New Brultech Energy Monitoring Model (ECM-1240) due in 2009

I have also posted this under the special pricing brultech thread, but thought it deserved its own thread for several reasons. First, this unit is not available yet and may not be available at a discount for Cocoontech members. Hopefully it will be, but until then, it doesn't really belong in that thread. Secondly, the unit has so many new features, that it deserves its own thread to be able to discuss them without confusing the other thread.

There seems to be a new version of the energy monitor coming out sometime in 2009. The new ECM-1240 monitors the main loads on a panel, but will also monitor up to five "sub loads."

The new ECM-1240 has the ability to not only track the real-time energy consumption of your entire home, but also simultaneously track and analyze the cost impact of several household loads.

All of this information is easily viewable on a connected computer or optionally via the internet.

Imagine being able to accurately track the consumption of:

Entire house panel (CH1)
Central Air unit (CH2)
Clothes Dryer (Aux1)
Electric Range (Aux2)
Water Heater (Aux3)
Spa (Aux4)
The software can then show what percentage of your bill is affected by these various large loads.

This is only one of thousands of possible scenarios.

Click to expand...

It also looks like you can use channel 2 to monitor wind or solar power GENERATION on your system.

Wind and Solar Power Producers:

Consider the monitoring scenario described above. Now use CH2 for your grid-tied inverter to monitor the energy generated.

The NET-Metering capability of the ECM-1240 will allow you to record the amount of power returned to the grid, amount of energy used and the net difference, along with the four additional monitored loads.

Click to expand...

It also looks like you can track water and gas usage via pulse counts if you meter allows that

Additional capabilities include using Aux1 or Aux2 to record the pulse count from a gas or water meter equipped with a pulse output.

Click to expand...

And finally...

Any of the Aux inputs may also be used to monitor a DC voltage from various environmental sensors.

Click to expand...

This is pretty exciting IMHO and is more of what I was hoping for when I think about power monitoring. I didn't buy the original unit because I felt it lacked some needed features that the new unit seems to be capable of. I'm really looking forward to being able to monitor some of the smaller energy using devices in my house in addition to the total energy used. It will allow me to see exactly how much energy the heating system is using and how much of the total bill that represents, etc. This will allow people to better manage their energy use and hopefully be able to lower their total energy use with some modifications in life style.

So my question for Brultech is when do you expect the new units to be available and at what price? Would it possible to have a discount for Cocoontech users on the new model as well? (I've actually PMed Paul with these questions. I also sent an e-mail to [email protected] asking them about availability and initial pricing as well).

I'm really looking forward to the new model!

Thanks,

wdill on the CQC forum found this link from Brultech that states it should be in fully production by early January. So hopefully they will get their first shipment of units before too long! Now if we can just get pricing information :wacko:

EDIT -
I've already got a reply from [email protected]. They said they expect it to be available around the end of January and hoped the price be about $199 with CT's but nothing is written in stone yet. So please don't take this as fact yet.

Given that price, I'd have to assume that price only includes the main CT's and not any for the sub load monitoring. So I'd be curious how much the smaller CT's are going to sell for.

Perhaps the "CT deal" could include a couple of the smaller CT's

That's all I know at this point.

I know with the current model you could buy a split CT and monitor extra loads.

What I wonder is how many channels would it take to monitor a 240V AC unit and 240 volt air handler?

Question #1 - if I run two wires ONE THE SAME PHASE through the SAME ct will the power. My air handler and CT are one differnt circuits but both are 240 so both have a wire on phase A and phase B

Question #2 - if question #1 is true can I run the wires for two differnt phases from the same AC unit through the same CT and add amps?

Question #3 - If I only measure one phase can I double it to get the power used by both phases? I dont remember much of my one semester of EE before I switched to business school but I think the answer is no.

My problem is that I have a small house but it has two compressors (both 240) and two air handlers (both 240) and a 240v oven. I can live without monitoring the oven as it is dual fuel(gas burners/electric oven) and my wife seems to never use the oven.. but I would love to monitor the AC.. even if sums both compressors and both air handlers as one value.

I believe the original unit only had two channels and the new unit effectively has 6 channels. So there should be a lot more capacity to monitor extra loads.

I'll let the experts answer your other questions. But it looks like from the diagram that you need to use Channel 1 or 2 to monitor 240v systems because it does take two CTs - one for each Phase. But perhaps Brultech has a way to monitor 240v on the sub channels by either using two channels per load or by using some of the technics you are asking about. Hopefully Paul will chime in here.

Keep us posted on the new 1240 model, I currently have 1 KW of installed grid-tied Solar and would like to monitor my "NET" generation and also monitor subfeeds as well (and see if both "phases" are balanced as far as load).

Glad to be kept informed of the new products and capabilities, just release soon whilst we still have jobs... :wacko:

I totally agree Digger. This sounds like a very interesting development.

I'm sorry I haven't have a chance to come on to this forum much lately.

We setup a page to provide information on the ECM-1240.

http://www.brultech.com/HomeEnergy/Status.html

Paul

twilo123 said:

I totally agree Digger. This sounds like a very interesting development.

Click to expand...

Brultech Website said:

ECM-1240 Pricing:

It is very difficult at this time to establish definite pricing, since many of our costs have yet to be determined. Our target is to make these as affordable as possible.

We can only make a ball-park estimate at this time:

Pkg #1:

ECM-1240 with RS-232 communications only
two 200A CTs (or two 100A or two 60A)
five Micro-CTs
estimated: approximately $200 range (US$).

Click to expand...

This just keeps getting better! Thanks for the updated information. I'm VERY interested in the new product and the release coinsides with my birthday. So I might be buying myself a birthday gift

Now I just need to get Beelzerob to update the CQC driver to work with this new unit.

sic0048 said:

Now I just need to get Beelzerob to update the CQC driver to work with this new unit.

Click to expand...

*twist*

Ow!

Ok, I'll do it.

personalt said:

Question #3 - If I only measure one phase can I double it to get the power used by both phases?

Click to expand...

The web page (and the first post) lists a lot of typical 240V loads (dryer, range, water heater) connected to a single Aux channel, so that would be my guess. It won't be entirely accurate using one CT if the load is 240/120.

Since my A/C only pulls 20A at 240 when running, I could use one of the Aux channels to monitor it. But I'm guessing (I didn't run out and check them yet) the AL wires are bigger than the 0.27 max I.D of the Micro CT. A CT with a larger opening, or since CT's are commodity items the ability to use whatever CT you want and set the specs for it.

What's the deal with the "optional dedicated potential transformer". Does this replace the wall wart or is it for something else?

According to the FAQ, the 1220 version samples 2000 times per second and averages the readings.
Same sampling rate for the 1240 on all channels?

How often can the unit be queried in real time?

What if there's a bug in the firmware? Is there any way to upgrade it?

For that matter, is there any detailed information available online about talking to these things? On the Brultech website I'm finding lots of graphics, a few references to packet lengths, but nothing technical.

Wow, I missed this thread by two days. I just ordered the WattNode to monitoring my power via my 1-wire network. I wanted to be able to monitor key device loads, but no one had any product that would integrate it all together

This product looks fantastic and looks like it would meet a lot of needs.

AndrewF said:

Wow, I missed this thread by two days. I just ordered the WattNode to monitoring my power via my 1-wire network.

Click to expand...

Hi Andrew;

When you get your WattNode in and working, can you start another thread and tell us how you like it? I along with others would be curious to know how this unit worked out for you. :blink:

Regards,

BSR

BraveSirRobbin said:

AndrewF said:

Wow, I missed this thread by two days. I just ordered the WattNode to monitoring my power via my 1-wire network.

Click to expand...

Hi Andrew;

When you get your WattNode in and working, can you start another thread and tell us how you like it? I along with others would be curious to know how this unit worked out for you. :blink:

Regards,

BSR

Click to expand...

Will do.

Now back to your regularly scheduled topic....

BtechRep said:

sda said:

personalt said:

Question #3 - If I only measure one phase can I double it to get the power used by both phases?

Click to expand...

The web page (and the first post) lists a lot of typical 240V loads (dryer, range, water heater) connected to a single Aux channel, so that would be my guess. It won't be entirely accurate using one CT if the load is 240/120.

Since my A/C only pulls 20A at 240 when running, I could use one of the Aux channels to monitor it. But I'm guessing (I didn't run out and check them yet) the AL wires are bigger than the 0.27 max I.D of the Micro CT. A CT with a larger opening, or since CT's are commodity items the ability to use whatever CT you want and set the specs for it.

What's the deal with the "optional dedicated potential transformer". Does this replace the wall wart or is it for something else?

According to the FAQ, the 1220 version samples 2000 times per second and averages the readings.
Same sampling rate for the 1240 on all channels?

How often can the unit be queried in real time?

What if there's a bug in the firmware? Is there any way to upgrade it?

For that matter, is there any detailed information available online about talking to these things? On the Brultech website I'm finding lots of graphics, a few references to packet lengths, but nothing technical.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I would like to point out that the information on the website is preliminary and not very descriptive at this point.

Originally, these Aux channels were to monitor current for the purpose of load detection. This has since changed from the original concept.

There are now five Aux channels each capable of monitoring a 120V or 240V load each. For any of the Aux channels, a second CT may be used for 120Vloads.

The Aux channel measure true power/energy and the measurements are processed by a dedicated processor ensuring that no processing power is taken from the main CH1/CH2 processor.

Each Aux channels are processed using approx 3KHz sampling rate, including the voltage sample.

The optional PT option is included to satisfy the request of some who wished to monitor the line voltage from 240V rather than only one phase.... probably rarely will be required...

As for the Micro-CTs, we also have a slightly larger version with an opening of 0.35" for aluminum wired services.

The ECM-1240's main processor will be flash upgradable using the RS-232 port.

We were reluctant in posting too much information since this device has been going through some changes.

If you have any other questions or doubts, please feel free to post them so that I may clarify them.

Paul

BtechRep, how long before you may have a 240V 50Hz southern hemisphere version of the ECM-1240?