Hi All

First time post here, I have been reading a lot of the posts with interest as I am starting off on my solar journey.

I have just installed a ET112 just after my mains isolator, running a Raspberry Pi with Venus OS. The ET112 is picked up and reporting usage, however the Voltage is incorrect as well as the Watts and I have no idea why. Can anyone point me in the right direction please ?

My output

 

I was expecting to see something along these lines... (taken from a demo on the Venus)

Ignore Phase 2/3

Any pointers would be awesome, Thank You

 

Aaaah I've seen this before! I thought I fixed this already. (some time passes as /me consults changelogs). Oh okay, I fixed this in October but it is not yet in a mainstream release.

The meter is signalling an error condition, most likely an overflow. For example, if you put more amps through it than it is rated for this will happen (that's where I saw it last time). In your case it seems it's unhappy with the voltage being out of bounds.

It is sending back 2147483648 (which is the maximum signed 32 bit number, or in hex 0x7FFFFFFF), and because the register is in 0.1W units it is divided by 10 and rounded, yielding 214748365.

From the ET112 modbus docs (no, you're not expected to have read this... just for interest 🙂 ).

Can you check if you have the AV0 or AV1 model? The AV1 is for 120V systems, and if I had to make a wild guess this would be it. See here. The ET112 and the EM112 is identical except the ET series has no LCD.

You'd have to swap it for an AV0 if I am correct.

The other possibility is this:

Your voltage is more than 30% lower or 20% higher than the rated 230V.  So higher than 276V or lower than 161V. That seems rather unlikely, but  it is also possible.

Thank you for the explanation, I'll be sure to check that out sometime in the near future.

The unit is ET112-DIN.AV0.1.X.S1.X.01  REL300100000 with a Victron Energy sticker on the box. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, plonkster said:

The other possibility is this:

Your voltage is more than 30% lower or 20% higher than the rated 230V.  So higher than 276V or lower than 161V. That seems rather unlikely, but  it is also possible.

Just stuck a meter across the mains and its reporting 221V.

5 minutes ago, zafari said:

The unit is ET112-DIN.AV0.1.X.S1.X.01  REL300100000 with a Victron Energy sticker on the box. 

OK, that seems like the correct unit. It could be mislabeled? It would be the first time I heard of such a thing but it is a possibility. However you slice it, the meter seems to think the voltage is out of bounds, but if it is 221V then it might be faulty. See if you can get the supplier to test and swap it.

Thanks for your help,  The product code is the same as what is printed on the side of the meter so it is the correct version, it could be a dud.

I'll flash the SD card again as well just to rule out a software issue... as well as contacting the supplier for testing / replacement.

For what its worth, the Venus OS reports this devices firmware as version 4. Not sure where this fits in with other working versions out there.

26 minutes ago, zafari said:

Venus OS reports this devices firmware as version 4

Mine shows Firmware Version 1

36 minutes ago, zafari said:

I'll flash the SD card again as well just to rule out a software issue

I promise you, this bug is too precise to be an SD-card issue. It is not accidentally going to do this because the SD-card is bad 🙂

A bug like that is as likely as upsetting a jug of milk and having it splash out a map of London. Astute readers of the same kind of literature I frequent will spot that as a C.S. Lewis quote 🙂

6 minutes ago, plonkster said:

... milk and having it splash out a map of London ...

Maybe the connection of the wires are not proper or mixed at the Carlo?

For I have seen some very interesting accidental paint splatters, not London, maybe Khayelitsha.😁

9 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Maybe the connection of the wires are not proper or mixed at the Carlo?

Again, too specific a number to be an accident. It is literally expecting London, not "something that could be construed as a city". No way that passes checksums and everything by accident. The meter is sending 0x7FFFFFFF, which the manual says is an overflow error. It doesn't get more direct than that 🙂

(And we had a bug in the meter reading software, we didn't check for this condition, because it happens so very very rarely... so in old versions you actually get the insanely high number, in new ones you will just get an "invalid" reading, it wil show "---" in the gui.

TTT, by the way, you might get a kick out of looking up that quote. It's from some deep theological philosophy, it is essentially a version of the "argument from reason".

10 hours ago, plonkster said:

TTT, by the way, you might get a kick out of looking up that quote. It's from some deep theological philosophy, it is essentially a version of the "argument from reason".

“Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.”

You seriously are deep bro. Very deep. 🙂 

Morning,

I have checked that the wiring is correct as per the diagram and they are securely fastened. At this stage its looking like the ET112 is dodge. 🙃

 

 

1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

You seriously are deep bro. Very deep. 🙂 

LOL. Of course the man was arguing against a very specific form of this affliction, which is more commonly known as naturalism and in its extreme forms as physicalism (all things can be explained by matter/energy and the laws of physics). Just something to keep in mind 🙂

1 minute ago, plonkster said:

... man was arguing against a very specific form of this affliction, which is more commonly known as naturalism and in its extreme forms as physicalism (all things can be explained by matter/energy and the laws of physics) ...

As I said, you seriously are deep bro. Very deep. 😆

While I am waiting for feedback from the supplier regarding returns / testing, I was wondering if it would be worthwhile connecting this thing to a laptop and run the CG UCS software to see if its still sending bad info.

Would this software display all the variables that the meter can report on ?

Hi Zafari, pardon my ignorance (even newer than you ...) but how do you connect the ET112 to the raspberry? And if you wanted to connect 3 ET112's how would I go about that?

OK,  fired up the Carlo Gavazzi Configuration Software on a laptop and noticed the same figures being reported. I have added it below for anyone else that could come across an issue like this one.

Screenshots showing the devices current settings:

Model information, showing the maximum capabilities of the ET112

Device Settings:

Consumption Variables: (attached a CVS with more data)

The exported data in CSV format

ET112-DIN,1,02-04-2019 19-28 - export.csv

Its fun playing around with this stuff... just tired of seeing 214748364 when I close my eyes 😁

 

5 hours ago, BasZ said:

Hi Zafari, pardon my ignorance (even newer than you ...) but how do you connect the ET112 to the raspberry? And if you wanted to connect 3 ET112's how would I go about that?

Hi BasZ

My path went along these lines of instructions:

1. Some reading about the Venus OS and Raspberry Pi Project - https://www.victronenergy.com/live/open_source:ccgx:installing_ccgx_func_on_raspberry_pi

2. The Raspberry Pi Image - https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/raspberrypi

3. Read info about the ET112 - https://www.victronenergy.com/live/energy-meters:et112 , you need a RS485 to USB interface cable

4. Follow the RS485 wiring as per "Option B: Wired connection to CCGX" on the link in no3 above.

This instruction is for a single ET112 (single phase), I cant comment on the request for 3x ET112 

 

50 minutes ago, zafari said:

noticed the same figures being reported

Har har. Their own software also doesn't check for MAXINT16 🙂 That's a little funny. Anyway, this is good. I was wondering how you're going to convince the salesman it is broken. But now you can wire a plug to the meter and take the laptop and show him. Can even test another one on the spot 🙂

OK, so it is not a mislabeled meter then. Then there must be something wrong with its voltage measurement. Might be damaged in shipping even. If a small surface-mount resistor was somehow dislodged for example, that could cause high readings. It's a wild guess, but I don't think I am wrong about the error it is reporting. There really is something wrong with its voltage measurement.

If you had a means to feed it a lower AC voltage that might have been interesting 🙂

11 hours ago, plonkster said:

If you had a means to feed it a lower AC voltage that might have been interesting 🙂

I have a Variac available so will use that and test further.

So, the Variac test made no difference to the figures reported above.

For what its worth, this ET112 will only power on once it reaches 65VAC and will turn off once it reaches as low as 25VAC.

Other than that, this one is a dud.