Is there way to keep the power on the Eskom Prepaid Meter when your units are finished so that you can recharge? I have a solar system but I fear it does not matter. Is there a better solution than going to your neighbors house to recharge?

19 minutes ago, fuzex said:

Is there way to keep the power on the Eskom Prepaid Meter when your units are finished so that you can recharge? I have a solar system but I fear it does not matter. Is there a better solution than going to your neighbors house to recharge?

Yes, buy more units. That's the legal way to do it.
Or are you referring to recharge the meter? In which case your setup sounds wrong as the meter should work and be on all the time if all wired up correctly.

Edited June 6, 20231 yr by WannabeSolarSparky

46 minutes ago, fuzex said:

Is there way to keep the power on the Eskom Prepaid Meter when your units are finished so that you can recharge? I have a solar system but I fear it does not matter. Is there a better solution than going to your neighbors house to recharge?

I don't understand how going to the neighbour's house helps in this situation, especially when you have PV.

What I do know is that where I live, which is serviced by City Power, folks run out of units and sometimes and it's a big pain. So the best solution is to recharge before the meter gets down to zero.

43 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Yes, buy more units. That's the legal way to do it.
Or are you referring to recharge the meter? In which case your setup sounds wrong as the meter should work and be on all the time if all wired up correctly.

If you have used a prepaid meter you will know that when the units are depleted the meter turns off. So even if you buy more units theres no way of putting the voucher code in since it is done manually on the meter itself. Not sure what wiring you are referring to. Its a plastic box with a plug on it and must be connected to grid power to operate in order to display your prepaid accounts units.

 

I was wondering if theres perhaps a new smart meter or a wifi solution or something else so that if this happens you don;t have to go to your neighbors house to plug it in just to top up the units.

19 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

I don't understand how going to the neighbour's house helps in this situation, especially when you have PV.

What I do know is that where I live, which is serviced by City Power, folks run out of units and sometimes and it's a big pain. So the best solution is to recharge before the meter gets down to zero.

It must be connected to grid power to operate in order to display your prepaid accounts units. So plugging it into your neighbors house and recharging the units with the voucher code seems to be the only solution besides always keeping it topped up.

have you tried dropping the inverter switch? (let eskom run direct to the home for a few minutes)

apparently you can also connect wirelessly if your meter is close enough to the electrical box that it connects to (sorry i dont know the exact name of it)

46 minutes ago, fuzex said:

It must be connected to grid power to operate in order to display your prepaid accounts units. So plugging it into your neighbors house and recharging the units with the voucher code seems to be the only solution besides always keeping it topped up.

Aha! Thanks for the explantion. 

You have a very strange pre-paid meter !!

My student tenants run out of pre-paid nearly once a month.  🙄   Never a problem recharging the meter when that occures.  Most meters have the keypad and LCD display on the meter-box itself and are obviously hard-wired.  However you get meters where the keypad and LCD is in a hand-held unit that communicates via an RF link , I think 433MHz, to the actual metering device.   I have one of those.  The hand-held unit is battery operated and the battery needs to be replaced on occasion, but I can't remember if I ever have, they seem to run for years.

1 hour ago, Bobster. said:

I don't understand how going to the neighbour's house helps in this situation, especially when you have PV.

What I do know is that where I live, which is serviced by City Power, folks run out of units and sometimes and it's a big pain. So the best solution is to recharge before the meter gets down to zero.

Sounds like some of these newer meters are "crap" designs 😉

New is not always better, my eskom PAYG meter works just fine with my inverter setup and is always on even when I run out of credits. Only thing it cannot do is credit me when i FEEDBACK ever so slightly from time to time when big loads drop.

My prepaid is a remote unit which has to be plugged into an AC outlet.
My Solar system is off grid, meaning I manually switch to Grid on the odd occasion. When I am running off my solar system, which is 99% of the time, then this remote prepaid unit is alive but  only displays the last total units used since it was taken into service and the units left, but it cannot be recharged. 
It has to be on grid power to be able to add the recharge voucher code. 

Edited June 6, 20231 yr by zsde

The keypad needs an unfiltered path to the meter to allow it to communicate over the mains cabling. So if all of your plug points are on the essential circuits of your inverter, you may find it impossible to communicate with the meter.

Note that the keypad should also have a battery in it that will allow it to talk to the meter even if the meter is not allowing AC to pass through it due to depleted units. If the battery in the keypad is flat, perhaps try replacing those cells?

It *might* be possible to replenish your meter by taking your keypad to your less privileged neighbour, so long as they are on the same phase as you. But I would not count on it.

13 hours ago, zsde said:

My prepaid is a remote unit which has to be plugged into an AC outlet.
My Solar system is off grid, meaning I manually switch to Grid on the odd occasion. When I am running off my solar system, which is 99% of the time, then this remote prepaid unit is alive but  only displays the last total units used since it was taken into service and the units left, but it cannot be recharged. 
It has to be on grid power to be able to add the recharge voucher code. 

Is there not an AC outlet on your property that is not backed up? Could you install one? 

My meter (different brand) can load tokens when the unit with the keypad plugged into a backed up socket, but that unit is then prone to random resets. If I take it into the non-backed up outbuildings it works just fine.

15 hours ago, fuzex said:

If you have used a prepaid meter you will know that when the units are depleted the meter turns off. So even if you buy more units theres no way of putting the voucher code in since it is done manually on the meter itself. Not sure what wiring you are referring to. Its a plastic box with a plug on it and must be connected to grid power to operate in order to display your prepaid accounts units.

 

I was wondering if theres perhaps a new smart meter or a wifi solution or something else so that if this happens you don;t have to go to your neighbors house to plug it in just to top up the units.

 

15 hours ago, fuzex said:

It must be connected to grid power to operate in order to display your prepaid accounts units. So plugging it into your neighbors house and recharging the units with the voucher code seems to be the only solution besides always keeping it topped up.

There are typically two components: The meter itself which sits in a tamper proof box, usually on the street, and the UI (user interface) with a keypad, which is plugged into a socket. The meter itself does not turn off when there are no units left.

The UI is powered by 240V, but usually has a 9V battery (as explained by @RoganDawes )which allows the user to enter a code, and transmit that code via PLC to the meter, even when units are depleted.

Your UI probably has a flat battery, or perhaps you tried to load credits when there was load shedding (and the meter was therefore unavailable). Change it, and you should be able to use it.

The "trick" of going to a neighbour addresses yet another but different problem, which is that the PLC (Power Line Communications) are usually quite weak, and subject to interference. If this is the problem, then you should try to plug the UI into a plug point that is closest to the meter, and not use a multi-adapter between the socket and the UI. Also, if you have an inverter, it will interfere with the communications, so choose any plug socket that bypasses the inverter or that is directly wired to the grid. In most inverter installs with prepaid meters, the installer will install a dedicated socket for the UI to plug into.      

Good morning, please can you assist me with my prepaid metre. I have installed solar but am unable to recharge my prepaid meter now. Thanks 

 

Is there a way you can recharge your eskom/city power pre-paid meter offsite? Sometimes my pre-paid meter depletes and there's no one in the house.

On 2025/04/03 at 9:25 AM, Tumi Rasebitse said:

Is there a way you can recharge your eskom/city power pre-paid meter offsite? Sometimes my pre-paid meter depletes and there's no one in the house.

This is bad one. Never heard of a way to do it as the console needs to chat to the main meter and can only chat within the normal distance between the 2 units either by radio or via hard wired connection.

On 2025/04/03 at 9:25 AM, Tumi Rasebitse said:

Is there a way you can recharge your eskom/city power pre-paid meter offsite? Sometimes my pre-paid meter depletes and there's no one in the house.

No. You have to keep an eye on the meter and pre-empty the running out. The meter City Power are currently installing gives a warning when credit is running low, but you will still have some credit at the time the warning light comes on.

Using the banking app on my phone I can buy units and get the token anywhere. And I can send that to any cellphone (SMS, so doesn't have to be a smart phone). So if you have somebody at home you can send the token to their phone and have them punch it in.

Let the meter run down when you're at home and recharge yourself so you know what the confirmation sequence on the meter looks like. This is in case you have to talk the other person through the procedure.