All,
I did a search and could'nt find anyone else thats done this so I thought I would share my idea and solution to you all in case anyone else would like a relatively quick, simple and cheap way of getting power info into homeseer, I've put this into the UK forum as the device I am using is generally sold in the UK but could probably be used in other countries.
1) Get a Current Cost power meter (http://www.currentcost.co.uk/), my electricity company (Southern Electric) sent mine to me for free. Nice little devices, the clamp meter with radio transmitter attaches to the incoming power cables in the meter box. It then sends the info to the receiver in the house which displays current wattage, indoor temperature, cost for the day, total KWh for the month etc. You can buy them from here https://www.ecogadgetshop.co.uk/default.aspxhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfrenzy/2499443217/ for a guide on how to build the cable. NOTE: You might need to build a 3.3v - 5v converter to convert the signal into RS232 levels, you can do this with a MAX232/202 chip, a few capacitors and a power supply. If your current cost just inputs rubbish characters check your port settings, if they are correct chances are you will need to build the small circuit.
3) Check with HyperTerminal to see that the device inputs the data correctly, port settings are 2400, N, 8, 1. Some models are 9600 baud so also check that. It should give you a string of XML characters every seven seconds or so.
4) This is where the programming starts, I am not a programmer really but managed to work my way around this. I wrote a small VB6 program (I will share my code if you do want, if you don't laugh at it) that when data is received on the comm port it checks that I have the correct string starting with <MSG>. If I have that string then once I have the full string I stop, parse the XML data (currently I just read the Wattage and Temperature), write the data to an INI file saved in the homeseer config folder. I set the data to sample every three minutes and rewrite the INI file.
5) Read the data in to Homeseer using a script that grabs the INI settings on a re-occuring event every 3 minutes. It then updates some virtual device strings I set up, what you want to do from there is up to you. I also calculate estimated total current draw by dividing the Wattage by 230volts. I also generate a four line text file from the script which then sends the information to MRTG (http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/index.en.html
I did a search and could'nt find anyone else thats done this so I thought I would share my idea and solution to you all in case anyone else would like a relatively quick, simple and cheap way of getting power info into homeseer, I've put this into the UK forum as the device I am using is generally sold in the UK but could probably be used in other countries.
1) Get a Current Cost power meter (http://www.currentcost.co.uk/), my electricity company (Southern Electric) sent mine to me for free. Nice little devices, the clamp meter with radio transmitter attaches to the incoming power cables in the meter box. It then sends the info to the receiver in the house which displays current wattage, indoor temperature, cost for the day, total KWh for the month etc. You can buy them from here https://www.ecogadgetshop.co.uk/default.aspxhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfrenzy/2499443217/ for a guide on how to build the cable. NOTE: You might need to build a 3.3v - 5v converter to convert the signal into RS232 levels, you can do this with a MAX232/202 chip, a few capacitors and a power supply. If your current cost just inputs rubbish characters check your port settings, if they are correct chances are you will need to build the small circuit.
3) Check with HyperTerminal to see that the device inputs the data correctly, port settings are 2400, N, 8, 1. Some models are 9600 baud so also check that. It should give you a string of XML characters every seven seconds or so.
4) This is where the programming starts, I am not a programmer really but managed to work my way around this. I wrote a small VB6 program (I will share my code if you do want, if you don't laugh at it) that when data is received on the comm port it checks that I have the correct string starting with <MSG>. If I have that string then once I have the full string I stop, parse the XML data (currently I just read the Wattage and Temperature), write the data to an INI file saved in the homeseer config folder. I set the data to sample every three minutes and rewrite the INI file.
5) Read the data in to Homeseer using a script that grabs the INI settings on a re-occuring event every 3 minutes. It then updates some virtual device strings I set up, what you want to do from there is up to you. I also calculate estimated total current draw by dividing the Wattage by 230volts. I also generate a four line text file from the script which then sends the information to MRTG (http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg/index.en.html
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