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Power Usage Monitor(s)

We actually have 2 power usage monitors in use now and a third DIY system recently retired. 


The first commercial product has a nice dynamic display of our consumption on the living room mantleplace.  There are a number of variants on the market these days but we are using the Electrisave.


The second monitor, for logging power usage on the server is based on a RFXMeter/RFXPwr unit reporting back to a second RFXCom receiver on the server.  The data logging is handled by heyu which is ahead of Misterhouse in terms of built in support for the RFXCom/RFXMeter extended data formats.


As with the previous DIY logger the data is graphed by MRTG/rrdtool.


DIY - Retired  (Photos)


For logging power usage over time we previously used a DIY solution based on ideas posted on the web by a number of people, notably: Jon00 and Adam Sampson.


The solution here was one wire network based, with an LDR based sensor connected to a one-wire counter - taking elements from both the above contributors.  Adam's sensor circuit was connected to an AAG electronica TAI-8586 double optocoupled counter.  There are suppliers of AAG Kit, i.e. one wire weather station etc. in the UK and a lot of the kit that I use has come from Audon Electronics.


A house move made this project possible due to a) the new house having an electronic meter with a flashing LED and b) the incorporation of some convenient Cat5 infrastructure installation as part of a loft based storage area construction and fit out.


The house server is located in the loft storage area, where all the Cat5 and One Wire infrastructure runs back to.


Power for the LDR circuit is supplied directly by the One Wire link to the server, which for this installation is a DS9490R USB interface.


At the server end data-logging for this setup is handled by a combination of thermd, for the one-wire interface and mrtg/rrdtool for graphing.