Home Telemetry

This one looks pretty cool, gives readout to computer including temperature, cheap too...

http://www.powermeterstore.com/p3982/power_cost_monitor.php

Hello SE,

Thanks for the quick and great reply. I did some searching on this company's website, and they have many tools for such measurement.

Kind regards ...

Hey DCaD,

Happy New Year to you and yours!

No, gathering energy use data is not a bad idea.

Try a Google search of PC KWH Logger.

You can also vary your search such as "KWH Data Logger", "KWH Logger", ect.

I looked at a few of these under my search of "PC KWH Logger" and found some units but for home use they were not cheap.

I am sure if you do more than a couple minute search as I did, you may find something for home use that is reasonably priced.

Good Luck.

EDIT - Err, Umm or like the one SolarEagle found - Nice Find!

Hello KJK,

Thanks for the CLUE ... "logger" as a key word. I was drawing a blank ... this helps a lot.

Kind regards ...

First,

Have you checked with the local power company? They may do this for you on a one time basis, free.

I know they did it for me when I ran a large engineering department and was having trouble with power quality that I thought may have been caused by their supply. We were doing active noise cancellation research and needed super clean power.

The simplest device I've seen for the home owner is the Kill a watt. It won't record, but it will tell you all you need to know about an individual appliance (120V, 15 AMP single phase)

P3 International Kill-A-Watt ...$20.28The Home Depot (NOT AN ENDORSEMENT))

Let us know what you end up doing.

Hello Lyn,

Many thanks for the leads ... I will keep you all informed.

Kind regards ...

I came across this company in daily internet activities http://www.jetlun.com/ have no idea where to buy or how much it costs, but it looks related to what you want.

Thanks AP ... some interesting tools and devices here, but so far I am just skimming the surface. Good to know there is such equipment. It will be interesting over the next few weeks to see how far I can take this ... on a budget .

Kind regards ...

Here in California, Pacific Gas and Electric, (PG&E), has "Smart Meters" both gas and electric, they've been installing in both commercial and residential. The meters are set-up to transmit on wifi and you can log in to your account where you can analyze your usage. PG&E has been faced with a lot of opposition over the smart meter, mainly RF radiation. It's funny though, the same people that are worried about RF radiation are the same people that have a cellphone glued to there head while surfing the web on their laptops that's connected thru wifi in their homes

And Happy New Year to you, too!

Try going over to this site:

http://www.frys.com/search?search_type=regular&sqxts=1&query_string=electrical+monitor&cat=0

and check out the various "Watts Up" electricity monitors. There are different models, including some with various amounts of memory which is downloadable to your PC and can be put into Excel.

I also have a Kill-o-Watt monitor but it's biggest drawback is that is doesn't store the data for xfer to a PC. It's more of a 'totalizer' unit, which is fine if that's what one needs.

I know the Power Co. OG&E in OKC.OK might be able to give you alot of info available on it since they just converted everybodys power over to a "Grid".I would look on-line or call them for info.You could start by asking them if they sell the electricity useage home monitors for remote locations.

They said they clamped on a small piece onto the box and it only took about 15 minutes.

DCaD,

I remember having a similar discussion in a thread several years ago. One of the most economical methods suggested used a video camera trained on the rotating disk in the electric meter. This would be totally non-invasive and depending on the frame rate of the camera, quite accurate. You would have to do a little software development to count the notches on the wheel.

Dave

This one is a little higher price but does it all.... http://www.geappliances.com/home-energy-manager/index.htm

Have fun.