Can we get a Help / support forums

Somewere where we can ask questions and members can answer

i know i have a few comming

cheer

Hey Marty,

There are some plans for an online help chat coming, however these forums are a great place as we can all help each other. 

Sam.

Hi Any chance of seeing a beginner's forum? This site and products look fascinating but I feel a bit lost. Steve

Hey deve,

Whatcha need help with?

Sam, @samotage

Hi Sam The screenshots on your site look fascinating. Would you need an electrician to set your product up so that I'm able to view power usage similar to what's displayed on your site? Also, although we had our meter changed when we had our solar pv panels installed (in 2010) apparently it's not an AMI (?) meter. United Energy (our local distributer) have told me that we're unable to take part in the trial they're currently running where households can obtain usage data online. Will this affect our ability to use your product? UE have told me that they will replace our meter with an AMI meter sometime in the future (!?) but will need to sort out some internal programming issues first. Ta for you help Steve

Hey Steve,

We can help install all the gear you need, forget about UE... The AMI meter is for them and the retailer.  The is a lot of spin about this new website they are offering, but I can't quite see how couple of day old half hour data is going to help in the hunt right now for those pesky electrons?

SEGmeter installs downstream of the utility meter, inside your switchboard - which means there is nothing the DB can do about it except bill you less!

Sam, @samotage

I've heard the UE portal is pretty good. If you just want to view your usage and real costs these smart meter portals look very promising, and free too since you already have the hardware! I think seg is okay, but it costs too much for what it does, and I can't easily customise it to send data collected to a third party portal :( There is a discussion going on WP - http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cf...

Hey Peter,

Glad you think SEG is Ok ;)

SEG and the UE portal are very different.  One is owned by UE the other is open source hardware, hackable and multi channel - for UE there is only so much that can be done with a 30 minute data feed of you happen to live in the UE distribution area.  You can download your data from SEG and use the full API to get data from SEG - where the data is yours.   Doubt UE will ever allow downloads... They are quite precious about their data,

In terms of pricing, yes right now we are expensive - we build customer hand made high tech electronics in Australia.  It's not outsourced, it's not US, it's Australian made and we are very proud of that.

Anyway, that's enough from me.

Sam, @samotage

Thanks for the reply. Roughly speaking how much would it cost me to get to the point where I can produce shots such as https://smartenergygroups.com/groups/sams_home_... ? (Is it right that I won't need to change anything if my meter is changed by UE?) Steve

Hey Steve,

SEGmeter lives downstream of the utility meter in your switchboard - so there is no impact when the utility company changes their meters.

Also, sent you an email.

Thanks!

Sam, @samotage

Hello everyone

I am a new member here trying to get my new Brultech GEM discovered by the site discovery process.  After a few days I'm still not having any success.  I can telnet into my GEM on port 80 but it still does not show up as a discovered device.  Are there any other ports I need my router to redirect?  What else am I doing wrong?  Thanks in advance for your help and patience!

 

Jason

Hey Jason,

Welcome to SEG!

https://smartenergygroups.com/tools  

is always a good place to start and check out your API trace to see what's hitting SEG.

If you are sending data up, while your site is in Discovery Mode (it times out after a while) then all should be good.

If not, the trace is a good starting place to work out where problems may be.

Sam, @samotage

Hi Sam

Thanks for the quick reply!  That is where I am confused.  I don't know how to send data up from the GEM.  I have configured it as per Brultech's Setup Guide, the GEM is now in client mode on port 80.  When I use the trace tools am I supposed to just hit refresh? 

Thanks,

Jason

Another thing I should add is that I don't have this GEM hooked to the panel yet.  I am just trying to configure the settings first.

Hey Jason,

Your site is online (at least 13 mins ago) which means that it must be hitting SEG.

Perhaps once your GEM is hooked up it will start squirting out data, which will give SEG something to work with.

Also, check out

http://smartenergygroups.com/api

But if your site is onlime, then it's likely something is coming along.

Sam, @samotage

Thanks Sam.  I'll connect it to the panel and see if that does the trick.  I thought the device would at least show up even though it wasn't streaming anything.

Hi Sam,

Still no luck.  I have the GEM connected to the panel and am able to get a few readings from it just by accessing it through my web browser.  Whenever I run any of the api traces it says "nothing_processed".  Is there a howto on configured the GEM to connect to SEG?  The one from Brultech is a little outdated...

 

Thanks

Jason

Hey Jason,

You are nearly there, I just checked your traces and it's sensing your device name, it now needs to send some stream data with the p_1 e_2 etc stream names and all should start to discover.

I don't know how that's done in the GEM world, I'm afraid,  though you may find some joy here:

http://smartenergygroups.com/forums/10-The-Open...

The peeps with Gems are very helpful, and likely be able to get your rolling.

Sam. @samotage

Thanks Sam!  I'll check it out when I get back home tonight!

Hi jasong did you happen to checkout the forum on this site  called

 The Open Grid → Brultech GreenEye Monitor - Software set up guide

 

It's all in the data format setting in the greeneye

Step 7) UseGEM Setup to configure to point at your site

7.1) Click HTTP Packets

7.2) Click Smart Energy Groups

7.3) enter your site key (from step 5)

7.4) enter your device name (from step 2)

7.5) hit save

Hi Tnakelsk

Thanks for the info.  I did read that guide and I configured my GEM using those settings.  When I go into debug, the packets being sent look like the same format I am seeing in some of the examples. The one caveat being that Ben from Brultech told me to only use the GEM setup for debugging and to do everything else through a web browser.  Through the GEM setup program the changes I make are not saved to the unit.  Here is a sample packet that I grabbed from the debug screen.  I would suspect a connectivity issue except my site on SEG keeps showing as being online.

 

html><br><br><h2>Packet</h2><br><br>(site "my site token" (node nodename? (e_1 5)(p_1 640)(e_2 0)(p_2 0)(e_3 0)(p_3 0)(e_4 0)(p_4 0)(e_5 0)(p_5 0)(e_6 0)(p_6 0)(e_7 0)(p_7 0)(e_8 0)(p_8 1)(e_9 0)(p_9 0)(e_10 0)(p_10 0)(e_11 0)(p_11 0)(e_12 0)(p_12 0)(e_13 0)(p_13 0)(e_14 0)(p_14 0)(e_15 0)(p_15 0)(e_16 0)(p_16 0)(e_17 0)(p_17 0)(e_18 0)(p_18 0)(e_19 0)(p_19 0)(e_20 0)(p_20 0)(e_21 0)(p_21 0)(e_22 0)(p_22 0)(e_23 0)(p_23 0)(e_24 0)(p_24 0)(e_25 0)(p_25 0)(e_26 0)(p_26 0)(e_27 0)(p_27 0)(e_28 0)(p_28 0)(e_29 0)(p_29 0)(e_30 0)(p_30 0)(e_31 0)(p_31 0)(e_32 0)(p_32 0)(voltage 115.5)))
<br><br><a href="3?SPK="><h3>Refresh Packet</h3></a><br><br><a href="3"><h3>Return</h3></a></html>

 

Thanks,

Jason

Hey Jason,

I see you have got a few requests in, a start! Make sure your site is in discovery mode when you are sending them to create your stuff.  If you send the above, SEG will create all streams for you!  (assuming it sends your correct site token and the nodename has a space after it before either your timestamp or the ? to signify SEG to timestamp.

Also, the missing period can be reduced to adjust the time before you are considered "offline".  

...this should all probably be in another thread!

Sam, @samotage.

In case anyone was following,

this continues here:

http://smartenergygroups.com/forums/8-Comments-...

Sam.