IR Meter Reader AIR

[Rob]

Anyone know if this would work on a gas meter?

Mine has the round magnetic bit on the front.

[Techdoctor]

 The IR meter reader works by detecting the pulses from the red LED light on front of the meter. 

[Daniel Feist]

I don't have one, but these use infra-red and support various different protocols.  They don't read a flashing LED.

The round magnetic bit on the front is to hold an "optical head" in place and allow infra-red communication.  As long as your gas meter supports one of the 3-4 protocols supported, then it would work.  If you can find a datasheet for the gas meter this will help confirm this though.

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[Techdoctor]

You learn something new, 

 I know people have used a photodiode over the Red pulsing LED on meters to get  power readings, since one pulse normally equals 1kWh and just thought the Loxone meter reader did the same. 

[Rob]

Thanks all.

I've done some digging around and it seems the meter I have isn't on the list of Loxone compatible ones.

[Daniel Feist]

If you can confirm it's one of the protocols supported by Loxone IR reader, it is very likely to work (these are standard protocols).  What meter is it? Could you find datasheet?

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[Rob]

Its an EDMI GS-60B and I've not been able to find any info about what IR comms protocol it might have. There seems to be a lack of detailed tech data online about it and emailing EDMI didn't get a response!!

[Daniel Feist]

Apparently uses:  ANSI C12.18-1996 & FLAG IEC-62056-21.   Loxone IT Reader supports IEC62056-21, so IMO high probability it's supported.

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[Rob]

Thanks Dan

Clearly your google skills are better than mine LOL

I couldn't find anything like that.

[Daniel Feist]

See: https://www.edmi-meters.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Read-Head-Factsheet-English.pdf

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[Rob]

Thanks Dan, super useful :)

[Jonathan Dixon]

Hi Rob

Did you ever get the IR meter, and have any success with it on your gas meter?
I've recently done a couple gas boiler integrations using Opentherm, and now I have an estimate of gas consumption from the boiler on those, it would be very interesting to compare those figures to what the mains gas meter is recording.

BR

Joth

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[Rob]

Hi Joth

Yes, I did get an IR Meter Reader but never managed to get it to work with my gas meter. It never seemed to communicate so I assume the IR port had been disabled on my meter. The other issue I had was that the IR unit requires a permanent 5v power supply and getting that into my gas meter cupboard was going to be problematic. I thought I could use a large power bank and then recharge it every few weeks but seems the ones I have don't like to be on permanently and kept switching off the output.

On the plus side, I bought an EMS bus gateway module for my Worcester boiler which connects to my home network via wifi and controlled from Loxone with HTTP virtual inputs/outputs. This gives me loads of real time data and allows me to control parameters like flow temperature, burner min/max% and pump modulation etc. The boiler data includes gas usage (in kWh) and when I compared this to my meter readings over a period the boiler was under-reporting by about 1%, so pretty accurate when you consider the gas meter uses volume and a conversion to kWh based on a variable calorific value. I haven't yet done any value corrections but at that level of variance I'm happy to use the boiler data to track my actual gas usage in real time.

I mainly wanted the EMS boiler control so that I could experiment running at different flow temps to emulate the sort of output I'd get from a heat pump and see how my existing upstairs heating would cope, downstairs already has UFH.

Rob

[Jonathan Dixon]

Hi Rob

Many thanks for the detailed reply - very timely as the Gas meter was just installed today! It's a UniFlo G4SZV-2 that uses IEC 62056-21 - however given your experience I'm not going to prioritise getting the IR link in. It would be interesting to compare the usage vs what the boiler reports (over opentherm) and perhaps estimate cooking vs heating consumption, but not a priority.

Cheers

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