Greetings Forumites... need help please. Just had this prepaid meter installed a couple of days ago. We had loadshedding about an hour after installation and now when power came back, this meter now has a flashing message of "Bypass" on it... is this meter insinuating that it's experienced an electricity bypass option meaning that the utility will charge or try to sue me for allegedly bypassing electricity? What causes this message to occur and how can it be removed? I have an 3kW Inverter which has a bypass option where if the inverter has an issue you can bypass the inverter but not utility. Please help.

 

Edited December 7, 20232 yr by Moffat

One problem is that there's so many brands of meters in the field. So it's hard to know what to advise. 

A common fault that arises where I live (Randburg, so City Power) is that the interface unit and the meter have to be paired, then the interface gets plugged into an inverter and that breaks the pairing. The pairing requires a physically unbroken connection between the two. 

Generally the cure is to plug into a socket that is not backed up in anyway. But sometimes the pairing has to be redone by means of entering a sequence of codes on the interface.

But it's manufacturer specific. With mine (Itron) the devices have remained paired, but I sometimes have to plug the interface in in the outbuildings, which are not backed up, if I want it to remain operating long enough to load a token.

So maybe try that first: Plug it into a socket that you know has nothing between it and the meter (OK... except circuit breakers).

12 hours ago, Moffat said:

Greetings Forumites... need help please. Just had this prepaid meter installed a couple of days ago. We had loadshedding about an hour after installation and now when power came back, this meter now has a flashing message of "Bypass" on it... is this meter insinuating that it's experienced an electricity bypass option meaning that the utility will charge or try to sue me for allegedly bypassing electricity? What causes this message to occur and how can it be removed? I have an 3kW Inverter which has a bypass option where if the inverter has an issue you can bypass the inverter but not utility. Please help.

 

"BYPASS" means your meter has been incorrectly installed or you have a neutral/ earth fault on your house wiring. If in this status it will deplete your units very quickly. Action this ammediately and call the meter installer to come and fix it. As i said it is not the meter but a wiring problem.

The idiots at the utility company are saying it's something likely being caused by the inverter wiring so they don't really want to budge. Now wondering what I need to do. Am sure they deliberately did it this way so the meter units can deplete faster.

On the Inhemeter when units are now low, how do I turn off the beeping alarm, anyone know? The utility still hasn’t credited me with my old units from previous meter so buying new token would be a travesty & robbing me, yet they already owe me well over 400units. 

6 minutes ago, Moffat said:

On the Inhemeter when units are now low, how do I turn off the beeping alarm, anyone know? The utility still hasn’t credited me with my old units from previous meter so buying new token would be a travesty & robbing me, yet they already owe me well over 400units. 

Press 016 or 017 then 'Enter' or hash (#) button

Thanks, will try that.