Monitoring gas meter - Landis & Gyr E6S

zagmund · 02-04-2014 07:14PM #1

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 · 02-04-2014 07:26PM

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 · 02-04-2014 10:26PM

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 · 02-04-2014 10:48PM

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 · 03-04-2014 08:18AM

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 · 03-04-2014 05:16PM

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 · 04-04-2014 09:15PM

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 · 04-04-2014 09:22PM

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 · 04-04-2014 11:26PM

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 · 04-04-2014 11:41PM

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

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

zagmund · 05-04-2014 12:32AM

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 · 05-04-2014 12:59AM

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 · 05-04-2014 08:26PM

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 · 05-04-2014 10:16PM

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 · 05-04-2014 11:27PM

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 · 07-04-2014 12:11PM

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 · 07-04-2014 02:15PM

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 · 07-04-2014 03:50PM

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 · 16-04-2014 12:47PM

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 · 16-04-2014 10:24PM

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 · 13-07-2014 03:11PM

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 · 14-07-2014 12:31PM

IEC 1107, it looks like from reading around.

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

maurice1 · 14-07-2014 07:39PM

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 · 14-07-2014 10:16PM

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 · 15-07-2014 12:28AM

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 · 15-07-2014 11:34AM

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 · 15-07-2014 02:09PM

@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 · 15-07-2014 02:43PM

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 · 15-07-2014 03:09PM

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

zagmund · 15-07-2014 03:11PM

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 · 15-07-2014 03:13PM

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 ?

Monitoring gas meter - Landis & Gyr E6S

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