Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

Posted on
Tue Aug 06, 2013 3:08 pm
jay (support) offline
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Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

This topic is to discuss the ZBPCM - ZigBee/INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Innovations PowerCost™ Monitor.

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How to use with Indigo

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:04 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

For those using this product, how frequently can you reliably poll the device?

Posted on
Fri Jul 10, 2015 12:39 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

If it is the only INSTEON device you have (thus traffic or collisions aren't an issue), then you could do it every few seconds.

If you have other modules, then I wouldn't do it more often than once a minute.

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Posted on
Thu Jul 30, 2015 3:22 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

I have been playing with one of these interfaces for about 2 weeks.

I have always found the Blue Line Power Cost Monitor to be very accurate. This interface simply makes Real-Time wattage and kWh usage , available on the Blue Line Receiver accessiable to Indigo/Insteon.

The first thing I worked on was a control page so I can have current usage and usage over time, available via my iPhone and iPad. Then some historical data collection and graphing.

So far:

PROS:
The units real-time watts/kW appeared to be accurate and in sync with the Blue Line Display Unit

CONS:
I'm on a second unit. The cumulative kWh is off by a factor of 3.282. (i.e. accumEnergyTotal * 3.282 = actual kWh) Kinda surprising since the Wattage seems correct. Since I have a Smart Meter, it's hard to miss the fact that the kWh is off but after applying the 3.282, it's exact.

Both devices every couple of days loose connectivity to the Blue Line sensor located at the meter. Pressing the reset button on the sensor reestablishes connection. Since it's both units, I would seem to think it's the sensor but surprisingly, the Blue Line Display Unit only one time suffered the same issue. Also the Display Unit does not suffer from inaccurate kWh calculation.

I'm curious if I'm alone with the challenge I described above? I really want this solution to work.

Posted on
Sat Aug 08, 2015 12:49 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

Matt/Jay,

As a heads up, the Smartenit tech support indicated they were going to reach out to you about the issues I’ve mentioned in my previous post. They are not able to duplicate the issues I am experiencing, the kWh being off and the connectivity problem.

With the issue with the kWh being off by a factor of 3.282, they were wondering if Indigo is doing anything to the raw value before displaying it.


I just noticed something and was wondering if either of you has an ideas about this. The “Reset” button in the device details only resets the counter. It does not reset Total Usage.

Aug 8, 2015, 2:34:12 PM
Script current kWh total: 3.8411
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" reset imeter accumulative totals
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 6000 W, 0.0000 kWh)

I also tried this code...same result.

Code: Select all
theDevice = indigo.devices[34336396]
accumEnergyTotal =  indigo.devices[theDevice].states['accumEnergyTotal']
indigo.server.log("current kWh total: " + str(accumEnergyTotal))
indigo.device.resetEnergyAccumTotal(34336396)


The Total Usage counter continues to increment without missing a beat. Both units I'm testing do this.


One other observation:

Aug 8, 2015, 2:33:32 PM
Error failed to read imeter data (calculated crc: ACDF, received crc: AC20)

Is there a way to figure out which ZBPCM is occasionally throwing these errors? I have two (2).
Attachments
ResetButtonZBPCM.png
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Posted on
Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:01 am
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

We've had a few email exchanges about this problem with them, but haven't resolved anything yet. Indigo isn't doing any different calculation on the kWh than it does wit the INSTEON iMeter Solo.

After your reset the data request in the Event Log is showing the kWh as being 0, so I'm confused when you say that it isn't being reset. I noticed your screen shot appears to show it not being reset though. What happens if you press the Update 4 or 5 times after the reset (both in the Event Log and the UI)? Wait a 10 seconds or so between each press.

I'm thinking there is an Indigo bug here, at least in regards to the kWh not being reset correctly.

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Posted on
Mon Aug 10, 2015 6:59 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

Matt,

Interesting. Reading thru the forums, I couldn't find anyone mentioning that they thought the iMeter Solo's kWh calculation was off.

I could live with the kWh reading, since Indigo is capable of doing the math, the connectivity issue right now would prevent me from recommending the ZBPCM as a solution. Again...I want to, since having also used a TED5000, this has the potential of being a far better solution.

The Device Details section initially shows Total Usage of 0.0000 kWh and Last Reset of "0 secs ago" after I attempt a reset. Once the device is polled, the Total Usage continues to increment. I apologize, my screen shot was meant to show that.

Below is a log of me clicking Update then Reset, waiting more than 10 seconds, repeating the steps five times.

The only way I have been able to get the counter to reset is to physically unplug the ZBPCM from the outlet.

Aug 10, 2015, 7:37:41 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1055 W, 12.0645 kWh)
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" reset imeter accumulative totals
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1055 W, 0.0000 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:38:27 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1044 W, 12.0669 kWh)
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" reset imeter accumulative totals
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1040 W, 0.0000 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:39:15 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1053 W, 12.0724 kWh)
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" reset imeter accumulative totals
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1053 W, 0.0000 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:40:11 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1155 W, 12.0754 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:40:26 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" reset imeter accumulative totals
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1155 W, 0.0000 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:41:10 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1053 W, 12.0839 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:41:28 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" reset imeter accumulative totals
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1053 W, 0.0000 kWh)

Aug 10, 2015, 7:43:09 PM
Sent INSTEON "PowerCost Monitor" imeter data request (received: 1073 W, 12.0936 kWh)

Posted on
Wed Aug 12, 2015 2:46 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

Interesting. So immediately after Indigo sends a reset the next poll/read of the status shows it was zero'd out, but another poll/read a few seconds later shows the previous value. Unfortunately, I believe this must be a problem with the module's firmware because Indigo is sending the exact same commands to read out the energy usage in both cases. The other possibility is that the module needs a different reset command than the one Indigo is sending, but I'm not sure why that would be the case (or what Indigo should send).

Regarding the kWh being off by a factor of 3.282. I believe I may have figured that problem out. The module is supposed to be compatible with the commands sent/received by the iMeter Solo module, and that module requires this calculation to determine the kWh returned:

accumKWH = 65535.0 * accumTotal / (1000.0 * 60.0 * 60.0 * 60.0)

However, if I factor out 65535 / (60 * 60 * 60) that the iSoloMeter uses, then that gives me a multiple of 3.295949 which is super close to your reported 3.282 multiple. So it looks like the blue line monitor doesn’t return kWh using the same units as the iMeter Solo (that is, they aren’t 100% compatible). Therefore, for the next version of Indigo I’ll add conditional logic to use this equation but only for the blue line monitor:

accumKWH = accumTotal / 1000.0

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Posted on
Wed Aug 12, 2015 9:23 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

That's great news on identifying the reason for the kWh issue.

Here's another observation, this ones just as odd as my others. I'm polling the two (2) ZBPCMs every minute and then writing lastChanged, curEnergyLevel and accumEnergyTotal for each unit to two seperate CSV files.

originalDevice.csv
08/12/15 06:47:05 PM,1119,7.0793
08/12/15 06:48:06 PM,1126,7.0854
08/12/15 06:49:05 PM,1115,19.5683
08/12/15 06:50:07 PM,1136,7.0975
08/12/15 06:51:05 PM,1125,7.1036
08/12/15 06:52:05 PM,1130,7.1096

20150812 Wednesday, August 12, 2015.csv
08/12/15 06:47:03 PM,1122,19.5501
08/12/15 06:48:03 PM,1126,19.5616
08/12/15 06:49:03 PM,1115,19.5683
08/12/15 06:50:04 PM,1136,19.5743
08/12/15 06:51:02 PM,1125,19.5804
08/12/15 06:52:02 PM,1125,7.1036

Notice the highlighted readings at 6:49p and 6:52p, those values are from the other ZBPCM. :?

The code I'm using is pretty straight forward. I have a schedule running every minute, which calls an Action Group named Write PowerCost Monitor Data. That Action Group executes two separate embedded python scripts, each script writes to a separate CSV file, one for each ZBPCM.

This is code from one of the embedded scripts.

Code: Select all
import time
import datetime

theDevice = indigo.devices[34336396] # "PowerCost Monitor"
curEnergyLevel =  int(indigo.devices[theDevice].states['curEnergyLevel'])
accumEnergyTotal =  indigo.devices[theDevice].states['accumEnergyTotal']

if curEnergyLevel != 0 and accumEnergyTotal != 0:

    lastChanged = str(indigo.devices[theDevice].lastChanged)

    lastChangedDate = datetime.datetime.strptime(lastChanged, '%Y-%m-%d  %H:%M:%S')
    Usage_Date = lastChangedDate.strftime("%m/%d/%y %I:%M:%S %p")

    # Write status to file
    # Define the appropriate directory
    theDir = "/Users/Anyone/Documents/PowerCost Monitor Data/byMinute/"

    # format the file to write
    theFile = theDir + "originalDevice.csv"

    # Format the data to write to file
    # theData = ("%s,%s,%s\n" % (Usage_Date,curEnergyLevel,accumEnergyTotal))

    # Open the ouptput file for appending, write and close
    fo = open(theFile, "a")
    fo.write( ("%s,%s,%s\n" % (Usage_Date,curEnergyLevel,accumEnergyTotal)) );
    fo.close()

I did notice around this time, not exactly at these times, some read errors; 'failed to read imeter data (calculated crc: ####, received crc: ####)'. Nothing else unusual.

Any thoughts on why I'd see a reading for the other ZBPCM?

Posted on
Tue Aug 18, 2015 4:21 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

Indigo 6.1.3 is now available for download and will hopefully report the kWh calculated correctly.

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Posted on
Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:50 am
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

I am pleased to report that Indigo 6.1.3 is reporting the accumulated kWh correctly.

Thanks.

Posted on
Tue Sep 08, 2015 3:23 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

The manufacturer is asking if I could send raw message "02 62 xx xx xx 0F 80 00" to the ZBPCM.

I see how to send the 80 00 from the Execute Raw Insteon Command Menu but what's throwing me is if 02 62 gets sent along with that.

They are suggesting the xx xx xx is the ID of the ZBPCM.

When sending a normal raw message, first byte 0x80, second byte 0x00, I get the same behavior as if I clicked the Reset Button.

Just wanting to ensure I'm testing this for them correctly.

Can ask for a bit of guideance?

Posted on
Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:07 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

You are doing it correctly – the 02 62 xx xx xx is automatically added by Indigo to the raw message that is sent.

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Posted on
Thu Oct 19, 2017 3:40 pm
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Re: Smartenit ZBPCM INSTEON Interface to Blue Line Monitor

For those of you having problems with values being off you may want to ensure that the Kh factor on the ZBPCM is configured correctly.

I am having another problem where values are reported correctly then after a day or two the unit appears to reset itself. It loses connectivity to the BlueLine Sensor as well as resets the Kh value. Has anyone experienced this?

Thanks,

Michael
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