emonTx Range

Hardware emonTx
1

Hi guys, I’m new here.
I want to be able to tell my usage but my circuit breaker is a fair way away from my house.
How far does the rf on the emonTx reach?
Thanks

2

Hi, mine is doing 14 metres, thats in a cement sheet house through 3 walls.

3

Thanks, mine will be about 50m, but not obstructed.
Anyone else?
Cheers

4

But presumably, there is a distribution board in the house? Can you access the cables there?

That’s like asking how long is a piece of string. As @Vicbitter57 infers, plasterboard and stud walls attenuate the signal a little, single brick walls rather more, 2 feet of wet stone is a killer, as is foil-backed insulation. So distance is only one factor, what’s in between is most important too.

If you have 50 m across open land, with nothing in the way, it has to be worth a try. I’ve tested at 30 m with the lower-powered and less sensitive RFM12B radios. We now use RFM69CW which are said to be more sensitive on receiving and can transmit at higher power.

And adding ground planes to both receiver and transmitter will help enormously.

5

Yeah there is a distribution board in the house but I want to monitor the power from my solar panel array which is 50 meters away. It should be a pretty much uninterrupted signal except for a couple of bushes.
Thanks

6

And from that I assume you cannot get to the cables at the house end where they connect in to your supply? Or the common connection at the PV end?

7

No the supply comes in off a pole where there is a meter and is trenched to my house. Thats why the solar array is out there so it can be near the meter

8

I think it’s worth trying the radios, especially if you add a ground plane to each, as I mentioned.