I am college student and I need a single phase smart meter for my senior project. In your website, I saw the "EKM-OmniMeter I v.3 Universal Smart Meter".
I know that you do provide the software with the meter to access the data stored in the meter but in my project I have to create the software.I would like to know is it possible that I create a software to read the electricity consumption data that is stored in the meter? If it is possible to create the software, how should it be done? Do you provide any instructions or manual for that purpose?
Creating software to communicate with meter
Re: Creating software to communicate with meter
Thank you for using our meters for your project, we will be very interested to see what you come up with!
There are 2 ways for you to proceed.
You can either read the meters directly using the RS-485 protocol. This requires an understanding of serial data. A good place to start is here: http://forum.ekmmetering.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5
Or you can use our EKM Push data (which will be easier). This data is already cleaned up and is super easy to access. We encourage others to use this to build their software apps or even their businesses around.
If you want to read your meters directly with a computer and choose to parse the RS-485 data:
This will require an understanding of serial data and CRC-16 checksums. A good place to start is here: http://forum.ekmmetering.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5
And here is the protocol for reading the meter:
http://documents.ekmmetering.com/Meter_ ... ter_v3.pdf
This is how our EKM Reader or EKM Dash software works to read the meters over USB, RS-232, or TCP converters.
If you want to use the EKM Push data a good place to start is here: http://www.ekmmetering.com/push-communications
The EKM Push Schema is here: http://documents.ekmmetering.com/EKM_Push_Schema.pdf
The EKM Push is a much more scalable model (for larger installs) and the central database allows for your users to access their data from any computer or mobile device. We are very open about how you access and present this data to your users.
If you have any questions about either of these approaches, please let us know.
Good luck with your Senior Project!!
Regards,
There are 2 ways for you to proceed.
You can either read the meters directly using the RS-485 protocol. This requires an understanding of serial data. A good place to start is here: http://forum.ekmmetering.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5
Or you can use our EKM Push data (which will be easier). This data is already cleaned up and is super easy to access. We encourage others to use this to build their software apps or even their businesses around.
If you want to read your meters directly with a computer and choose to parse the RS-485 data:
This will require an understanding of serial data and CRC-16 checksums. A good place to start is here: http://forum.ekmmetering.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5
And here is the protocol for reading the meter:
http://documents.ekmmetering.com/Meter_ ... ter_v3.pdf
This is how our EKM Reader or EKM Dash software works to read the meters over USB, RS-232, or TCP converters.
If you want to use the EKM Push data a good place to start is here: http://www.ekmmetering.com/push-communications
The EKM Push Schema is here: http://documents.ekmmetering.com/EKM_Push_Schema.pdf
The EKM Push is a much more scalable model (for larger installs) and the central database allows for your users to access their data from any computer or mobile device. We are very open about how you access and present this data to your users.
If you have any questions about either of these approaches, please let us know.
Good luck with your Senior Project!!
Regards,
Re: Creating software to communicate with meter
As I mentioned in my first post, I want to create/program the software to communicate with the meter.
You listed the protocol for reading the meter (http://documents.ekmmetering.com/Meter_ ... ter_v3.pdf) and you said this is how your EKM Reader or EKM Dash software works to read the meters over RS-232. If I want to create my own software, how am I able to send the "request string" to the meter? how should I capture the meter reply string (as shown in Meter_Communication_Parsing_Submeter file) and code my own program.
You listed the protocol for reading the meter (http://documents.ekmmetering.com/Meter_ ... ter_v3.pdf) and you said this is how your EKM Reader or EKM Dash software works to read the meters over RS-232. If I want to create my own software, how am I able to send the "request string" to the meter? how should I capture the meter reply string (as shown in Meter_Communication_Parsing_Submeter file) and code my own program.
Re: Creating software to communicate with meter
How you communicate with the meter using your own software is up to how you write your software. In the case of our EKM Dash software, we open serial ports (either Serial RS232, USB COM ports, or Virtual Serial ports in the case of the iSerial) to the proper serial settings and then we write (send the meter requests) to these serial ports.
We then listen for the data to be returned from the meter on the same Serial Port. We parse this data, check the checksum, and display it in our software.
Depending on which tools you are using to code your own software, this could happen in a multitude of different ways.
If these seems at all confusing, we would really recommend that you use the EKM Push for its ease of use (and many other reasons). The data is already cleaned up, parsed, and verified using checksums to be accurate. We make the EKM Push data very easy to access from a known central location. Parsing this data should only take a matter of 1 to 2 hours.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
We then listen for the data to be returned from the meter on the same Serial Port. We parse this data, check the checksum, and display it in our software.
Depending on which tools you are using to code your own software, this could happen in a multitude of different ways.
If these seems at all confusing, we would really recommend that you use the EKM Push for its ease of use (and many other reasons). The data is already cleaned up, parsed, and verified using checksums to be accurate. We make the EKM Push data very easy to access from a known central location. Parsing this data should only take a matter of 1 to 2 hours.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks,