Need help tracking down an article I have seen online

[Hurgh]

Hi All,

I am in need of help tracking down an article I read online a little while ago (could be up to a year).

I am fairly sure it was on Hack A Day, but not 100%.

The reason for asking the list is 2 fold,

 - 1, Most people on this list probably read a lot of the same "hacking" news that I do and some will have much better memories than me 

 - 2, The hack I am looking for may interest many of those at the Hackerspace.

Ok, so the article I am looking for, is about a guy who made his own Infrared Optical Sensor with 3D printed case to read data from Smart Meters.

The port on the smart meter looks like the one in the following image:

The port I am talking about is on the right hand side in the middle of the unit and is a circle with a flat spot on the bottom and a cut out in the centre.

From memory the article described how this hacker made a case to fit over the port, and then proceeded to make the circuit to convert the IR signals into serial communications for a PC to read. 

From my hours of searching the net for this article, the port will either be a "ANSI C12.18 Type 2" standard or a "IEC 62056-21" standard.

There is a TX IR LED and an RX IR Receiver in the Smart Meter port, and the hacker put the same components into his case that he 3D printed.

I can even remember what the image on the post looked like, and the color of the case was a Blue, but I cant for the life of me find the post.

If anyone remembers the post and can send me a link, that would be much appreciated.

Regards

Allan

[James Muraca]

http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/08/22/defcon-20-hacking-smart-meters/

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[Hurgh]

Hey,

Thanks, I have just been reading through the white paper, and found a picture of the probe:

So i guess my memory was not as good as I thought (it's not blue), but I am sure there was an article on how it was made, that is what I am looking for.

Thanks for the help so far.

Regards

Allan

[Hurgh]

Hi Guys,

I found the site I was looking for, and my memory was not as bad as I thought :). The printed case is blue :)

http://www.solarshare.net/HT/OC/oc.htm

That is the link in case anyone is interested. (or I need to find it again).

And here are some keywords for me for later again, in case I need to find it again:

ANSI Type-2 

Opto Coupler

Infrared Optical 

Smart Meter

Thanks all.

Allan

[Mathew McBride]

On 10/11/12 10:04 AM, Hurgh wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> I found the site I was looking for, and my memory was not as bad as I
> thought :). The printed case is blue :)
>
> http://www.solarshare.net/HT/OC/oc.htm
>
> That is the link in case anyone is interested. (or I need to find it
> again).
> And here are some keywords for me for later again, in case I need to
> find it again:
>
> ANSI Type-2
> Opto Coupler
> Infrared Optical
> Smart Meter
>
> Thanks all.
>
> Allan

Just a FYI on the topic of the optical port on the smart meters - future
revisions of smart meters (in Victoria at least) will not have them. The
optical port is a backwards compatibility feature with the previous
non-automatic reading interval meters (that require the meter reader to
download the reading data manually). As the local distributors have
their wireless networks operational they aren't required anymore.

ZigBee Smart Energy Profile ("SEP") is the method by which consumers are
expected to get their data (read-only), would be interesting to see what
steps are needed to use it. But there are some products floating around
using the optical port - Jaycar is selling one at the moment (cat
MS6164) - could be an easy way to get a compatible optical probe.