Re: [time-nuts] Three Phase Power
I know the older style meters currently in use usually slow down over time (a minuscule amount, but still I guess it adds up).
I do not know if the talk about demand meters and timing were about current meters or the new "smart meters"...
I've seen some new meters (I'm assuming the smart ones) that show the time of day on them. They recently put up a bunch of
directional antennas on power poles and little boxes beneath them. My understanding is that they are creating a kind of private
wi-fi network... Talk about ultimate funny if L2's network jammed theirs... lol. But seriously, I would guess these meters would get
time from the private network. How the display time interacts with the internal timing I do not know.
The power company has published exactly zero documents on these meters that I've been able to find. Just the usual propaganda that
these are good for you and will save you (and them) money!
I worry too that these new meters are just a stepping stone to bill during on and off peak hours...
If things get too far out of hand, we have ~65,000 sqft of rooftop that would be an excellent candidate for solar panels.
The power company has been on full alert too it seems lately. We have a few offices that are empty, but we keep the power on for
maintenance reasons. Well a few months after the tenants moved out, a guy from the power company came to check the meter and such.
They noticed the usage dropped to near zero and they wanted to make sure the meter wasn't broken or they weren't stealing
electricity. Apparently the power company didn't get the memo about the recession and countless small businesses closing up shop.
On a somewhat similar note... I finally put my time servers on a UPS today. Now every time the power flashes they won't get reset!
Last week I found a guy on craigslist selling a couple APC Smart-UPS 750XL's. When I got there he also had FIVE battery packs to go
along with the two UPSes. I got them for a steal (I assumed the batteries would all be bad) and upon bringing them back to the shop
the batteries seemed in rather good condition after doing some testing and checking the date codes. Each UPS has 2 x 18Ah batteries,
and each battery pack has 4 x 18Ah.
Without really setting down and looking at the circuitry on the new meters,
its hard to say what might happen, as I was speculating earlier. The last
PDF I read, was about the circuits they added to stop folks from bypassing
them, or stealing the electricity. I think that it was Analog Devices who
were making the IC's for these, but I may be wrong. There was 2-3 app notes
I read, as I was interested in seeing how they did it.
You are also right, in that they will do away with the meter readers. If I
recall, I read that they use a radio link to send the info back to the
office, or something similar.
Jason,
What will be funny is when all the neighbourhood hoodlums start stealing
all the antenna modules off the poles, or an enterprising teen electronics
whiz kid starts jamming the signal. I can see antenna modules piling up at
scrap yards, sitting beside the aluminum pop cans, as I speak.
My major worry is about the time base they use, and whether we will end up
getting the dirty end of the stick, so to speak. They figure Joe Blow down
on the corner don't know enough about this stuff to question it, but just a
few of us do. Also, as John mentioned, we have ignorant politicians who
will go along with it. Also, like you, I haven't seen much printed about
them, just what I've found. I figure, if we're footing the bill, I want it
as precise as possible, and not in just the amount I use, but over the
amount of time I used it.
I'll leave a parting shot at AEP on this. When I closed up the building I
had the shop in, I went down to our AEP office at the time, and paid off my
bill, the day after I had them to put a boot on the meter, and a new seal
on it. It was read that day. Well, the next month, I get another bill, and
I take it to AEP, and ask what's up, and show them a time stamped photo of
the meter, with the seal and boot still on it. They had the audacity to
tell me, that it still must have been something using the power, and the
meter had been read, but it had never been tampered with. Now, you tell me
what happened? I never paid that bill either. My guess, it all revolved
around the meter reader.
Best,
Will
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 6/27/2011 at 6:17 PM Jason Rabel wrote:
I know the older style meters currently in use usually slow down over time
(a minuscule amount, but still I guess it adds up).
I do not know if the talk about demand meters and timing were about
current meters or the new "smart meters"...
I've seen some new meters (I'm assuming the smart ones) that show the time
of day on them. They recently put up a bunch of
directional antennas on power poles and little boxes beneath them. My
understanding is that they are creating a kind of private
wi-fi network... Talk about ultimate funny if L2's network jammed
theirs... lol. But seriously, I would guess these meters would get
time from the private network. How the display time interacts with the
internal timing I do not know.
The power company has published exactly zero documents on these meters
that I've been able to find. Just the usual propaganda that
these are good for you and will save you (and them) money!
I worry too that these new meters are just a stepping stone to bill during
on and off peak hours...
If things get too far out of hand, we have ~65,000 sqft of rooftop that
would be an excellent candidate for solar panels.
The power company has been on full alert too it seems lately. We have a
few offices that are empty, but we keep the power on for
maintenance reasons. Well a few months after the tenants moved out, a guy
from the power company came to check the meter and such.
They noticed the usage dropped to near zero and they wanted to make sure
the meter wasn't broken or they weren't stealing
electricity. Apparently the power company didn't get the memo about the
recession and countless small businesses closing up shop.
On a somewhat similar note... I finally put my time servers on a UPS
today. Now every time the power flashes they won't get reset!
Last week I found a guy on craigslist selling a couple APC Smart-UPS
750XL's. When I got there he also had FIVE battery packs to go
along with the two UPSes. I got them for a steal (I assumed the batteries
would all be bad) and upon bringing them back to the shop
the batteries seemed in rather good condition after doing some testing and
checking the date codes. Each UPS has 2 x 18Ah batteries,
and each battery pack has 4 x 18Ah.
Without really setting down and looking at the circuitry on the new
meters,
its hard to say what might happen, as I was speculating earlier. The
last
PDF I read, was about the circuits they added to stop folks from
bypassing
them, or stealing the electricity. I think that it was Analog Devices
who
were making the IC's for these, but I may be wrong. There was 2-3 app
notes
I read, as I was interested in seeing how they did it.
You are also right, in that they will do away with the meter readers. If
I
recall, I read that they use a radio link to send the info back to the
office, or something similar.
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On 6/27/2011 6:33 PM, Will Matney wrote:
I'll leave a parting shot at AEP on this. When I closed up the building I
had the shop in, I went down to our AEP office at the time, and paid off my
bill, the day after I had them to put a boot on the meter, and a new seal
on it. It was read that day. Well, the next month, I get another bill, and
I take it to AEP, and ask what's up, and show them a time stamped photo of
the meter, with the seal and boot still on it. They had the audacity to
tell me, that it still must have been something using the power, and the
meter had been read, but it had never been tampered with. Now, you tell me
what happened? I never paid that bill either. My guess, it all revolved
around the meter reader.
Best,
Will
If this was in a building with a landlord showing the unit, it may be
that they never put the power back in their names, trying to be cheap
bastards. Did you go back and read it to see if the meter had any
power on it, or just take their word for it. Once you cut off your
responsibility, it doesnt' matter much what they say, it is going to be
their problem, not yours.
The power company did nothing when I cut off service, and the power was
still on for some days after I vacated, but my bill was last and final,
and I don't know who got the bill for the extras.
Other possibility is that you were being leeched off of all the time you
were in the shop, and when you pulled out all your stuff, the leech was
still hooked up. I'd actually be a bit more curious if this was the
case, as I'd like to get back part of all of my billing for the entire
time I was in the unit.
Jim
Jim,
No, when I bought the property, I rewired the entire building, all the way
to the meter itself, so there was no chance of a leech. Also, I sold the
building to a local concrete mfg., and they didn't have the keys until just
after this happened. Plus, the boot insulates the meter from the connectors
in the base, and it had the same unbroken seal on it, that I watched the
guy place, as the power was disconnected that day.
We think it happened here in our neighborhood too. Things weren't jiving
right with our bills, and several of us starting making our own readings.
We did this over six months, but when confronted, AEP claimed it was due to
estimation, but the so-called reading was different from ours on each bill,
and an estimation is supposed to be no longer than three months, or they
told us. Next, I actually looked into the legality of placing an enclosure
over the meter, with a lid on it, and the the reader would have to lift it
in order to read it. If he had been there, and read the meter, it would
show it by a re-setable LED burning inside the house. Now, you can buy dear
cameras, and if somebody walks in front of the meter, you get a photo of
it, but at the time, they weren't out. What we also found, was that we had
the same meter reader here, that was supposed to do the area just up the
road, where my shop was located.
What several of us think, is that this meter reader, at the time of this,
was out doing who knows what, and was using old meter readings that had
been made, and just writing those down, while never visiting the meters. In
a similar case, they caught a guy here, seeing his sweetheart, while
supposedly reading meters for the water company, and he was fired. AEP,
though, never investigated this, that we know of, and that was around 15
years ago, but we have no problems now, that we know of.
Things like this, make me think, that these smart meters need to be
policed, if we don't want to end up being royaly screwed. Making sure the
timing is correct, on any of the meters, is the same as demanding
calibration for any piece of equipment like scales, etc, and it ought ot be
done more, since money changes hands.
Best,
Will
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 6/27/2011 at 7:04 PM jim s wrote:
On 6/27/2011 6:33 PM, Will Matney wrote:
I'll leave a parting shot at AEP on this. When I closed up the building
I
had the shop in, I went down to our AEP office at the time, and paid off
my
bill, the day after I had them to put a boot on the meter, and a new
seal
on it. It was read that day. Well, the next month, I get another bill,
and
I take it to AEP, and ask what's up, and show them a time stamped photo
of
the meter, with the seal and boot still on it. They had the audacity to
tell me, that it still must have been something using the power, and the
meter had been read, but it had never been tampered with. Now, you tell
me
what happened? I never paid that bill either. My guess, it all revolved
around the meter reader.
Best,
Will
If this was in a building with a landlord showing the unit, it may be
that they never put the power back in their names, trying to be cheap
bastards. Did you go back and read it to see if the meter had any
power on it, or just take their word for it. Once you cut off your
responsibility, it doesnt' matter much what they say, it is going to be
their problem, not yours.
The power company did nothing when I cut off service, and the power was
still on for some days after I vacated, but my bill was last and final,
and I don't know who got the bill for the extras.
Other possibility is that you were being leeched off of all the time you
were in the shop, and when you pulled out all your stuff, the leech was
still hooked up. I'd actually be a bit more curious if this was the
case, as I'd like to get back part of all of my billing for the entire
time I was in the unit.
Jim
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signature database 5851 (20110206) __________
On 06/28/2011 08:16 AM, Will Matney wrote:
Things like this, make me think, that these smart meters need to be
policed, if we don't want to end up being royaly screwed. Making sure the
timing is correct, on any of the meters, is the same as demanding
calibration for any piece of equipment like scales, etc, and it ought ot be
done more, since money changes hands.
Being a former utility engineer and a closet meter nut (anyone else have
a revenue meter calibration bench in his lab? :-), I thought I'd comment
on this.
Federal regulations require that smart meters be manually read once a
year. That will re-sync things if the electronic reportage gets out of
whack.
That solves only one of the many problems with electronic meters. Let's
say lightning hits hard enough to blow the meter apart. With the old
mechanical meters, at least a last reading could be taken from the
mechanical register. With the electronic meter, if the LCD is even
still intact, it's just laying there blank.
A client utility recently rolled out about 80,000 electronic meters with
no pilot program or prior testing. It has been an unmitigated disaster.
Over 10% initial failure rate, probably from infant mortality.
Automatic reading has been spotty at best. The selected system uses a
ZigBee-based mesh network which in a rural setting doesn't work very
well. The utility has has to hire a contractor to handle customer
complaints.
I got a batch of 100 of the old decommissioned mechanical meters. I
wanted to test them to see how accurate they are. Some are over 30
years old. I'm about half way through the batch and have yet to find
one more than about 1.5% out. This is what I expected from past experience.
The electrical Co-Op that serves me did it the smart way. They deployed
the Turtle system. This is a system that retrofits to the mechanical
meter with a photocell to count wheel revolutions. It sends the reading
back over the power line using a modulation scheme that I have yet to be
able to discover. They're pretty tight lipped about that.
From what I hear from talking to the field engineers, this has been a
highly successful roll-out with very few complaints.
John
--
John DeArmond
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
http://www.neon-john.com <-- email from here
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