Brultech ECM plugin for Homeseer

[mdiehl]

Just wondering how many besides me will be monitoring power from a Grid-Tied Inverter (Net Metering), and what your experience has been so far?

I've been working with Paul to see if I can get the MicroCTs to work on Ch2 or if I'll end up getting two more 100 amp split CTs to match whats on the main panel.

 

[bpwwer]

Just wondering how many besides me will be monitoring power from a Grid-Tied Inverter (Net Metering), and what your experience has been so far?

I've been working with Paul to see if I can get the MicroCTs to work on Ch2 or if I'll end up getting two more 100 amp split CTs to match whats on the main panel.

I'm doing net metering with a ECM-1220 right now. I have ch2 connected to the output of the inverter using split 60's. I'm going to migrate to a ECM-1240 one of these days and I'll leave the existing CT's in place and add microCT's to other circuits. Once I got all the software working, everything is great. It's been running for over a month now without any glitches. In fact, today we set a new record for the amount of energy generated, 39.5 kWh's and it's still producing a small amount. We just had solar installed in Dec.

 

[crna1]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

 

[tenholde]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

HomeSeer is a very powerful HA server program that can interface to many different products. I would highly recommend it.

They have begun marketing a product called HsTouch that runs on a touchscreen that talks to HomeSeer for its information. You use a utility to design the screen, displaying device status and other information from HomeSeer.

Various HA hardware (switches, temp gauges, sprinkler controllers,etc) are interfaced via software plugins that are written to incorporate the devices data and control into the HomeSeer environment.

I am writing a plugin that I will make available without charge for the ECM-1220 and ECM-1240. The product is finished, but the documentation on the website will not be complete until tomorrow evening. The product will be available at:

http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

 

[crna1]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

HomeSeer is a very powerful HA server program that can interface to many different products. I would highly recommend it.

They have begun marketing a product called HsTouch that runs on a touchscreen that talks to HomeSeer for its information. You use a utility to design the screen, displaying device status and other information from HomeSeer.

Various HA hardware (switches, temp gauges, sprinkler controllers,etc) are interfaced via software plugins that are written to incorporate the devices data and control into the HomeSeer environment.

I am writing a plugin that I will make available without charge for the ECM-1220 and ECM-1240. The product is finished, but the documentation on the website will not be complete until tomorrow evening. The product will be available at:

http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

Yeah, what I don't understand is the touchscreen freestanding, or do I still have to run PC 24/7 (something I'd like to avoid if poss) to keep it going
thanks for all you're doing BTW

 

[tenholde]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

HomeSeer is a very powerful HA server program that can interface to many different products. I would highly recommend it.

They have begun marketing a product called HsTouch that runs on a touchscreen that talks to HomeSeer for its information. You use a utility to design the screen, displaying device status and other information from HomeSeer.

Various HA hardware (switches, temp gauges, sprinkler controllers,etc) are interfaced via software plugins that are written to incorporate the devices data and control into the HomeSeer environment.

I am writing a plugin that I will make available without charge for the ECM-1220 and ECM-1240. The product is finished, but the documentation on the website will not be complete until tomorrow evening. The product will be available at:

http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

Yeah, what I don't understand is the touchscreen freestanding, or do I still have to run PC 24/7 (something I'd like to avoid if poss) to keep it going
thanks for all you're doing BTW

You would run HomeSeer on a computer/server 24/7. The touchscreen communicates with HomeSeer via ethernet for its data.

tenholde

 

[crna1]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

HomeSeer is a very powerful HA server program that can interface to many different products. I would highly recommend it.

They have begun marketing a product called HsTouch that runs on a touchscreen that talks to HomeSeer for its information. You use a utility to design the screen, displaying device status and other information from HomeSeer.

Various HA hardware (switches, temp gauges, sprinkler controllers,etc) are interfaced via software plugins that are written to incorporate the devices data and control into the HomeSeer environment.

I am writing a plugin that I will make available without charge for the ECM-1220 and ECM-1240. The product is finished, but the documentation on the website will not be complete until tomorrow evening. The product will be available at:

http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

Yeah, what I don't understand is the touchscreen freestanding, or do I still have to run PC 24/7 (something I'd like to avoid if poss) to keep it going
thanks for all you're doing BTW

You would run HomeSeer on a computer/server 24/7. The touchscreen communicates with HomeSeer via ethernet for its data.

tenholde

thanks for info

 

[mdiehl]

Just wondering how many besides me will be monitoring power from a Grid-Tied Inverter (Net Metering), and what your experience has been so far?

I've been working with Paul to see if I can get the MicroCTs to work on Ch2 or if I'll end up getting two more 100 amp split CTs to match whats on the main panel.

I'm doing net metering with a ECM-1220 right now. I have ch2 connected to the output of the inverter using split 60's. I'm going to migrate to a ECM-1240 one of these days and I'll leave the existing CT's in place and add microCT's to other circuits. Once I got all the software working, everything is great. It's been running for over a month now without any glitches. In fact, today we set a new record for the amount of energy generated, 39.5 kWh's and it's still producing a small amount. We just had solar installed in Dec.

Good to hear! With Paul's help I got the MicroCTs working on Ch2 yesterday (the input from my Magnetek Inverter), and saw about 7-8 KWHs yesterday (my main array is 6-200watt Sanyo Panels, plus 4 older and smaller panels that provide battery charging for a separate "stand-alone" battery/Inverter system). I finished installation of the main grid-tie system last July (with five panels) and just "filled the hole" with a 6th panel last week. Pending a "lottery win" that's it for now.

 

[crna1]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

HomeSeer is a very powerful HA server program that can interface to many different products. I would highly recommend it.

They have begun marketing a product called HsTouch that runs on a touchscreen that talks to HomeSeer for its information. You use a utility to design the screen, displaying device status and other information from HomeSeer.

Various HA hardware (switches, temp gauges, sprinkler controllers,etc) are interfaced via software plugins that are written to incorporate the devices data and control into the HomeSeer environment.

I am writing a plugin that I will make available without charge for the ECM-1220 and ECM-1240. The product is finished, but the documentation on the website will not be complete until tomorrow evening. The product will be available at:

http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

Yeah, what I don't understand is the touchscreen freestanding, or do I still have to run PC 24/7 (something I'd like to avoid if poss) to keep it going
thanks for all you're doing BTW

You would run HomeSeer on a computer/server 24/7. The touchscreen communicates with HomeSeer via ethernet for its data.

tenholde

thanks for info

I downloaded demo of homeseer pro, looks very cool. is there a way I can install plugi, maybe simulate ecm1240 to see what kind of info I get, what it looks like. Or do you have some screen caps of what end result is?

 

[will40]

Good to hear! With Paul's help I got the MicroCTs working on Ch2 yesterday (the input from my Magnetek Inverter), and saw about 7-8 KWHs yesterday (my main array is 6-200watt Sanyo Panels, plus 4 older and smaller panels that provide battery charging for a separate "stand-alone" battery/Inverter system). I finished installation of the main grid-tie system last July (with five panels) and just "filled the hole" with a 6th panel last week. Pending a "lottery win" that's it for now.

mdiehl - how did you do it? I would like to use micro CT's on my Chan2 as well. A 20 ohm 1% resistor in parallel did not work for me.

Will

 

[WayneW]

Tenholde,

I only have HS 1.7, so I cannot use your HS2 plugin, but I was looking at your server and client software. Nice job on the server config screen! I found the stock Brultech server software pretty easy to crash while configuring so I was trying to get my new ECM-1240 running with your server and your chart software, which I did. But I couldn't get the Firefox Toolbar https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11465 to work with your server. Is it safe to assume that your server puts out a different payload than the stock Brultech server software? Was this a deliberate choice? In my humble leecher opinion, it would be nice if there was a standard payload format so that people could mix and match server & client software. Is the Brultech server output payload publicly documented (I couldn't find it)? I bet there is somebody that wants to use the Firefox toolbar AND HomeSeer.

 

[tenholde]

This may be behind you guys curve, but answer it anyway..

I don't have any home automation, but since HomeSeer seems popular here and I want a 1240, I may fall in line.

I looked at HS website and they have touch screens for sale to monitor this, can I just get the touch screen to connect the ecm1240, or is there more involved?

HomeSeer is a very powerful HA server program that can interface to many different products. I would highly recommend it.

They have begun marketing a product called HsTouch that runs on a touchscreen that talks to HomeSeer for its information. You use a utility to design the screen, displaying device status and other information from HomeSeer.

Various HA hardware (switches, temp gauges, sprinkler controllers,etc) are interfaced via software plugins that are written to incorporate the devices data and control into the HomeSeer environment.

I am writing a plugin that I will make available without charge for the ECM-1220 and ECM-1240. The product is finished, but the documentation on the website will not be complete until tomorrow evening. The product will be available at:

http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

Yeah, what I don't understand is the touchscreen freestanding, or do I still have to run PC 24/7 (something I'd like to avoid if poss) to keep it going
thanks for all you're doing BTW

You would run HomeSeer on a computer/server 24/7. The touchscreen communicates with HomeSeer via ethernet for its data.

tenholde

thanks for info

I downloaded demo of homeseer pro, looks very cool. is there a way I can install plugi, maybe simulate ecm1240 to see what kind of info I get, what it looks like. Or do you have some screen caps of what end result is?

The plugin is complete and can be downloaded for free at: http://www.tenholder.net/tenWare2/tenHsEcm12xx

The web site contains screen shots of the Devices from the HomeSeer Status page and the real time chart. Their are also screen shots of the configuration pages. The website is not 'pretty' but hopefully it successfully documents the product.

Download and install it into your HomeSeer trial to see how it looks. You can also download the server, but without a ECM-12xx it will not broadcast any data to the HS plugin.

Let me know if you have any questions,

tenholde

 

[tenholde]

Tenholde,

I only have HS 1.7, so I cannot use your HS2 plugin, but I was looking at your server and client software. Nice job on the server config screen! I found the stock Brultech server software pretty easy to crash while configuring so I was trying to get my new ECM-1240 running with your server and your chart software, which I did. But I couldn't get the Firefox Toolbar https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11465 to work with your server. Is it safe to assume that your server puts out a different payload than the stock Brultech server software? Was this a deliberate choice? In my humble leecher opinion, it would be nice if there was a standard payload format so that people could mix and match server & client software. Is the Brultech server output payload publicly documented (I couldn't find it)? I bet there is somebody that wants to use the Firefox toolbar AND HomeSeer.

The servers are NOT compatible. While it would be nice if they were, I chose a different approach. After much cosideration, I decided upon a server that pushes (broadcasts) the data one time to any number of listeners instead of multiple listeners establishing sessions with the server and polling for data. This minimizes the network traffic and significantly simplifies the client interface. As in any design, there are tradeoffs of course.

You should think about upgrading to the current release of HomeSeer. More and more plugins are dropping support for 1.7.

My next step is to write the client that will archive the data from the server to an SQL database with daily, monthly, and annual charting capability. I'm comfortable with the selection of both the charting engine and database engine to use, so now it is just about writing code.

The HS plugin will have access to the archival database to chart historical energy consumption.


Let me know if I can answer any further questions.

tenholde

 

[mdiehl]

Good to hear! With Paul's help I got the MicroCTs working on Ch2 yesterday (the input from my Magnetek Inverter), and saw about 7-8 KWHs yesterday (my main array is 6-200watt Sanyo Panels, plus 4 older and smaller panels that provide battery charging for a separate "stand-alone" battery/Inverter system). I finished installation of the main grid-tie system last July (with five panels) and just "filled the hole" with a 6th panel last week. Pending a "lottery win" that's it for now.

mdiehl - how did you do it? I would like to use micro CT's on my Chan2 as well. A 20 ohm 1% resistor in parallel did not work for me.

Will

Will

It took some figuring out, but what I ended up with was connecting the two MicroCTs in Parallel (pair both black and white leads together, but still when you put them on the 240 breaker wires be sure to mount them one "front" facing breaker, one "back" facing breaker.... The resistor then is just placed across the pair and both connected to the common and "dual" Ch2 input. I've connected the White pair CT leads to "dual" and the Black to "common". You can switch the "polarity" on each Channel depending on the way you want the ECM to "count" the Polar Watt Seconds numbers.

Paul helped me figure out the numbers to plug into the channel 2 "Range" and "Type" fields in the config. software. For Ch2 I ended up with a Type number of 169 and Range number of 6. I still have not the foggiest idea of precisely what those numbers mean however....

 

[WayneW]

The servers are NOT compatible. While it would be nice if they were, I chose a different approach. After much cosideration, I decided upon a server that pushes (broadcasts) the data one time to any number of listeners instead of multiple listeners establishing sessions with the server and polling for data. This minimizes the network traffic and significantly simplifies the client interface. As in any design, there are tradeoffs of course.

So the Brultech server doesn't do any broadcasts? So the Brultech server and multiple Firefox browsers running the toolbar will produce a lot of chatter? I like the idea of pushing data also.

Will your server support multiple ECM-1240s on serial ports? Or might this be on your to-do list? I bought the ECM-1240 with only a serial output as I have multiple serial ports available, but I am wondering if I should have gotten a radio equipped unit to make multiple ECM-1240 support easier?