Energy Monitoring

During the last two years I have been slowly adding new devices into my home to allow me to enjoy many comforts. Yet in the same breath provide convenience, safety, and security.

In general terms its called Home Automation (HA).

One of the missing elements in my HA system has been energy management, power control, and energy use. With out knowing where all of the power is going to, and what devices draw down the most power.

At best, its a guessing game for most when dealing with power use, and knowing how much you actually use given a specific task.

In the past I have used various devices which allowed me to measure, capture, and record historical electrical events. This was done using anything as cheap as a point of use Kill A Watt meter, Fluke clamp on meter, Fluke Scope Meter, or various other smaller energy management systems.

All of them have their respective strong points, but none of them could provide me the long term accuracy, flexibility, or wealth of data collection for all of the circuits in my home.

I needed to find a device that would monitor at least 32 electrical channels, pulse devices such as gas / water, and temperature. After much anticipation and waiting a great product has come to market called the GEM (Green Eye Monitor) this company has been producing energy monitors for many years and is also Canadian.

This great Canadian company is called Brultech . . .

NOTE: To see the offerings from this company please follow the link http://brultech.com/

Click to expand...

With this device, I am now able to monitor 32 discreet electrical loads in my home and see real time data as it happens. With the help of a free third party site I am able to push the data from the GEM to this site for historical retrieval of my energy usage.

NOTE: The free data hosting site is called Smart Energy Groups and can be found by going here: http://smartenergygroups.com

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http://www.greeneyemonitor.com

Currently the system is only monitoring 28 live circuits. The eight temperature channels have not been installed yet as I still am waiting for the respective sensors to arrive from China. Once they arrive I will deploy them in various areas, floors, and zones of the home to assist in the HA reactive monitoring status.

The pulsed channels for water and gas will be incorporated once the basics are all in place.

At the end of the day, the end goal is to pump all of the live data to the HA controller. This live data will allow the home to react to temperature, light, and power use.

Given various programs and predetermined values the house will ensure all electrical loads, temperature, and various other security systems are met, and performing as required.

Below are a few screen captures of various loads of my home, along with the stated resolution of such. At the bottom of this thread is a direct link to view the live data for my home.

You will have the ability to click on a few tabs to see the daily, weekly, and monthly energy consumption. Some of the bar graphs will allow you to see the actual energy being consumed as you hover your mouse over the graph / charts.

https://smartenergygroups.com/groups/teken_energy

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This graph is from monitoring the refrigerator which draws 111 watts. As you can see the fridge runs for 20 minutes each cycle, and stays off for aprox 30 minutes in between.



This next graph is showing the defrost cycle of the fridge. As you can see, during this event the power spikes up to 472.33 watts! It appears the fridge goes into this mode every 8-10 hours.

I was not aware this sort of event was present in newer styled fridges, nor aware of the increased power use to complete this task?



This next graph shows 180.13 watts is used each time the central exhaust is turned on to vent the home. In most cases this is done when taking showers etc. I was under the impression that this was all that was being consumed during this event.

I was wrong!

Please see the below graph which illustrates the entire system at work.



What happens in newer homes is that the central exhaust is coupled with the furnace. This allows the home to intake and exchange the entire home with fresh air, while exhausting the dirty air.

Because the furnace is tied into this exhaust system it draws on a whopping 419.40 watts each time the bathroom fan is turned on! I had already placed a 10 minute timer on this circuit to ensure it would never turn on any longer than required.

With the assistance of the HA controller the home can monitor, and adjust the exhaust to the required run time to ensure the preset humidity is always maintained. So, in essence if the home detects that the bathroom is well within the humidity range, it will turn off the exhaust before the 10 minute set interval.



The next graph shows the low level resolution of the GEM. As you can see the energy monitor can measure power levels of 0.27 watts and below.

Having this level of accuracy and low level resolution has allowed me to confirm and know what vampire draws are in use. To then place these devices in a *Just in time use* or to have HA controllers turn them on and off to ensure power targets are met.

I will update this thread as more historical data has been obtained and gathered. My friend Luvit has inspired many GJ members to be aware of their respective power use, and to challenge each and every one of us to be aware of our own energy use.

My home was built, designed, and planned to be very energy efficient from the onset. I knew there would not be a lot of head room to save in some areas. As my monthly electrical bills have been very consistent in the range of $40-80.00 depending upon season(s) and climate.

I average 500 Kwh per month in electricity, which does fluctuate depending upon weather conditions etc.

The end goal for this new Energy Monitoring System is to allow me to record, and recall historical events and to see the trends. The GEM has has already informed me of several defective items in the home.

Case in point, after the initial install one of the garage circuits were showing a rock steady 48 watts? For what ever reason (just lazy) I did not investigate why there was a 48 watt load present. The next day I found out the motion sensor for the Liftmaster garage light was broken! This essentially left the remote light on 24 hours day!

It was quickly disabled and repaired the following week.

Teken . . .

So how many watts does the Brultech device consume?

Another low level graph of one of the counter circuits in the kitchen. I have many point of use surge alarm outlets. They all include a LED and mini siren which alerts the end user of a protection fault.

As you can see these point of use surge protectors draw down a very small amount of power when installed. The GEM can detect this low level power use and that information can be captured at the SEG website.

Having this level of resolution has assisted me in deploying more efficient and power saving devices through out my home.

In one instance I had a 48 port network switch. Unknown to me the rated power consumption was 35% higher than label affixed to the device. This switch was replaced with five smaller and *green* switches which combined together still used less than 80% of the other switch.

This allowed me to have redundant devices for my network, but also provided me energy savings in the long run. After some short diagnostics of the 48 port switch it was found two fans were defective which were causing the device to draw down more power to keep going.

After the fans were replaced along with a few changes in system board it was measured to be well within the stated power consumption use.

Teken . . .

Stuart in MN said:

So how many watts does the Brultech device consume?

Click to expand...

4.7 Watts . . .

Teken . . .

This graph shows the dryer circuit being monitored by the GEM. As you can see there is a continuous 2-3 Watt load present at all times? This dryer when off does not draw any power when not in use.

What you see here is a phase coupler for my HA system. This device couples / connects both service feeds to allow the power line signal to traverse the homes electrical system.

The maker claims the current draw is 2-3 watts and the GEM does support this claim.

The next image you will see is the LG's smart sense dryer technology.



In this screen capture you can see the dryer consumes 2658.60 Watts. What you can't see (because I forget to record the historical event) is that the dryer cycles up and down from 45 Watts to 900 Watts.

The dryer stays in the lower 45-250 Watt range for 80% of the drying cycle. Only when the heat is called upon will it draw down the 2658 Watts. Because it has a sensa dry system if the unit detects the clothes are dry, it will turn off.

It doesn't matter if you set it to 3 hours. If the dryer detects the clothes are indeed dry, it will turn off the system. These are some of the large initial investments I have made to ensure long term savings would be realized. Measuring my fathers very ancient and old dryer his beast stays on the entire cycle and consumes a whopping 4800 watts the entire time.

Teken . . .

Pretty interesting stuff. Too bad I can't even get my wife or kids to turn off the light when they leave a room, much less get interested in really being energy efficient.

Al Bundy said:

Too bad I can't even get my wife or kids to turn off the light when they leave a room, much less get interested in really being energy efficient.

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Ah, but that can be fixed with motion sensing light switches. Whether they like it or not.

What is the cost of the green eye system?

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Holy cow, Teken. I may have missed the answer, but what's all those monitoring devices cost?
I'm running whole house monitoring equipment for $100 and have historic data of consumption of the whole house activity.
I can pin point the devices like the furnace fan, fridge, water heater, coffee maker, etc..

here's a picture of 66% of my shop lights turned-on for about 15minutes..

Highbeam said:

Ah, but that can be fixed with motion sensing light switches. Whether they like it or not.

What is the cost of the green eye system?

Click to expand...

The GEM costs $300.** this is for just the brains of the system. The CT's Current Transformers are separate from the costs.

They are however very reasonably priced for the 40, 80, 200 amp CT's compared to other companies. All in the entire system costs me aprox. $600.**

luvit said:

.
Holy cow, Teken. I may have missed the answer, but what's all those monitoring devices cost?


I'm running whole house monitoring equipment for $100 and have historic data of consumption of the whole house activity.
I can pin point the devices like the furnace fan, fridge, water heater, coffee maker, etc..

here's a picture of 66% of my shop lights turned-on for about 15minutes..

Click to expand...

Hey Luvit,

I don't recall which type of unit you have so I apologize. If its the one's that ******** to the main service meter. Than this meter allows you to capture the combined load from the service feed.

As a user, you would need to be familiar with what loads consume what at the time of use and than make note of it. With the system I have every individual circuit / load is monitored separately.

That ensures I don't have to figure out what some random 999999999 watt load is from etc.

Of course there are circuits which are combined on CB's but with the power and resolution of the GEM I have been able to map out my entire house along with identifying what loads are attached and what they will consume when turned on.

I will try to load up the install process along with the various pictures of the internals of the GEM. My goal is to create a reference link for those to follow for the their initial install.

As some of the configuration elements were a little confusing and frustrating to say the least to push the data to the SEG web site.

Regardless, this is another HA element out of the way and is crossed off from my list of *To Do*

Power management, and load balancing will be the next phase in this long term HA solution. Along with solar generation to obtain a net metered account etc. The end goal is to be net neutral, or to be a home which requires very little resources to operate etc.

Everything is getting more, and more expensive as time goes on. I don't for see things getting any cheaper, or me, making 5% increases each year.

Teken . . .

Now....THAT is pretty cool........

How much did you pay for your CT's? I just bought some for an MCC and the cost was around $140 ea (100a range).

What is not obvious to most is the additional cost of analog inputs...typical TC is a ma output....so you need a data acquisition unit that can handle multiple low level analog inputs....in my world, those inputs are typically $100+ per channel.

BTW Teken....I'll be in your neck of the woods in Oct.....Beer? Join Tatra and I for one? I'm buying.

ddawg16 said:

Now....THAT is pretty cool........

How much did you pay for your CT's? I just bought some for an MCC and the cost was around $140 ea (100a range).

What is not obvious to most is the additional cost of analog inputs...typical TC is a ma output....so you need a data acquisition unit that can handle multiple low level analog inputs....in my world, those inputs are typically $100+ per channel.

BTW Teken....I'll be in your neck of the woods in Oct.....Beer? Join Tatra and I for one? I'm buying.

Click to expand...

The Brultech costs for the CT's are as follows:

Micro 40 CT $4.99, Micro 80 CT $5.56, Split 60 CT $26.80, Split 100 CT $34.00, Split 200 CT $41.40

Keep in mind I received a bundled discount when I purchased my GEM. As Ddawg16 stated correctly the GEM uses mA CT's to capture the data to ensure no line level power source is ever present to the end user.

The GEM has 32 electrical channels, 8 temperature channels, 4 pulse channels to monitor water / gas. Can be configured to communicate via Ethernet, wireless, Xbee, and of course serial connection.

My GEM is configured for a straight tethered connection over Ethernet, and future data will be relayed via Xbee communications.

Below are some of the install portions during the prep and also completion steps:



This is the whole GEM package out of the box.



This is the power supply for the GEM. It consumes 3 watts, and the GEM can also be powered through two other ports with in the device it self. One is through a mini USB port, and another is through the push pin ports which you will see later on.



This device is plugged into a standard electrical outlet. Its purpose is to reference the line voltage from the building / utility to calculate the power being consumed with in the home. As you can see it uses a stereo jack to receive this input source.



This is a huge assz bag of CT's for my project. Some of you may be wondering why there are so many CT's in this parcel? There are some circuits in your home which use a neutral. These circuits will require two CT's to be able to capture both sides of the 240 feed / load.

Depending upon the load it could be the stove, water tank, boiler, etc In my case I needed two Micro 80 CT's to measure my stove. One was for the top convenience outlet which my GF uses for the four man grill, crock pot, etc the other is simply for the stove itself.



This is the Split 200 CT's which measure and monitor the two sides of the electrical feed entering the home through the service panel. I could have combined both CT's to one channel to see a total combined use. But, I opted to have more resolution / granular to be able to see and say *Hey the left side of the panel is using more power today etc*



These are the Micro 80 CT's which are used for the stove, dryer, and any future large load that requires up to 80 amps.



This is what all of you have been waiting for. This is what the GEM looks like from the outside. Just one little grey box which has two LED ports to inform the user of various status states. It is used to inform the end user of data stream *sent* intervals, as well as diagnostics during the firm load process.

My system has already been flashed with the latest firmware and there for has all the fix's in place.



This is the bottom view of the GEM case. Through out the case are knock outs to allow the end user determine the best installation and routing of wires to the device. In my current install my panel board is extremely packed and there for I was not able to take advantage of the rear KO's to feed the wires / comm connections to keep that clean look.



The back of the GEM which would have allowed me to keep my install clean and wire free from the bottom.



This is the magic in the box that allows me to capture, record, and monitor live and historical events about my electrical, temperature, water / gas events.

As you can see the module is not very big. Aprox dimensions are 12 x 6 x 3 it weighs aprox 1-2 lbs?

The PCB is extremely high quality multi layer wafer. The green blocks are the 32 channels you insert the CT's into. The majority of the left side is dedicated to the 32 channels. The remainder are used for various other functions such as the temperature / pulse channels. Also for any future expansion of the GEM device.

This is very cool. Would love to see more as time passes. I just use a single device to monitor and log my mini split system (or I can monitor 2 110 circuits). It's a little spendy for the GEM, but I can imagine a lot of that could be saved over a few years in reduced consumption.

This is just the cover of the GEM. It has two plastic dowels to allow the LEDs to be visible from the outside.



The red PCB above is the Ethernet card. I opted to use a hard wired solution to ensure 100% data transmission and avoid any connectivity issues, or RF interference from microwaves etc.

In the future I will be purchasing the wireless card to ensure I have more flexibility to connect to the other two networks in my home.



Above is the very small Xbee wireless card. This little card will allow me to transmit captured live / historic events to my HA system. Right now it is still in the planning stages as I have several other projects on the go and resources are not available to get this going at the very moment.



Close up shot of the GEM board. On the right hand side you will see two black connectors along with a micro USB port. These ports are used to power and obtain line voltage reference readings from the home.



This picture was taken to show what this transformer consumed. I used this in a pinch to take the picture just for illustration purposes only. The same power consumption was measured by the Kill A Watts, GEM, Fluke Scope, and this blue planet point of use power monitor.



This is for the power supply for the GEM module. As stated to the other GJ member this GEM module consumes 4.7 watts. It does however consume over all 5 watts when in full production use. I do expect the power to increase a little bit when the Xbee module and the wireless module is installed.

At the end of the day its not consuming 100 watts to do a simple task, or negate the whole point of saving power!



This is the warning label from the main service panel. Indicating the supply cables are live at all times. Its one of those things that really don't settle in your noggin until you're the one sticking your grubby hands in the panel!

Our friends like Norcal / Aceman who do this for a living just accept it and do their jobs with out getting too skittish. But, know and respect what can happen if one was to forget.



This is the top of the service panel with the two service feeds coming into the home from the POCO's outside meter base. For what ever reason I was NOT expecting to see any bare metal at the lugs for the two sides of the feed.

Because even though the Split 200 CT's have clamp on jaws to go around the wire. They did not open quite as far as I would have liked. They also had a very stiff closing / locking mechanism which did not allow a one hand operator to close them in one snap.

It goes with out saying I was pretty focused during the clamping event. I was just getting over a head cold and literally just woke up to do this install. In hind sight that was epically stupid on my part and should have waited until I was a lot better, before committing to this project.

But, most of you can relate: When a new toy arrives, you want to play with it right F'N now!

All joking aside: Safety gloves, boots, eye glass's are in order just in case. Most folks don't even bother, but because I have them from work I did in fact wear all of the above. Also do to the fact the basement was very humid and I was sweating like a MOFO bear do to my cold.



My virgin panel before all of the CT's are installed and placed into the service panel. At this point I am simply running on flash lights as my emergency lighting have not been installed at this location. It is on my *To Do* list as its required for my UL certification for the future.



Once all of the individual CB were turned off. I proceeded to turn off the main breaker. From there I removed the service panel cover and as you can see I after heeding the warning label and dawning on my safety gear I clamped the first 200 amp CT's into place.

The one of the left was a freaking bear to close with one hand. For what ever reason the jaws would not align with the metal teeth in the CT when I was standing there.

It literally took me 7 minutes to get it clamped and locked in place. All the while noting the exposed wire at the bottom of the lug nut. For everyones reference the wires coming out of the CT's are NOT left in this position with in the service panel. They are properly routed and tied off to ensure no movement should it happen.

There is no way for any low signal wire to touch any high voltage circuit within this panel.



This is the temporary routing of the two CT's.



All of the CT's come pre tinned so they can be inserted into the GEM's ports with out prep work. Some of the smaller Micro 40 Ct's require the user to remove a few MM of wire to ensure the correct length is available for insertion. I had to prep 28 channels like this to ensure the required length was met to ensure a tight and secure connection to the GEM ports.



This is the initial massive wiring mess I had on hand for the install. Rest assured all of the respective wires have since been grouped, tied off, and labeled as to what wire is connected to what.

It was a complete gong show to wire in so many wires into such a small hole. But, with a lot of patience and planning it was done with out too much cursing or stompering.



As you can see if an electrical inspector was to come on site. He would have not only cited me, he would have pulled the plug on my power!

As stated this was just the temporary wiring for the GEM. I actually had to do this portion over a 4 hour event. As I was getting really sick and didn't get much sleep due to the fact I couldn't breath, and was also leaking like a siv due to this nasty head cold.

I was fortunate that I was all alone in the home and it didn't inconvenience any of the family members during this install.



After a short break I continued the install: At this point the GEM was simply laying on my service bench and the amount of tangled wires became too much for me so I decided to mount it in its final resting place. This allowed me to get some sort of idea of how to group the wires also. As some of the CB's would be further away then others.

This would affect the over all outside length of the cables. In short, from a visual point of view it would have looked really retarded and messy as some wires would be longer / shorter than the rest.

This would require some wire management to ensure the outside leads were all the same length on the outside of the box, but not so long inside of the box. In the interim I tied them off for safety and neatness. But, did not cut any of them short due to the fact I may move this box else where in the secure room.

For reference: Many owners have used CAT5e cabling to extend the CT's due to need or preference. I did not require this sort of extension, but should note that the proper termination of said wires is paramount.



At this point I have installed the bulk of the CT's for all of the circuits in my home in which I need to monitor. As you can see the tangled mess is being addressed slowly, but rest assured this is NOT how it is now.

I have installed isolated mounting tabs to restrain the wires to ensure no movement or contact can be had.

For reference for others: The micro CT's require the user to remove line voltage wire from the CB. Once removed, you simply insert the CTs into place and reinstall the wire ensuring a tight connection at the CB.



At this point I am getting into my **** stride! What may not be apparent to some of you is that if you look very closely. I have started to *orientate* all of the wires to ensure the white / black is facing all of the same direction.

This is being done to ensure *At a glance* I know all wires are properly orientate for polarity, along with the correct insertion of the wires into the GEM ports.

This is critical as if you insert the CT wires in reverse order your readings will appear as a (-) negative value. It will also affect the addition / subtraction of the *combined* 240 volt loads such as the stove, water tank, etc.



At this point after all of the CT's are in place and some what secure. I have finalized the install by inserting the power supplies, reference supply, and the Ethernet connection. This was done to ensure once I went live the GEM would operate as expected. Any wiring modifications at this point could still be done while the respective panels / access was present.

I am happy to say all of the prep, planning, allowed me to go live that very moment.

This is how the service panel is currently labeled. In my mind it is labeled pretty good given the amount of space on the white tag. But, as most of you're aware when you see the one's indicated (CB 17 & 19) lights and plugs.

Which lights and plugs??

I have since created several spread sheets which indicate first at a basic level what each CB does and controls. Then, there is a more detailed chart which indicates the exact appliance / load attached.

The next chart is a even more granular *At a glance* chart that tells me what each load will consume when turned on. I have done this so I have a baseline as to what these devices consume when operating.

For reference: My father has a very old bar fridge which I have known is about to kick the bucket and is drawing down more than the label indicates it should.

For testing purposes I borrowed this fridge and put it on a dedicated circuit which had no loads. The label from the maker claims a steady power consumption, minus start up power, and any defrost cycles of 100 watts.

It was found, and measured this poor ******* of fridge was truly dying and consuming 327 watts! The compressor and associated parts that make this fridge run was at its end.

I was fortunate enough that our POCO has a program which allows us all to retire these power hogs, and receive a $40.00 credit for removing these power hogs from the system.

For Reference: If you look at the CB 1 it states it powers the panel plug, pull chain lights, and central exhaust. In the very near future all of the alarm, network, and security DVR loads will be using a dedicated circuit.

This will allow me more detail and granular monitoring of these loads. As I have to subtract the combined loads on the fly when looking up certain historic events such as the above stated devices.

The primary reason is also to ensure I have a isolated circuit dedicated for those mission critical systems. I have a lot of sensitive electronics which have to be protected against surges / spikes.

So, having the central exhaust come on 4-8 times a day isn't really being too careful with respect to my gear.



This is the daily energy consumption for this month since I went live. From the left, fourth column is the highest peak use 16.83 Kwh for the blue line which monitors the main right service feed.



This is the same day, displaying the green portion of the bar graph 8.18 Kwh for the main left of the service feed.

What will happen in the near future is that you will see graphs that correlate the temperature and the energy being used. This will help the end user truly understand why one day was more expensive or power was being used so much.

In this case that single day was hotter than hell. I had just purchased a portable Danby 13000 BTU AC unit. It was running for aprox 6 hours that faithful day.



This is the monthly summary along with the carbon foot print my home is using. It also shows if I am above or below previous days, week, or months of energy use.



This is a live energy capture of my home right now. I have my SEG account set up for *At a glance* for some of the big numbers, along with live power feeds.

Right now, the two speedometers at the left & center are showing that my hot water tank has just kicked in. At the very bottom it displays the current costs for this very moment.

In my home I average $1.00 a day for electricity . . . So for a typical month my electrical bill will be $31.** not including the fixed POCO fee's. The typical electrical bill is aprox. $45-80.** depending upon seasons etc and what I am doing at home.

When I was building my queen sized bed the electrical bill was almost double as I was working with the table saw, chop saw, and miter saw for more than 8 hours a day.



Another GJ forum messaged me and ask why there was a small spike in the captured readings for one of the charts I provided for the fridge. This spike you see is each time my teenage daughter sticks her head and opens the fridge door!

It is the bulb in the fridge that is causing the spike, and is being captured live by the GEM. Because the fridge is already cooling and consuming aprox 111 watts, the difference from 166.60 watts is 55 watts. This is what the light bulbs consume every time the door is left open.

It also makes the fridge kick in sooner as the temperature has dropped, causing the fridge to run longer.



This is power consumption of one of my communication closets. This comm closet consumed more than 450 Watts prior. I have since retro fitted 80% of the gear to use SSD (solid state drives) which consume 1/8th of the power, and also provide immediate data retrieval along with increased reliability from a hard drive crash.

I have two 32 Terabyte drives systems, along with various other computer systems which are extreme power hogs. I have since retired some of the computer systems and deployed micro computers which use a simple 5 volt cell phone charger to power them.

Some of them simply run on AA batteries now and have no power draw from the home which is being trickle charge via solar panels. This has allowed me to cut the power down to a more reasonable 76 watts you see in this chart.






Another GJ forum member asked me what a Sycom was? The Sycom is a whole house surge protector which is wired into the service panel. This is considered a *secondary* protection device. Its goal is to protect the entire service panel and its associated devices against a large electrical surge / spike.

I have a primary surge protector installed at the meter base as a first line of defence. The Sycom there for is another level of redundancy in place. Through out the home, there are point of use surge / alarm outlets. In other mission critical areas there are dedicated UPS back up systems in place to ensure a stable and graceful shut down of power.

These UPS vary in size from 500 VA, to 18000 VA to ensure long term and consistent power is available for all systems in the home. Almost 2.5 years ago prior to starting on this whole HA journey my home (area) was struck by a two week long thunder / lightning event.

At the end of the day my first Sycom unit let out the magic smoke and sacrificed itself to protect my entire home. When all was said and done more than 200 plus homes were damaged due to this electrical event.

As strange as it sounds, I have a CT monitoring this lone circuit.

Why?

Because one day I may suffer another electrical event. It is my hope, in a strange way, to record this event(s) and truly know what amount of power was seen during this God for saken event!

As you can see the GEM to date has never recorded one single watt of power being sent to this circuit. I hope to never see it either!

Have you ever applied some economic analysis to your efficiency? We both know the biggest draws for energy useage are heating/cooling, water heating, clothes drying followed by cooking. Vampire draws ****, yes but lets say you eliminate 13 vampires all the time and each draw 5 watts 24/7, horrible waste. But that is 1095 KW a year. Here in the South that is 51.25 a year or six years to pay for the brain.

Now if I install a water heater timer on my electric water heater and wrap it with insulation for 125.00 and save a meager 15% I save 64.20/year and I can see the time on my DVD player and plug in my phone whenver I want. Not cutting you down friend and I certainly like the idea of another tool but have you looked at it this way?

I've installed TED's in several houses (The energy detective) and folks seem to like it; but it connects to the entire service not individual circuits like the one above.

Toymeister said:

Have you ever applied some economic analysis to your efficiency? We both know the biggest draws for energy useage are heating/cooling, water heating, clothes drying followed by cooking. Vampire draws ****, yes but lets say you eliminate 13 vampires all the time and each draw 5 watts 24/7, horrible waste. But that is 1095 KW a year. Here in the South that is 51.25 a year or six years to pay for the brain.

Now if I install a water heater timer on my electric water heater and wrap it with insulation for 125.00 and save a meager 15% I save 64.20/year and I can see the time on my DVD player and plug in my phone whenver I want. Not cutting you down friend and I certainly like the idea of another tool but have you looked at it this way?

Click to expand...

Absolutely, I have, and did, think long and hard about purchasing this device. But a few things people may have over looked or forgotten about my over all intent.

This has never been about the ROI (return on investment) for me. It is simply another tool for me to integrate into my HA (Home Automation) system. It is by no means required, but does help me and the HA system to obtain real world data to execute programs to ensure a safe and secure home.

Another aspect is that my long term plan is to install a net-zero solar panel array. The end goal is to sell all of the power generated by the solar array back to the POCO. The GEM will allow me to track, record, and publish the net metered power being produced and sold back to the POCO.

It will also keep everyone honest as to what is being really generated and used.

With out the GEM I would have no clue how much I am generating and simply relying on the POCO letting me know at each months billing cycle. Also, as stated above the GEM has already paid for itself in informing me of all of the large loads and items that were not working 100%.

Without the tracking of the GEM I would have never known certain devices were drawing more than indicated by the makers.

Is it an expensive way to find out how you use your electricity?

Sure . . .

Only if a person has the view that those little vampire loads is going to save them big bucks. That is not my intent to be honest, and as stated earlier my home is already very energy efficient so I knew there would not be a lot of gain to be had.

I plan to be in my home until I die, so if I am going to be here forever. I might as well enjoy the tools and toys at my disposal!

At the end of the day your last comment is truth. People will have to determine if spending $600.** for energy monitoring system is well worth their expense and effort.

For me, it was something I saved for over many years. So, its not something I just willy nilly just purchased out of impulse etc. I appreciate the alternate view that you brought as its something everyone needs to consider.

Teken . . .

cowboyjosh said:

I've installed TED's in several houses (The energy detective) and folks seem to like it; but it connects to the entire service not individual circuits like the one above.

Click to expand...

The TED 5000 was one of the very first devices I considered. As you clearly indicated it can only provide you the total power consumed by the entire service feed.

I needed something with more flexibility and capabilities such as temperature, water, and gas monitoring. The other reason I did not go with the TED is that it also uses powerline communications.

Which would have degraded my HA system as it too uses powerline communications to send and receive its data packs. I needed a energy monitoring solution that could also grow and have global support as the GEM will have.

Teken . . .

OK...Question. Where or how did you purchase that unit? Their site is...welll.. Horrible...Or maybe I just missed it....

gatchel said:

OK...Question. Where or how did you purchase that unit? Their site is...welll.. Horrible...Or maybe I just missed it....

Click to expand...

The unit is NOT listed as its still considered pre-launch. But many Brultech users have purchased it directly by engaging sales: [email protected]

Once you have contacted them, inform them of how many and the type of CT's you will require for your install. They will then quote you a package price for the entire kit.

Teken . . .

The other day I received my fist eight 1 wire thermo sensors from China. These are DS18B20 Waterproof Digital Thermal Probe which are one meter long. Here is the first photo of the entire sensor cabling.

I was able to find a EBAY seller who sold them for a very reasonable $4.94 each, along with free shipping world wide.




Here is a close up of some of the sensors per-labeled with their associated tag numbers, getting ready to be installed an deployed in my home.

As standard issue I am using the tried and true IDEAL wire marker kit. The kit contains 450 wire markets with A-Z, 0-9, +/- etc. The IDEAL part number is 44-101 & 44-102 respectfully should you require them.

I have used these wire markers for ages simply because they work. The nylon cloth tape is super sticky, and never unravels. The alpha numeric ink they use takes a lot of beating before you could ever wear them off.






The seller states these sensors are completely water proof and are fully encapsulated for diverse installs and environments. The stainless steel tips are machined extremely well and have a nice weight to them.




BELOW: To enroll the 1 wire sensor to the GEM the user will launch the Green Eye Monitor Setup 1.7 Java application. Which is indicated below, from there you will select the Temperature tab. Once the window opens, you will select the 1-8 channels you wish to enable.

NOTE: The Green Eye Setup Tool has since been upgraded to v2.8. Please login to the software section at Brultech to obtain the latest release. 3/22/2013

Click to expand...

Once the channel has been selected you will select *enable sensor* the GEM will process this request and in a few seconds you will see the channel you enabled will show a *ON* value on the right side of the terminal. At that point you will select *SET SENSOR* the 1 wire serial number which is assigned to the sensor module will than be displayed.

NOTE: Each 1 wire sensor must be enrolled one at a time, prior to hooking up all sensor(s) to the GEM module plug jacks.

Click to expand...

Below is the temporary hook up of the sensors to the GEM via CAT5e cabling which will be ultimately mounted through out the inside and outside of the home.



One of the problems I am trying to solve is how to wire all of these 1 wire sensors into the GEM. While allowing me to perform maintenance to them should it be required in the future.

I have seen various people use devices as simple as a telephone distribution block, to multi terminal blocks such as these listed below. I have considered using these terminal blocks due to the fact they are small, accessible, and very clean looking when mounted on a service board.

I know lots of people could care less about what a distribution terminal block looks like. But, I believe it is the small details that one puts into an install that makes all of the difference when problems arise and service is required. This will allow me to remove each sensor from the GEM system with out entering the GEM module or having to unravel 16 sensors from one massive bundle.



These are the alternate ones I have considered using. All of these terminal blocks are $4-5.00 with free shipping. If anyone has any suggestions with respect to a better method to combine 8 wires into one slot, while allowing each 1 wire sensor to be removed with out impacting other sensors. I would love to hear the feed back.



Here is some preliminary temperature readings captured by the 1 wire sensor in the GEM and translated into the SEG website.

I have to say I thought I was **** with life. After my Dad told me every day to turn off the light, close the door, get out of the shower it has been 5 minutes already, get more clothes on the heat is off, and so on I decided when I had my own family I would install the brightest lighting system, the coldest A/C system and water heaters that could handle the neighboorhood use.

What is funny I did it and I work in some of the largest facilities in the US and guess what I do for them? Install energy saving projects.

You have shown it can be taken to a level of insanity but good data and details. Do you also extreme coupon?

Familyof8kids said:

I have to say I thought I was **** with life. After my Dad told me every day to turn off the light, close the door, get out of the shower it has been 5 minutes already, get more clothes on the heat is off, and so on I decided when I had my own family I would install the brightest lighting system, the coldest A/C system and water heaters that could handle the neighboorhood use.

What is funny I did it and I work in some of the largest facilities in the US and guess what I do for them? Install energy saving projects.

You have shown it can be taken to a level of insanity but good data and details. Do you also extreme coupon?

Click to expand...

No extreme coupons. Most of the foods we eat is purchased in bulk, or from the local farmers market to support our local economy and also obtain fresh home grown produce.

As it was stated in the very beginning of this thread. There are several goals in mind here, and having the GEM will allow me to accomplish these tasks. I have a very large project under way where knowing the loads are critical to the success of my plans.

The over all end goal is having the ability to see at a glance what your daily, weekly, monthly, energy costs are. Some people care, some don't, I personally do care as its money that I directly can control coming out of my wallet.

The difference between what I am doing opposed to what your father did in the past is that I don't need to tell anyone to turn something on or off. The HA system will do so on my behalf!

The kids love to sit in front of the XBOX, Playstation, etc for days on ends. Its summer time, go out and play and interact with real people. Don't waste your life in front of a computer system!

My HA controller assists me on that part to allow them that play time, but not exceed those limits on school nights etc. This is just another way to manage your electrical use with out all the fuss.

Teken . . .

Bleh.. you talked me into spending $3,000 on Insteon, and now I have a feeling I'm going to need this. Looks very cool.

Teken said:

This is the Split 200 CT's which measure and monitor the two sides of the electrical feed entering the home through the service panel. I could have combined both CT's to one channel to see a total combined use. But, I opted to have more resolution / granular to be able to see and say *Hey the left side of the panel is using more power today etc*

Click to expand...

No on two counts... first, since each leg is split 50/50 between the two sides of the panel, you wouldn't be able to see which side of the panel... you would be able to see balance.

Second, you need two either way to measure consumption as the neutral carries only the imbalance between the two hot legs.

ishiboo said:

Bleh.. you talked me into spending $3,000 on Insteon, and now I have a feeling I'm going to need this. Looks very cool.

Now, look at all the control you have!

No on two counts... first, since each leg is split 50/50 between the two sides of the panel, you wouldn't be able to see which side of the panel... you would be able to see balance.

Second, you need two either way to measure consumption as the neutral carries only the imbalance between the two hot legs.

Click to expand...

Not sure if I follow what you're saying. When in fact I am measuring each leg separately via the GEM.

Hence the use of the two large 200 amp CT's.

The GEM will allow the user to plug both (CT's) into the one channel to either combine, or subtract the voltage / current measured at the CT.

That is fact, which I have proven already by plugging them into the single channel (in the procedure outlined by the maker) to show the combined voltage / current being drawn down from the service legs.

Teken . . .

Teken said:

I directly can control coming out of my wallet.

I don't need to tell anyone to turn something on or off. The HA system will do so on my behalf!

My HA controller assists me on that part to allow them that play time, but not exceed those limits on school nights etc.

Click to expand...

It looks like someone is having control issues?

Do you have Cable, Satelite or rabit ears?

What do you drive to work or other daily?

How do you heat your water?

What is done with the 4 gallons of water in the shower that is hitting the floor while you wait for it to heat up?

Is the rain from your roof hitting the ground?

Are you on city water or well water?

What is foot candles in each room that is used daily?

Do you recycle?

Have a compost?

For god sake people - Tech Geek! That's the only issue here! A bonus from the project is that he knows where his energy (and therefore money, but I bet that's how he justifies it to the wife) consumption goes.

Nice write up Teken, I hope you have it up on other sites where like minded people actually can learn & appreciate it.

You will have a ball when you pull the data from your inverter when you get it.

Outstanding!!!

Thank you for the write up.

I have always wondered if something like this was available for the general consumers/public. Working in a chemical plant I see daily the effort put into energy management. I also saw how expensive that equipment was.

I realize that most of us don't have a need to monitor the whole house. Just monitoring eqipment with heavy amp draw would pay for the monitoring equipment. I don't for a minute, consider this ****. Being a guy in general, I love "gadgets". I think this as being quite a bit more useful than needing the next Iphone.

I'm not in the electrical field, but I can see this being very useful.

I would love to have one for the furnace fan, it would tell you when the filter needs to be changed. Less amp draw means plugged filter. Put one on the freezer, you would be able to see the difference between a full and empty freezer. Those of us with sump pumps would love to have this. You could check from anywhere if the sump is working. ****, i can't tell you the times I went to the basement to see if the damb thing was working. The list could go on.

Having a detached shop that is fed off the home panel would tell me how much I owe for feeding my hobby. Maybe I don't want to know, the wife might make me pay for the power to the shop.

By the way, I noticed you didn't have the screws on the terminal blocks indexed yet, I need you to get right on that.

Thanks again for the write up and pictorial.

Kirk

I am glad there is discussions on the pro's and con's on what I am doing here. Some of you haven't been on the GJ forum very long. So its hard to translate what I am doing in my home right now for many of you.

Perhaps some bullet points will address a few things:

- Built a brand new home almost three years to the day.

- Decided that I would design and build a home that was as energy efficient as I could afford on a Kraft Dinner budget.

- Realized up front that a lot of the long term costs would come in the form of Energy Star appliances and fixtures. All of these areas were addressed up front and I pretty much ate rice and beans for months.

- Always wanted to have a home which was automated on some level. Almost 10-15 years a go this field was reserved for the very rich and famous. This has past, and the average Joe can partake in this Home Automation (HA) scene with out breaking the bank.

- All of this has been planned, staged, and deployed as mile stones. Nothing has been done at a whim or impulse purchased. I have spent the first part of my life as a impulse buyer, and have box's and box's of junk to prove this.

- In the HA industry there are different aspects which many don't pursue or follow. This is more do to the costs, and the complexity to do so. Again, with the advancement in technology and on going competition costs have gone down in all areas.

HA can encompass Lights, HVAC, Window Blinds, Irrigation, Low / High voltage control, Security, and Access control.

- As stated previously, there has not been a moderately priced all in one device which would allow the end user to monitor and react to the energy use of the home / business. The GEM accomplished all of this and more, and also integrates with my HA controller to allow reactive control and awareness.

- Personal: I have never been very good in tracking or following up on small tasks. Having all of these tools such as the GEM, Insteon, ISY, etc etc allows me to record and capture all of the events with out my intervention.

- I have 5-25 year plan: One is to do a combination of a grid tie solar array. It will be designed so I can also add in reserve battery banks to allow short term power during service interruptions.

Part of this is also a 21Kwh NG back up generator to ensure seamless transfer of power for my home and family. All of these systems will require some form of power / energy use monitoring.

- Since I am a Beta tester for the GEM (pre-release) I wanted to place where I could assemble and craft a installation thread of my trials and tribulations, along with the problems I encountered. The end goal was to share that information for those that follow. The GJ forum isn't the most perfect place for something so HA, but I have found that having opposing views and feed back in what I do very beneficial.

I have learned more from the GJ collective than I have from any forum. As such it was a no brainer to create a thread about what I was doing here.

- Some of the up coming posts will be very specific to the GEM and some of it may be hard to follow due to the fact no one here has one. My end goal is to communicate the install, trouble shooting, and how to's in a fashion that makes sense to everyone.

Regardless, I greatly appreciates all of the pro's and con's and the feed back supplied. As they do keep me grounded, and eyes wide open as to

* Are you fucken crazy *

Because I have been asked this a few times in the past.

Maybe just a little . . .

Teken . . . <-- Working on the never ending HA project

Some GJ members have asked me to provide some practical uses of what I am doing. Below are some videos I created to test, prove, and than deploy the HA systems for my home.

There are three links which show the progression of what I have done here.

This first link shows the Flood Stop system being tested and the level of sensitivity it can detect once water is present.


The next link is to show you what accessory indicator devices can be used to inform the end user. In this case it is a simple table lamp.

Currently there is a mini strobe and siren which alerts the home owner upon arrival of a water disaster event.



This link shows the entire system installed and working in a practical manner.


Teken . . .

Can this system be used with out an internedt connection? Many of our rural places only basic internet capabilities.

Also wanted to bump up the thread

koditten said:

Can this system be used with out an internedt connection? Many of our rural places only basic internet capabilities.

Also wanted to bump up the thread

Click to expand...

The GEM does not require an Internet connection for local recording of the electrical values. But, a dedicated computer must be left on to push the data too.

The benefit of having an Internet connection is that it allows you to publish the data to a third party (FREE) web site like SEG. Which you see here that provides all of fancy tracking charts.

The vendor (Brultech) will also be launching a mini linux based server to record and capture the GEM data in the next few months. It will consume no more than 5 watts to complete this task.

I only mention this because some people don't want a power hungry computer running 24/7 so this is another option. If you have a computer running all of the time than its a none issue.

NOTE: To configure the GEM with a personal computer requires a mind numbing process of configuring an ancient and less than intuitive software package, along with making some changes to the new Java Setup 1.7 control panel.

Having tried for almost 2 weeks to get the blasted thing to work. I gave up and pushed to get my data published to the SEG site. The benefits are that I don't have to have ANY computer running.

It is off site and is redundant so no worries about theft or break down. It allows you to share and view the data globally around the world from a computer, phone, tablet.

With a personal solution you will have to make all of the required network changes to allow access, control, and maintain the computer. I hope this provides you more insight about the GEM system.

Let me know if you have anymore Q's and thank you for the bump!

Teken . . .

Nice write up Teken. I only monitor the mains in my place just to see what is going on. I know what is on just by looking at that and can see if something is out of whack from their. Automation is great. I install instrumentation and electrical systems in plants for a living so I can appreciate what you are doing and why. I am toying with the solar idea as I have plenty of room to do a ground array but the next shop addition will have to come first. Keep the updates coming.

This is incredible. You're a MUCH more electronic savvy man than I for sure! Thanks for the detailed write up though, I learned a lot!

Now, how about those beers with John?? You deserve it.

I am still waiting for my Solar Guy to link my inverter to my computer so I know what my system is doing.

buzz4041 said:

Nice write up Teken. I only monitor the mains in my place just to see what is going on. I know what is on just by looking at that and can see if something is out of whack from their. Automation is great. I install instrumentation and electrical systems in plants for a living so I can appreciate what you are doing and why. I am toying with the solar idea as I have plenty of room to do a ground array but the next shop addition will have to come first. Keep the updates coming.

Click to expand...

Exactly! Even with a limited energy capture tool the end user such as yourself is *NOW* fully aware of any loads, and what they consume. As indicated before, way back up on post *** the GEM informed me of several faulty devices.

That allowed me to make decisions on what to do, and how best to reduce my power consumption. The GEM, like the TED5000, or any other energy monitor is simply a tool which brings awareness.

e-tek said:

This is incredible. You're a MUCH more electronic savvy man than I for sure! Thanks for the detailed write up though, I learned a lot!

Now, how about those beers with John?? You deserve it.

Click to expand...

Glad you enjoyed the write up. John and I have tried at least two times to meet up. Both times I was not in the country and was away on business. Maybe in the future things will work out.

HOTFR8 said:

I am still waiting for my Solar Guy to link my inverter to my computer so I know what my system is doing.

Click to expand...

If and when I am able to deploy my solar array. My goal is simply to record, and confirm the power I am sending back to the POCO. Quite a few of the panels I have are asking for a huge premium just to have remote access and data capture.

This is another expense I am not willing to take on. Please do keep us informed of your progress.

Teken . . .

Teken said:

Glad you enjoyed the write up. John and I have tried at least two times to meet up. Both times I was not in the country and was away on business. Maybe in the future things will work out.

. . .

Click to expand...

I will be there either the end of Sept or some time in Oct......

All the beers are on me....this is a subject I would enjoy chating about...

So almost ten days a go I received the terminal blocks from China. I have to tell you the build quality and value from this vendor is simply outstanding. For under $5.00 I was able to purchase two sets of these terminal blocks to complete the temperature probe connections to the GEM.

Below is one photo:



This is a close up of the terminal blocks exposed from the clear cover:



For the purpose of scale here is how big they are with a standard spoon:



The goal here of using these terminal blocks was to have some form of method to install 8 remote temperature probes into the 1 GEM terminal PJ block.

All the while having the ability to remove just one single sensor from the GEM with out affecting the others. As the GEM has only one PJ data port to insert these sensors into. As these 1 wire sensors each have a serial number which allows them to be placed on one single addressable channel yet operate separately.

I believe if properly arranged and wired I can achieve this goal.


With the continued support from Brultech (Ben & Paul) they have added a new feature to the GEM. Below is a voltage capture from the GEM of my homes primary lines.

Now I can see the fluctuations and recall them at will with the power of the GEM and SEG website. This is one of the primary reasons I decided to spend the extra money for the GEM. To have a vendor who is able to extend and provide support and feature advancements.

Paul from Brultech made some code changes to allow this data stream to be captured and outputted from the GEM.

This first reading is before any corrections or calibrations to the SEG site. Hence why the reading is a insane 1218 volts AC?




The next image is after receiving the correct calibration factor for the SEG site. Which for those interested is entered as 0.1 into the Calibration portion of the SEG site listed below here:



To make the change to your SEG stream. You will enter the SEG site and select that particular data stream. Once in that stream at the upper left is the Edit button.

You will see in this photo the various correction factors to make the changes you need.

Teken: I may have missed it, but
(1) are you using your ISY in conjunction with the Brultech GEM, and if so are you having it display information on your iphone?
(2) what is the software you are using to display the power consumption? Where can you display it (PC, TV, iphone)?

I am building a similar home to yours in terms of HA, and power conservation. I am also using industrial PLCs to aid in controling HVAC, backup power plant, and rain water collection, filtration and feedback into house toilets, garden irrigation and car wash. I hope to integrate it all into my iphone.

Teken said:

This is another expense I am not willing to take on. Please do keep us informed of your progress.
.

Click to expand...

Still waiting for it to happen. I think he is so busy he may not have had a chance to get to me.