[RE-wrenches] TED MONITORING

[Jason Szumlanski]

We have had serious interference issues with TED installations. One
small office was completely unable to transmit MTU->gateway signals. TED
tech support just blamed it on interference from fluorescent lights and
UPS systems. I would say their tech support leaves a lot to be desired,
although it is easy to get them on the line. I just think the product is
inherently problematic, and there is not much they can do to assist. We
were unable to isolate any circuits that were causing the interference.
The same unit worked perfectly at another location. On a larger home, it
took hours of trial and error to find a suitable gateway location
(especially given that it needs to be close to a LAN connection).

It's really hard to sell a product when you have to tell customers that
it may or may not work in their home/business. And wasting time trying
it, only to fail is time/money spent.

We have been evaluating the Envi as an alternative. It is completely
wireless and can monitor up to 9 circuits with the same base. The web
interface is not as robust, and the MTUs are insanely huge, but it does
have many advantages (and it costs less).

The Google Powermeter is pretty lame. It does not provide the
granularity that we need to make useful analyses. Hopefully they update
and improve the product.

Finally, I am not convinced about the accuracy of any of these devices.
Under normal conditions, the Envi seems to read low, the TED seems to
read high. At very low current, the opposite is true. Each one seems to
have a sweet spot for accuracy. Strangely enough, although instantaneous
readings often do not appear right, our TED test unit matched our meter
over the last two months within the specs of 2% error.

Jason Szumlanski
Fafco Solar
http://fafcosolar.com

-----Original Message-----

Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 12:04:07 -0700
From: i2p <i2p at aol.com>
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Subject: [RE-wrenches] TED MONITORING
Message-ID: <930BBE08.6C44.43D1.A848.110BCBDFFE27 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


I was intrigued by a previous thread on Google Powermeter and the TED
5000 and tried to setup on two system.

In both cases, they did not work. ?I know they were installed correctly
and factory support has me moving wires, getting noise filters, using
different branch circuits, etc. In other word they make it my problem.
Their out is "you have too much noise".

Who else has given the TED a try and what are your results? At this
point no comment on Google Power meter since I have not gotten to that
point in the setup yet. ?My suspicion is the TED is not up to speed
design wise.?

Don Lowerburg
Offline Solar