Howdy! So, recently we built a second home for mother in law and it is running power off the main house, where my wife and I live. Wanted to have the ability to measure electricity being used by second home, so we believed a second metering system would be the way to go. Informed electrician of our simple desire and he came to me with the OmniMeter II UL v.3 and installed it. I don't think homeboy knew what he had installed because he didn't really suggest that to read/organize/recall any information from this meter, I would need some other components. I believe this particular metering system is way above my pay scale, but I am willing and kind of excited to work with it and figure out the basics. So my question is this:
1. I want to be able to read/look at the total usage from the other house, from the same cycle the electric company is charging for, taking total energy use of the other house and subtracting it from the total energy that we get billed for by the electric company, so that we can figure cost of each home and its usage. I hope that makes sense. I want to be able to access logs of readings. I currently have the USB converter and am able to get live readings on EKM Dash. Is there any way to do what I have described with just the components I have now? Is there a better way than what I am currently involved with?
I currently can plug into the meter and run the Dash program for live readings and I've glanced at the Widget app, but I'm hoping I won't need to purchase the PUSH system. It's 1 meter, 1 house and doesn't feel like it should be this complex. That is why I am here and I hope that wisdom will come my way. Thank you for taking the time to read and possibly respond.
Omnimeter v.3/USB RS485 converter/LOGS
Re: Omnimeter v.3/USB RS485 converter/LOGS
Hello Moshea,
With an Omnimeter, the EKM Dash software and a USB converter, you should be able to do what you want to do. But it wont be as slick or easy as if you had a Push system.
It sounds like you are not interested in too much data. If I were you I would setup my Dash to read my Omnimeter, once you get it reading reliably you can either just read your Omnimeter at the time of the start and end of your billing cycle, or you can setup your Dash to read you Omnimeter once every 15 minutes or so, so you do not get too much data, you would log all of this data to your computer, then you can generate a report either once a day or just at the time of the beginning of your billing cycle and end of billing cycle. The trouble with this is that you have to run your computer and your Dash software 24/7 to get a reliable dataset (hence the advantage of the Push system which does this natively). Or if your billing cycle happens to start on the first of the month and go to the last day of the month you can use the 6 months of monthly reads that are stored on the meter itself. Be sure you first properly set the internal clock in your Omnimeter, then after you accumulate a month or more of data you can go here in your Dash software: Meters > Edit Meter > Data Tab
https://help.ekmmetering.com/support/so ... a-logging-
Please let me know if you have questions about how to implement any of these options.
With an Omnimeter, the EKM Dash software and a USB converter, you should be able to do what you want to do. But it wont be as slick or easy as if you had a Push system.
It sounds like you are not interested in too much data. If I were you I would setup my Dash to read my Omnimeter, once you get it reading reliably you can either just read your Omnimeter at the time of the start and end of your billing cycle, or you can setup your Dash to read you Omnimeter once every 15 minutes or so, so you do not get too much data, you would log all of this data to your computer, then you can generate a report either once a day or just at the time of the beginning of your billing cycle and end of billing cycle. The trouble with this is that you have to run your computer and your Dash software 24/7 to get a reliable dataset (hence the advantage of the Push system which does this natively). Or if your billing cycle happens to start on the first of the month and go to the last day of the month you can use the 6 months of monthly reads that are stored on the meter itself. Be sure you first properly set the internal clock in your Omnimeter, then after you accumulate a month or more of data you can go here in your Dash software: Meters > Edit Meter > Data Tab
https://help.ekmmetering.com/support/so ... a-logging-
Please let me know if you have questions about how to implement any of these options.