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[dave w]

What is a warranty? 

Are you from X10?   

[JeffreyB]

Is it me, or does there seem to be a concerted effort around here to dismiss these smart meters as a problem?  Jeff has already documented PLC on 132kHz with Echelon meters.  I'm happy others have found noisey UPS's or power supplies, but that's not the rest of us, especially those of us with Echelon meters...  Oh, and before I hear about it, yes I'm fully aware of the scientific method.  

I have already disconnected all x10 transmitting devices.  I have the pzz01 so hopefully that should be blocking "normal" external x10 signals.  This happened after 17 years of no problems and started the day my meter was installed.  While that may be "speculation due to timing of the problem", it's good enough for me.  I still plan to scope my powerline and see what's going on...

Jeff

[dhouston]

Is it me, or does there seem to be a concerted effort around here to dismiss these smart meters as a problem?

No - I think we are interested in finding whether or not they do cause problems and, if so, exactly how they do it. But, so far, there's no conclusive evidence, only speculation.

I've suspected the Echelon meters were causing problems for about 3 years. However, the problems I've seen were not with X-10 but with inexpensive appliances, two microwaves that had cost less than $100 each and a bargain basement refrigerator in the apartment I moved to in July have gone nuts since Echelon installed the meters in my area but I haven't discovered the cause and have been reluctant to speculate. Even now, I'm only seeing problems with RF control and only in the evenings when my upstairs neighbor is home.

Echelon's meter systems have been in use in Europe for several years with no apparent issues. LonWorks has been around for 20+ years and, as far as I know, coexisted peacefully with X-10. And there has not been a single report of problems on the Smarthome Insteon forum so I don't think a case has been made. Insteon uses 131.5kHz so the 132kHz should really clobber it but, if so, nobody has reported it.

Also, problems are being reported with several other smart meter systems. If they are, indeed, causing problems I would expect some there's some common feature that all use but, again, there's no evidence of widespread commonality  with the exception of ZigBee and the DC pulses intended for third party displays/load-shedders. And, I have yet to see enough documentation of the specs to point to anything for certain although the DC pulses remain my favorite. They might explain why X-10 and UPB are affected but Insteon is not.

[Noam]

What is a warranty?  I buy most of my gadgets at the K6TRW ham swap meet in Redondo Beach, previously owned, no warranty.  If I can't fix it myself, I don't buy it to begin with.  That ACP UPS with a new battery cost me $40.00.  It's not defective, it's just noisy by design.  I bought 2 of them at that price and both have the same noise.  Switch mode power supplies at light load are always a problem.  My passive coupler helped but with all circuit breakers closed the X10 signal on the opposite phase is still marginal at 1.5 volts according to the XTBM.  So I will be ordering an XTB-IIR Kit to replace my failed XPCR.

Don

That's why I put the winking smiley at the end of my comment. I figured that the devices you were modifying were either well past their warranty phase, or you didn't care about the warranty.
I sure wish I knew a fraction of what you guys know about this stuff. My dad is an EE, and has always been a tinkerer (HAM license at age 12, fixing cars at age 16, etc), but only some of that rubbed off on me. I still need his help for just about any electronics projects. Maybe it isn't too late for me to learn some of this stuff?

[dave w]

This happened after 17 years of no problems and started the day my meter was installed.  While that may be "speculation due to timing of the problem", it's good enough for me.  I still plan to scope my powerline and see what's going on...

Smart Meters are not in our area yet, but we are with Duke Energy, so it can't be long. The trouble is, what do you do if a SM does wipe all X10 PLC? Since it is all contained in the homes wiring the FCC probably does't care. Duke doesn't care. etc.

And I wonder if a PZZ01 would actually solve. It's atteuation isn't that great.

Sigh....

[Backward Engineering]

I sure wish I knew a fraction of what you guys know about this stuff. My dad is an EE, and has always been a tinkerer (HAM license at age 12, fixing cars at age 16, etc), but only some of that rubbed off on me. I still need his help for just about any electronics projects. Maybe it isn't too late for me to learn some of this stuff?

I don't think it's ever too late now that we have the power of the internet.  It sounds like your dad may have started without the internet.  At 70, I'm still learning from the internet daily.  Like, I just learned about reading those winking smiley things in a post.

Old Fart 

[JeffVolp]

Smart Meters are not in our area yet, but we are with Duke Energy, so it can't be long. The trouble is, what do you do if a SM does wipe all X10 PLC? Since it is all contained in the homes wiring the FCC probably doesn't care. Duke doesn't care. etc.

And I wonder if a PZZ01 would actually solve. It's attenuation isn't that great.

I hope the XTB-ANR will be the solution.  If not, I'll develop the Active Noise Eliminator, which should totally kill any noise that is not X10 (and possibly Insteon) at the distribution panel.  That is a possible project for next summer.

One of my customers a year ago reported a serious problem after his utility company installed a smart meter.  He installed the PZZ01.  As I recall, it helped, but didn't solve all the problems.  We tried pretty much everything, but he eventually threw in the towel entirely on X10.  That is why I started working on ways to deal with powerline noise problems..

Jeff

[Noam]

I sure wish I knew a fraction of what you guys know about this stuff. My dad is an EE, and has always been a tinkerer (HAM license at age 12, fixing cars at age 16, etc), but only some of that rubbed off on me. I still need his help for just about any electronics projects. Maybe it isn't too late for me to learn some of this stuff?

I don't think it's ever too late now that we have the power of the internet.  It sounds like your dad may have started without the internet.  At 70, I'm still learning from the internet daily.  Like, I just learned about reading those winking smiley things in a post.

Old Fart 

My dad's about the same age as you, so yes, he started way before Al Gore took credit for inventing the Internet.
I'm in my mid-30's, and I also remember what life was like before the Internet. Our first computer was an Apple ][, onto which my dad and brother added a 300 baud modem (which was faster than any of the BBSes at the time!).

[Backward Engineering]

It stopped raining in LA today, so I decided to go outside and get some real data in the circuit breaker panel.  Armed with my XTBM and a BSR Command Console I proceeded as follows:

Used clip leads to connect the XTBM to each of the phases, one at a time of coarse, right at the main breaker.
Plugged the Command Console into an outlet a few feet away on the other side of the wall.
Connected my passive coupler to the load side of 2 side by side 15 amp lighting breakers (CB1 and CB2).
Turned off or unplugged as many things as I could find in the house.
Arranged two lamps, one on each phase, to be visible with both set to HC J and unit 2.  These are feed from CB1 and CB2.
With only the main CB, CB1 and CB2 closed I observer a noise level of .03 on each of the phases. and around 4 volts of X10 signal on each of the two phases and both lamps were controllable.

As I started closing the remaining breakers, I observed a small reduction in the X10 signal strength that got progressively weaker with the closing of each breaker.  No one circuit made a large change.
When the X10 signal at the main CB got down to around 1.5 volts, the control of the lamps became marginal and sometimes failed to control the lamp on the opposite phase.  By the time all of the breakers were closed the X10 signals were down to 1.68 v and 0.98 v.  The passive filter helped, but was still not enough to make the X10 reliable.

At that point I decided that I needed an XTB-IIR and placed my order.

Don

[Noam]

It stopped raining in LA today, so I decided to go outside and get some real data in the circuit breaker panel. 

Your breaker box is outside? Doesn't that make it hard to keep it watertight?

[dhouston]

I am finding it amazingly difficult to find any detailed technical documentation on the pulses intended for third party energy monitors.

I does look as if they are of 25mS or longer duration with the time between leading edges reflecting the energy used although I also found references to variable width pulses that reflect the energy used.

By and large, the pulses do not seem to be coupled to the powerline, instead being either an IR emitter pulse, a serial output or a pulsed relay. There's even one monitor that affixes to the meter face and counts disc rotations for older analog meters (a DIY version dates back 10+ years and was discussed on comp.home.automation).

However, I did find a reference that says, referring to pulsed relays ...

... some meters have one of the pulse output connectors connected to neutral ...

and that might be the mechanism that affects X-10 and UPB. See the Safety reference in this article...

• http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/79

[Backward Engineering]

WHAT....It never rains in Southern California, but when it does....... the cover is designed to keep rain out.  They use a hinged door that is inserted beneath the upper panel where the meter is located forming a lip seal.  It seems to work.  No pun intended.

Regarding 25 ms pulses superimposed on the power circuit, it would not be possible to impose a single polarity pulse of this duration on the power circuit without saturating transformers on the line.   A pulse of 25 ms would be almost the same as trying to put a direct current component on the alternating current source.  This is why the power companies don't like you to run half wave rectified loads.  With the old analog meters, a rectified half wave component would produce a braking (not breaking) force on the eddy current motor causing errors in the meter.  I don't know what happens with the new smart meters under such conditions, but if a dc component is present, the power transformer will generate a reset current on the other half of the cycle.  Transformers do not transform DC.

Therefore, any superimposed 25 ms pulses would need to be at some carrier frequency or of alternating polarity (AC) and not contain any DC component.

Don

[dhouston]

I don't think the 25mS pulses are on the powerline. Anyway, I wouldn't know how to verify if they are. What I think might be happening is that the relay coil might be putting pulses of much shorter duration (inductive kickback?) on the powerline and spikes are a confirmed problem for X-10 and could be for UPB depending on timing. UPB discharges a capacitor to put a ~40V pulse on the line, the position of which contains their data.

[dhouston]

I found the source of my RF problem and it had nothing to do with the Echelon meter nor the lady upstairs. It was a dead an intermittent RR501 and it seemed to happen only in the evenings because that's when I usually turn the lights on in my BR.

I have an RR501 and a mini-Timer on that phase and a TM751 on the other phase. The RR501 was working a couple of months ago when I first plugged it in so I never considered it until today when I decided to get to the bottom of it.

I suspect it may have been the cause of the few random ONs which were occurring a couple of weeks back but not since.

PS: Where's the sheepish grin icon?

[Brian H]

I had an RR501 start doing strange things.
The power supply area of the PCB where the zener diode is located.  Was black and the solder had started to look grainy.
I replaced the zener diode with two zeners each half the original voltage. In series and the main filter cap.