Create feed for meter reading

[g4m3r7ag (Brandon)]

Hello,

I currently have an IotaWatt at a remote site reading the mains so I can submit a monthly meter reading to the utility company as there’s rarely anyone there. When I initially set it up I had to start sending the data to Emon to create the input and then hurry and build the feed so the feed missed the beginning of the data. I know now that I can create the input via the API but I’m not entirely sure how to do that.

With the current feed, I have to take what the meter reading was when I set it up and add it to the number in the Emon feed manually every month. Every few months when someone is there I have them get the current meter reading and subtract the feed from that to get a new base number as the Iota reads a little high it seems.

After a recent power outage the Iota got corrupted and I think I’m going to have to reset it and start over, so I’d like to take this chance to rebuild the input and feed properly, with a way to put in the base meter reading so that it can be modified every few months with a new base reading so I can look at the Emon feed and get the reading to submit to the utility company without manually having to do the math.

I run a local instance of Emon in docker. What would be the best way to create the input for the Iota’s combined mains reading? And the feed with the meters base reading?

In the Iota config for Emon I have

Node: MudRidge
The only input I’m sending currently is
Name: 1
Unit: Watts
main1+main2

In Emon the input is showing
Order: 1
Process: Power to kWh
Arg: Mudridge:1

[g4m3r7ag (Brandon)]

After a lot of reading I was able to create the Inputs via API and setup feeds before sending data from Iotawatt to Emon. I however am still unable to figure out how to create a feed that I am able to add the base meter reading to in order to get the current meter reading.

I tried the below, but discovered that the conversion to kWh was not passing to step 3, so it was adding the base meter reading to the Watts and so it was constantly changing and not accurate

So I tried creating a bogus input that doesn’t receive any data from the Iotawatt, and then adding the kWh feed, then the base meter reading and logging into another feed however adding the base number seems to break the process because the meter feed always returns null

Is there a way to do what I am trying to complete?

[g4m3r7ag (Brandon)]

Anybody?

[Robert.Wall]

I’m not an emonCMS expert - which is why I didn’t respond earlier.

I suggest you try, at step 2, reset to zero.
Then re-import the kWh value from the feed, add the constant offset, and then log to the second (“Meter”) feed.

I’ve no idea whether it will work, but it’s worth a try.

[Edit: It does seem to work for me.]

[g4m3r7ag (Brandon)]

Thank you, that worked beautifully. I had never thought of doing a reset and then + feed which is exactly what I needed to pass the value to the next step