digital 1TX.

However the sketch for the arduino is the problem. Can any of you write a sketch which would read.serial and write.serial in IEC1107 ?

zagmund

Given a sufficient amount of time I'm sure I could give it a stab, but I wouldn't rely on my programming ability to actually get it done if you are in a rush. My timescales on this project have been measured in years to date, but I'm up for it.

I'll look into IEC1107.

Has anyone actually read *anything* off the meter, regardless of whether it is gibberish or not? My approach typically is to get something working as a first step (register anything at all) and then worry about what it's saying/what format it is in.

z

gctest50

zagmund wrote: »

.........

Did someone mention infrared somewhere? If it's infrared then I'm sure that we can hack something up to record it.

"look" at it with the camera on your phone - you might see it


http://www.lirc.org/

.

antoinolachtnai

maurice1 wrote: »

However the sketch for the arduino is the problem. Can any of you write a sketch which would read.serial and write.serial in IEC1107 ?

I am looking at the following from http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?action=profile;u=160447;sa=showPosts

In terms of code, I don't know anything much about arduino, but I think it might well be as simple as this.

a.

Serial.println("Meter type");

byte cmd[] = {0xAF,0x3F,0x21,0x8D,0x0A}; // query the meter for data "/?!"+<13><10>
iskSer.write (cmd,5);

byte a;
while (iskSer.available() > 0)
{
a = iskSer.read() & 0x7F; // cheap way of converting from 8N1 to 7E1
char b = a; // convert serial byte to ASCII character
Serial.print(b);
}
}
Serial.println();

maurice1

I took the photodiode and phototransistor off the prepayment accessory that I got.
I mounted them on veroboard and attached them to an Deumilanove using D2 and D3.

I then used <SoftwareSerial.h> sketch and tried it out.
I sent all the codes IEC1107 we mentioned over the last 3 pages through the monitor but no Joy.

I believe that my soldering is OK as when i use "Blink" on Pin 3 TX diode, I can see it flash on my phone camera.

When I point a philips remote control at the RX I get loads of Y with the 2 dots over them on the serial monitor.

Maybe as antoinolachtnai suggested it is DLMS

maybe if someone had a moment they could google the L&G USB200 or the AIS200 probes to find out their protocol

Dtp1979

What exactly are you doing? Are you interfering with the gas meter?

antoinolachtnai

I recall reading somewhere somewhere that the optical isolation is very important (i.e., that there is good contact and no extraneous light getting in between the transceivers). Worth a fiddle anyway.

IEC1107 and DLMS are very closely related.

Wearb

Dtp1979 wrote: »

What exactly are you doing? Are you interfering with the gas meter?

I have been following this. It is a sort of hobby/challenge to collect the information being transmitted, not to interfere with the device, but to see if the information gathered can be put to use monitoring usage minutely.

Egass13

Wearb wrote: »

I have been following this. It is a sort of hobby/challenge to collect the information being transmitted, not to interfere with the device, but to see if the information gathered can be put to use monitoring usage minutely.

It's also the most nerdy thing on boards , I have to read the sci-fi forum after just so I can feel masculine again .

Dtp1979

Egass13 wrote: »

It's also the most nerdy thing on boards , I have to read the sci-fi forum after just so I can feel masculine again .

I had to read a few threads in the ladies lounge

Wearb

Do I hear you lads putting on real deep voices :0

zagmund

Steady on lads. It's interesting, but not exactly ground breaking. At the end of the day it's just meter reading.

z

maurice1

Dardania wrote: »

What about a heat meter? And apply a standard efficiency value to the kWh consumption of heat to get kWh consumption of gas?

http://www.meters.co.uk/heat/hcm-4000-pulsed-output

good idea, Never knew these existed, but wouldn't allow for the cooker

maurice1

Found a copy of the specs for the meter,

Optical port spec. EN 61107 Mode C
(300 /4800 Baud)