Hey all,
Just got the three phase din meter wired in by the sparky.
Could anyone shed some light on what the constant value i'd need to put in for the pulse sensor connected to it? The din meter does 400imp/kWh
So far i've got the following settings on the sensor
Type: Electricity
Voltage: 230 <-- I thought power in Australia was 240v ?
Current: 50
Constant: ??
Any help would be appreciated :)
Thanks
Adam
Adam, please, look in the other topic where you asked this same question.
Can you not change the voltage in 240 Volt ?
400 [pulse] / 1000 [Wh] = 4 / 10 * [pulse/Wh] => 10/4 [Wh/pulse] = 2.5 Wh per pulse, as the manual says "A meterconstant de fines the amount of flow represented by each pulse. For electricity, the unit is Wh
per pulse". You're not kidding, are you?
With respect to the mains voltage in Australia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country claims "230V" - quote from the standarization authority: "In 1983 Standards Australia adopted a 20 year plan to convert Australia from the nominal 240 volts to 230 volt, to align with European Standards – IEC38."
You may call your local provider to get the true value (maybe clocks down under also run differently?)
"Nothing for ungood" (as a German proverb says)
From memory you don't need to put in the voltage for pulse meter.....
As Bazzle said, the voltage should be irrelevant because the pulse meter will already have measured it in order to output the pulses at the right moment.
If you are curious, you may be able to read mains voltage off your inverter. My Sunny Boy TL 5000 usually reports 240-244 V. Your voltage may well be different. It varies by area. (Your local transformer and your distance from that transformer will have a lot to do with how much over-voltage you get, if any.)
Cheers,
Michi.
When producing solar depending on the load and the output paramaters and street loads, mine varies from 258v down to 206volts
Before I fitted the pulse meter when I was using current clamps I worked out an average daytime voltage for an "average" day to set the voltage.
Was ~236v for my location.
Thanks all for the replies - I've set the constant to 2.5 and i'm now watching the data get collected in PVoutput
@fluc - thanks for the quick response (in both threads) I created a new thread as after I posted on the other one I realized my question wasn't related to that thread.
@gebhardm - Nope not kidding, i'm new to all this stuff and still learning! Thanks heaps for showing me how you worked it out too. I've saved that calculation away just incase I need it again. Also cheers for the wiki link, i'm just having a read through that now
@Bazzle + @Michi - Thank again for the info guys, I wont worry about the voltage. I'd love to read the mains voltage off the inverter, but it's a latronics one and has absolutely no "smarts" or outputs to it at all - no way to plug into it or monitor it apart from 4 led's on the front (Led 1 = 0% - 25%, Led 2 = 25% - 50%, Led 3 = 50% - 75% and Led 4 = 75% - 100%) and also the din pulse kWh meter which is thankfully plugged into the flukso :D
I'm still learning how to use PVoutput as well, but its starting to build patterns now that consumption is being recorded as well. Still got a bit to setup though i think. http://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?userid=28541
Thanks again everyone for the quick responses!
Cheers
Adam
Nice shaped graph :) Insolation is nearly identical too.
Now add local temperature from Weather Underground and you will see the output vary against temp as well. Normally down as it goes up :(
https://getsatisfaction.com/pvoutput is where I asked how some time back.
Thanks Bazzle :)
I've been trying to get the local temperature in there, but im not doing something right..
When I edit the system details in PVoutput, under additional settings I can select a weatherstation from the drop down list but that doesnt seem to give me live local temp's.
Further down under automatic uploads, theres another option to enter a weather station. I dont own a weather station yet, so I followed the find a station link and picked the closest weather station I could find. That didnt seem to do it either?
Not sure what i'm missing - or is this only possible if you have your own weather station thats uploading to wunderground?
Also under the automatic uploads, did you go with just the primary device in a consumption direction and then use the second sensor field (in opposite direction?) for the pv generation?
Or did you use primary device in consumption direction and then a secondary device in a solar direction?
I've been reading through the pvoutput's help file, but its not making sense to me yet..
Cheers
Adam
Go to http://www.wunderground.com and create an account.
Then enter your location (suburb and city or some such) into the search box. Click the "Maps & Radar" tab. You'll get a map of your area with all the stations that are logging to Wunderground. Pick one that's close to you.
Click on the station's marker on the map. You will get a pop-up with the station ID. You need that station ID when you configure PVOutput.
You also need an API key. You can request one here: http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api
With the station ID and the API key, you can go to your system's config at PVOutput and enter those into your system's configuration in the "Automatic Uploads" section.
That's pretty much it. Once you've configured this, you will get a plot of the temperature as recorded by the station you selected.
Cheers,
Michi.
Direction - Solar
2nd sensor - opposite
Is that what you needed?
Also on weather Ive gone back to the Weather station in Additional settings closest to me (Scoresby) as the weather underground ones nearby kept going off line :(
@Michi - Thats awesome, thanks heaps! I now have weather plotting against each 5 minute report :D Cant believe it was that simple.
@Bazzle - Thanks, I think its what I needed, maybe? At the moment under automatic uploads I have the following:
Primary device: Flukso
Direction: Consumption
Sensor: 3phase sensor id on my flukso
Token: Token number
Second sensor/token/rule: Blank
Secondary device: Flukso
Direction: Solar
Sensor: Single phase sensor id on my flukso
Token: Token number
i'm guessing this would end up being the same as how you listed above with the second sensor being the solar and opposite but both on the primary device. The main difference being that you're way free's up the secondary device?
For the weather setting, i'm a little confused now. There seems to be two places for temperature? Under additional settings -> weather station and also under automatic uploads -> weather station?
At the moment I have the weather station under additional settings set to the closest one I could find to me and also the weather station under automatic uploads set to the same station?
Cheers
Adam
From the manual:
"Australian based systems may assign a Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) weather station to their system.
Systems that have assigned a weather station will have their daily temperature range automatically updated.
Login to your account
Click on Your Outputs
Click on the system size link next to the system name below the graph
Select the Weather Station from the dropdown
Save your system details
When adding or editing an output via the Add Output page, leave the temperature range fields blank to allow the system to update these fields."
So, what configuring this does is to update the "Temperature" column that you get in the daily standard view, which shows the min-max range for that day.
On the other hand, configuring a Wunderground station adds the temperature graph to the live view. From the manual:
"Adding a Wunderground weather station enables live temperature data to be combined with your live generation or consumption data. To check if your weather station has data, browse to the following URL -
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=
Weather API Key
This is the API key used to access the above wunderground weather station. An API key can be requested by creating a wunderground account here: http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api"
Michi.
Thanks Michi for the tips, Wunderground works very well here in Belgium.
Awesome thanks again Michi, that makes sense :) - wunderground is working very well here too now!
Is anyone monitoring water/gas usage with the flukso? If so, are you reporting it to PVoutput or somewhere else (other then the flukso dash?)
Cheers
Adam
If you donate to PVOutput, you can graph another five or so parameters in addition to consumption and production. It'll take a bit of hackery to upload the additional data to PVOutput, so you'll need some programming skills. So, yes, there is nothing to stop from adding water and/or gas as well, as far as I know. (I'm not doing this myself, so no first-hand experience.)
I recommend donating to PVOutput, even if it's only a small amount. The site offers a first-rate service with great technical support, and bankstownbloke deserves getting some money for his efforts. Just running the server and paying for bandwidth is probably not all that cheap, I imagine.
Michi.
Hey Michi
Proud to say i'm already a donating member of PVoutput - I signed up and donated the day I ordered the flukso :)
Would you happen to have any links handy that you may have come across, for uploading additional data for a flukso?
I've searched a bit, but everything I find tends to be related to other devices (IE Cosm/Ted/pvbeancounter etc.) and they usually involve modifying configs/ini files for those individual programs to include the additional data under a different data stream? - which I believe would show under the extended data?
I think it might be possible to use the secondary device, set to flukso and consumption. Then put the sensor id/token in there - however theres only the ability for 1 sensor and then also the recorded data for say the water sensor is recorded in kWh?
i'll keep searching online in the mean time, but if you happen to have any handy links tucked away :)
Cheers
Adam
I'm sorry, I can't help with that. You could try the PVOutput forum at getsatisfaction.com though. You'll find someone there who can help.
Cheers,
Michi.
No worries Michi - thank you though, you've helped me so much already!
Cheers
Adam