Contents
ioBridge’s I/O web gateways including the IO-204 or Gamma PRO may be used with a pulse output power meter to monitor power over the internet.
This tutorial shows you one way to do this following a step-by-step guide and without writing any code. This project assumes that you are familiar with the basic functionality of your ioBridge web gateway and that you have already set up your account and linked your web gateway.
Project Components
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ioBridge IO-204 or IO-204-PRO
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Third-party pulse output power meter
Step 1 – Connect your Web Gateway to your Pulse Output Power Meter
The first step is hook up your pulse output power meter (following the manufacturer’s instructions) and connect your ioBridge I/O web gateway to your third-party pulse output power meter. Typically this involves connecting the ground and the pulse output connection of your power meter to the ground and one or more Digital Input or DI pins.
In this tutorial you should connect the pulse output of your power meter to DI on all four channels (i.e. the pulse output is connected in parallel to all four DIs).
Step 2 – Push Pulse Counts to the Server
By connecting the power meter to the DIs of each of the four channels is is possible to count pulses in the following way:
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CH1 DI = total cumulative number of pulses
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CH2 DI = number of pulses per day
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CH3 DI = number of pulses per hour
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CH4 DI = number of pulses per minute
This is done by creating the following Onboard Rules
Step 3 – Log and Scale the Pulse Counts
Step 2 provides measurements of cumulative energy use as well as average power used over three time periods. It is possible to log the pulse counts and scale the results to a more meaningful average power measurement using the Expression Builder. This is shown below using the pulse counts measured during one hour periods:
Note the following expression used to scale pulse counts measured over one hour to average power. WhpP stands for Watt Hours per Pulse and is meter specific. PC is the Pulse Count.
PC=%%point%% WHpP=2.5 PulseFreq=PC/3600 Power=WHpP*3600*PulseFreq
Step 4 – Create Widgets and Place them on your Dashboard
Now that you have data logs created it is possible to create charts of your logs. The following is an example of the 1 hour power logging chart:
It is also possible to create a widget that displays the total energy used or even the cost since a certain date using the following Expression Monitor as an example:
These and other widgets that you design can be placed on your dashboard to create a solution that meets your particular needs.
