I’d like to count WH pulses using
Optical sensor + emonBase
I’ve got past the initial setup.
The pulse counting is not behaving as expected.
Does the emonBase RJ45 socket provide power to the Optical Sensor?
I’m testing it with a flashing red LED light (bike light).
The optical sensor is not flashing green in unison
The feed is showing a steady value of 1
Is plugging the Optical sensor into the emonBase the right thing to do?
Does the color of the flashing LED matter?
Hi Tom
If by “emonBase” you mean a Pi with a rfm69pi attached, rather than an emonPi then I’m afraid the one and only RJ45 is an Ethernet port for a network cable and you should under no circumstances connect the optical sensor to that RJ45.
The emonPi has 2 x RJ45 connectors, one at each end, the one alongside the usb ports is an Ethernet port and at the other end is the “additional I/O RJ45” and they are labelled as such.
Do you have any emonTx’s? they also have a usable RJ45.
I cut off the connector, stripped back the wires are screwed them into the emonTH.
It’s a very fiddly job.
The flat head screws with tiny diameter needs a special tool. Getting the wire to hold under the screw took a few attempts.
Is there some general guidance on how to do that I thought of maybe dropping some solder onto the wire to provide a bit more of a slug to screw down…
Tinning the wires is not a good idea. Solder flows under pressure, so the connection will loosen over time. The best solution is a small ‘bootlace’ crimp, e.g.
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/c/connectors/terminals-splices/crimp-bootlace-ferrules/
on the end of the wire. Failing that, you could try soldering to a short length of tinned copper wire, with some heat-shrink sleeving over the joint to provide a bit of mechanical support, then of course the thicker solid wire goes into the terminal block.
(NEVER tin high current wires. A couple of years ago, someone did that with the mains wiring in an energy diverter, and the terminal block eventually melted and nearly caught fire.)
I see you meant emonTH rather than emonBase, I have renamed this thread accordingly. It’s not possible to connect pulse sensor to emonBase.
See here for how to connect pulse sensor to emonTH:
https://wiki.openenergymonitor.org/index.php/EmonTH_V1.5#Pulse_Sensor_Connection
