Wattson’s transmitter batteries need charging, hence zero Watts!
It’s not that I’ve installed my own wind turbine or solar panels, and getting free electricity.
Archive for the ‘electricity’ Category
Wattson’s zero Watts!
Sunday, May 10th, 2009Wattson is well again!
Sunday, April 19th, 2009After a 3.5 days recuperating (powered-off), Wattson has managed to get over his sickness! Not a very elegant solution for such a designer object (an un-bent paperclip stuck with blue-tack underneath – to aid reset, and leaving a few days for the batteries to discharge, so wattson forgets his corrupt configuration, to prevent him from freezeing.
Some interesting observations after leaving Wattson unpluged from the DC charger and computer for a total of 3.5 days. Do not be temepted to re-connect to pc or charger at this time (wattson will still be active and freeze!)
After leaving wattson off for 3.5 days, after a power-on, you know wattson is happy again, because it defaults to Colours Only.
Plug back into DC mains charger, connect back to Holmes, and run a collection, the previous days data is still stored, I had 7 days of data before the freeze, Holmes detects Wattson, the data and time is set to 30.11.1999, and it starts to collect all data, and set the tariffs.
Holmes collecting data from Wattson
Wattson is now happy again.
Holmes collecting data from Wattson
and energy readings will appear again in the side panel.
Npower Sign Online 15 Electricity Tariff
Friday, April 17th, 2009A 5 minute telephone call today to Npower has saved me £350 on my electricity bill in switching from Standard to Sign Online 15 Electricity tariff, which is paperless billing, and you send them a meter reading, rather than the “twonk on stupid street” from Meterplus, which always leave a card because I’m out at work, asking me to do it. Who reads their meters, because they are out reading mine!
I could have saved over £550 on my electricity bill, by switching to Web Online 15, but this tariff offered by Npower, is excluslvely to “new customers” only to Npower, so for me to get this, I’ve got to switch to another provider e.g. EDF or E-ON, and then come back to Npower, then they’ll put me on that tariff. Now there’s an idea, maybe I leave and not comeback, as Npower Customer Service doesn’t rank very highly according to the Which? surveys!
Oh, I know my exact electricity usage because Wattson records it, and has been for the last 510 days, so whether it’s per second, minute, day, hour, week, month and year, I have the data!
Ghosts in the machine!
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009ah, the reason no data is being shown is my wattson has crashed and hung. It will be a few days, until it gets over it’s illnes! It has done this before in the last 510 days I’ve been logging data. I don’t know what’s going on here, my TiVo crashed again, my phone reset and crashed, I’m still trying to get my PC working, and Wattson’s poorly!
Ghosts in the machine!
No data from Wattson!
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009let me give wattson a kick! there’s no data displayed!
Example Electricity Energy Usage Graphs
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009Here are some examples of the custom graphs which can be generated with Powometer Software connected to Wattson manufactured by DIY Kyoto
click the thumbnails to zoom the image
Real-Time Energy Usage on Twitter
Monday, March 30th, 2009I blogged about my gadget Wattson,[here] if you missed it.
Well with some super software from Crispin called Powometer over at myenergyusage.org, I can now link my Wattson to the Internet and update twitter on my energy usage!
UPDATE 2nd April 2009 Crispin has done some work that now allows me to show you all LIVE power usage in watts!
Demonstration of Wattson
Monday, October 29th, 2007
Polar Bear Killer!
Saturday, October 27th, 2007
20.7kW (realtime reading of electricity being consumed at 1.30am 27/10/07)
Maybe I need to change the subject title, doesn’t seem very nice, and what’s this go to do with the House Blog. You’ll probably hear this term more and more, as we all strive for a greener planet and reduce our carbon foot prints! Has the penny dropped yet!
To celebrate my big birthday coming up in November, I’ve purchased myself a present from Better Generation, it’s a Smart Electricity Meter called a Wattson by DIY Kyoto. I’ve already got a few power meters, that I purchased in October 2005, see my review here these record the power being used by an individual appliance, or if you use a four/six-way adaptor, you can measure combined power, I’ve been using these in my fish house for years. But want I wanted was a device that could measure total power consumed after the electricity meter before the consumer unit (fusebox), transmit it remotely to a display in the house, and finally output and record the information to a PC, so I can compare electricity consumption versus temperature in the fish house and outside during the winter and summer months. Also looking at the electricity used by our Economy 7 Storage and Immersion Heaters.
I pre-ordered this unit, at the beginning of October ’07, and it arrived yesterday it’s FANTASTIC!. I’m not going to write a review, because there our lots of fab reviews out there about the product, check Better Generation for one.
It’s a designer gadget with mood lighting that measures electicity consumed and outputs it to a PC.
The Wattson smart electricity meter showing 21,000 Watts (21kW) being used at 1.30am last night, when the storage heaters came on! Average consumption is about 3kW in the house.
Consumer Unit Cupboard
Thursday, October 19th, 2006The consumer unit cupboard in the kitchen hides the following items:-
- Incoming electric armoured cable.
- 100 Amp fuse. (protects the local substation or transformer from my household electrics!)
- Siemens Digital Electricity Meter.
- Horstmann Radio Teleswitch – this switches on “day” and “night” rates on Economy 7.
- Henley bakelite junction box.
- Henley bakelite Earth Leakage Current Breaker. (This actually works, but probably should be in a museum, it also has a patent number on it).
- Wylex six fuse consumer unit (fuse box). I’ve replaced all the wired fuses, with Wylex circuit breakers, handy when I’m completing DIY electrics in the house! No longer need to re-wire fuses with fuse wire.
- Mem four 15 Amp cartridge fuse consumer unit. (fuse box). This supplies four storage heaters on Economy 7.
- Mem single 15 Amp cartridge fuse consumer unit. (fuse box). This supplies one storage heater on Economy 7 – I don’t know which one yet!
- A few connectors, earth straps etc
You are probably asking yourself, why I’m detailing such a boring item, a sparky-friend has offered in the future to replace my consumer unit and wanted to know the details of what’s currently in the cupboard, there’s alot in the cupboard. I’m looking to replace all the consumer units and earth leakage current breaker with a modern Dual/Split bus, RCD/MCB MK unit, space permitting, because I cannot move any of the other items without gettting the supplier to move them! I’m also thinking of having a Generator Transfer panel installed, so I can connect my 3.5kW Petrol generator to the house supply, when the power dies, throw the switch, connect my 3.5kW Petrol generator and I’ve got power for the entire house. Just need to work out the Grounds!
Here are the pictures
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