The Energy Detective
- Thread starter RonX
- Start date
I hope the real product works better than the demo. I use Firefox, and when I view it the page is larger than the browser window, but it doesn't show a vertical scroll bar. I tried it in IE and it works ok. Does it do this for anyone else or is it just me? I do have a bunch of ad blocking script blocking plugins installed, so that may be my issue (or maybe not) I hope this works well, I have wanted something like this for a long time.
Matt
Matt
I recently acquired the Model 1002 TED with the Footprints software. The 1002 provides 4 x CT's. Installation was simple and I can receive the combined input on the TED display (believe called the RDU). However, the software used to display a cumulative log (and produce some graphs, output to Excel, etc) has yet to function. I have tried 4 x unique installationswith both XPSP2 and Vista...none have installed correctly nor remotely behaved as per the instructions provided (they display the process you are to follow multiple times during the installation).
I believe it was just released prior to XMAS and then the holidays, so have only had a few "working day" opportunities to contact them. But so far they have not responded to my emails (with installation results and screen captures) nor to telephone messages. May need to wait till after new year to get anyone.
Will be glad to update the forum if my experience is of any interest.
David
I believe it was just released prior to XMAS and then the holidays, so have only had a few "working day" opportunities to contact them. But so far they have not responded to my emails (with installation results and screen captures) nor to telephone messages. May need to wait till after new year to get anyone.
Will be glad to update the forum if my experience is of any interest.
David
Yes it was the one that caused X-10 and some Insteon interference too! This was one of the reasons I went to Z-Wave.
The TED, which otherwise works fine, seems to transmit a carrier right between X-10 and Insteon in frequency, which for me caused troubles with both. I had to isolate the TED circuit with filters to keep the rest of the system working. I will check out the TED site though because I've been waiting for the TED to to upgraded to include a computer interface (it did have an RS-232 chip already on board, but must have been for programming firmware only apparently....). I do hope the new model also has downloadable Firmware upgrades.
Glad to see a new version though, its been promised "vaporware" for a long time now...
The TED, which otherwise works fine, seems to transmit a carrier right between X-10 and Insteon in frequency, which for me caused troubles with both. I had to isolate the TED circuit with filters to keep the rest of the system working. I will check out the TED site though because I've been waiting for the TED to to upgraded to include a computer interface (it did have an RS-232 chip already on board, but must have been for programming firmware only apparently....). I do hope the new model also has downloadable Firmware upgrades.
Glad to see a new version though, its been promised "vaporware" for a long time now...
I have the serial TED 1000 with a modification to provide the kWatt usage in real time (every second) from the serial port. I can connect it to my little Buffalo/Linux router to collect the usage in a database for web access without the need for a PC. Other than needed to make the modification to get to the data, I have been very pleased with the product. The TED uses a 125khz carrier instead of the 120khzused by X10, but close enough to cause issues.
klaxxon, I'd be very interested to hear more about how you've accessed the data. If you'd prefer to tell me in private channels that's OK with me (although I don't think reverse engineering is illegal yet.)
I'd like to avoid mucking with the TEDViewer software under WINE, and yet I feel certain there's no point running a real Windows box just for this tiny application.
Are you running OpenWRT on the Buffalo? Do you think this can be made to work for me in Ubuntu?
For those who are interested, per-second data exported from the Windows TED program looks like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eastpole/2299787549/
when plotted in the lovely and powerful gnuplot.
Regards,
tai
In the picture on the other side of the link, the Y axis looks alot more like kW, not kWh.?
-------------------------
Per second averages.
Y axis is kWh
X axis is seconds since 9am 28 Feb 08.
Made with The Energy Detective and gnuplot.
I just installed a TED model 1002. I got the Footprints software but haven't tried it out yet, mostly because I have a Mac. I'm hoping that I'll be able to do like klaxxon and get text-format data from the USB port, which I believe is just a USB-to-serial adapter embedded in the new TED hardware.
In any case, I'm having an interference issue which I could use some advice on. I do not have any X10 or other home automation in my home (yet), but I have two loads that completely clobber communication between the TED transmitter and display. One is a line-voltage lighting track on a dimmer, with three low-voltage pendant lights that are hanging from LV transformers on the track. The other problem load is my 40" Samsung LCD TV. When either of those loads are on, the TED display receives only a handful of packets per minute. When both loads are on, nothing gets through at all.
I talked to TED technical support, and they suggested putting the TED transmitter/display on one phase and the problem loads on the other. I tried that and it didn't seem to help. There must be some phase coupling somewhere in my house. The outlet where the TV is plugged in is on the same circuit as the outlet where I'd like to plug in the TED, so that's not a particularly good solution anyway.
I'm wondering if some X10 filters (XPPF for the TV and XPF for the track lights) could be helpful here. Is the TED carrier close enough to the X10 carrier for those to be effective?
In any case, I'm having an interference issue which I could use some advice on. I do not have any X10 or other home automation in my home (yet), but I have two loads that completely clobber communication between the TED transmitter and display. One is a line-voltage lighting track on a dimmer, with three low-voltage pendant lights that are hanging from LV transformers on the track. The other problem load is my 40" Samsung LCD TV. When either of those loads are on, the TED display receives only a handful of packets per minute. When both loads are on, nothing gets through at all.
I talked to TED technical support, and they suggested putting the TED transmitter/display on one phase and the problem loads on the other. I tried that and it didn't seem to help. There must be some phase coupling somewhere in my house. The outlet where the TV is plugged in is on the same circuit as the outlet where I'd like to plug in the TED, so that's not a particularly good solution anyway.
I'm wondering if some X10 filters (XPPF for the TV and XPF for the track lights) could be helpful here. Is the TED carrier close enough to the X10 carrier for those to be effective?
WayneW
Senior Member
Mine seems to work OK, other than the load profiling (which is either not sensitive enough or too sensitive).
I am using the latest version (currently 1.2.9) from http://theenergydetective.com/media/
Mine (version doesn't seem to matter much...) runs for a couple of hours (clean install of XP), then I notice after not too long a time that the KWH dial indicator stops responding. This is only the first sign though, because after a day or two of continuous operation, Footprints becomes more and more unstable until it will not even display the main page. I've done a couple of clean installs of the OS from scratch, then reloaded Footprints plus .net etc. and tried again with the same results on different drives.
Me thinks Footprints has a "fungus", and their tech support is non-responsive so far, other than to suggest I try the latest vers I(which I did), but same result.
Hardware is fine, data coming out the port, but something seems fishy in software land... I had told them earlier that the drive writes every second, wasn't the best either (said they were aware of that, etc.).
At least the hardware works... :unsure:
Me thinks Footprints has a "fungus", and their tech support is non-responsive so far, other than to suggest I try the latest vers I(which I did), but same result.
Hardware is fine, data coming out the port, but something seems fishy in software land... I had told them earlier that the drive writes every second, wasn't the best either (said they were aware of that, etc.).
At least the hardware works... :unsure:
