Current Cost Support Forum

You should have two wires going through the Consumption CT Clamp as Johnlee describes, one Live coming in to the house and also the Live from the inverter. If its giving odd readings try twisting one cable round so it goes through the clamp in reverse.

I started a thread on this very subject on Navitron PV forum here; http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index. ... 794.0.html
There is a rough wiring diagram on the first post, BUT read through the thread as I made an error in the first diagram and after an enforced rethink on about page two I submitted a revised diagram which is correct.

I have both Generation and Consumption from a CurrentCost EnviR, 1x CT Clamp and 1x Optismart sending data via a usb cable and a PC to PVOutput.org here;

http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=2476&sid=1872

Hope this helps

Alan

[quote="johnlee"][quote="solarnewbie"]Please help!

btw, just one thing I forgot, that's messed up a colleage of mine when implementing this - if you use the reversed solar cable loop method, you have to be careful that the clamp will close ok on both cables together. He solved it by buying an old style 19mm clamp. I used a thinner cable than the 5?mm cable used by the solar installers, that fits ok with the other cable into a small clamp but of course the solar cable loop has to be suitable for the current which might be up to 12A for a 4kw system at 250v so it can't be too thin.

HTH John

Sorry to sound dense - I registered just to ask this; I am having a PC system fitted this week and I would very much like to track both sides and pvoutput.org looks great too - but apart from an old OWL at the moment I have nothing;

I like the idea of the inverted loop through a single clamp and I will try to get the fitters to add the loop during install for me, but I notice that the new EnviR product does not work with the large clamp. Is this true or is this just confusion on the web site - I see most things are out of date (Google Power Meter ceased last year for example).

Has anyone got the Ethernet bridge working with anything else (like pvoutput.org - I would love to not run a PC always on anymore) or is it very closed ?

I *think* my current digital supply meter supports the flashing LED standard (I will check at home tonight) and the generation meter will. Can I just use two OptiMosts in this case and will the relevant software out there know how to treat one as import and the other as export / generation ? (generation only, thinking about it).

Excuse the missed terminology, new to all this. Thanks.

Hi there,

I am new to current cost.com and wanted to know why the figures being posted on my graph are so small ?, I am using the Pachube API and Feed Id to post the results to pvoutput.org but for some reason the figures reported are very low, even though the generation meter is showing health generation ??

I'm puzzled any help much appreciated.

Turlock

Hi - Many thanks to both Johnlee and AlanIOW for the prompt and detailed replies - very useful!

I'm having another electrician install the reverse loop, fingers crossed all goes according to plan. Will let you know how it goes.

Thanks again,
Ben.

Hi - quick update.

Had an electrician install the reversed loop on the weekend. Monitoring solar generation and household consumption is now working perfectly.

This is my final post, many thanks to John and Alan for your assistance via this forum, much appreciated.

cheers,
Ben.

I have been told by CC support that any meter that shows a constant lit LED when there is reverse current will give a false reading of a constant 600w.

So using the Optismart on the L+G E110 will give spurious production during nil production periods.

Hi..., Has anyone here tried a currentcost optismart meter reader?

_________________

I'm looking at using 2 Optismart transmitters connected each to a DIN rail kwh meter with pulse output hooked up to measure consumption on the house load and generation on the PV output.

The DIN rail meters have their own LED pulse output in sync with the pulse output - so I can either use the Optismart sensor straight off their LED, have a simple battery, resistor, LED circuit connected to the pulse output and optically connect the Optismart to this or else modify the Optismart transmitter to hook directly to the pulse output of the kwh meter. The pulse output needs a small DC voltage and is normally open - closing at 1000 imp/kwh.

The direct connect option is preferable even if it means some minor mods as positioning the optismart sensors on the faces of 2 plastic DIN meters just behind the panels closing doors on the sub-panel may be too difficult.

Using a proper kwh meter is the only solution for the SMA inverter I have for independant measurement as it doesn't have any LEDs to otherwise monitor. I could use a CT transmitter (may still do as well if I experiment with other systems) - but I want a solution that is accurate at low levels - and also one with a local display so I can see real-time power usage at will. I can check the SMA output with the local LCD display unit (bluetooth connecting Sunny BEAM) - but I don't have anything to easily monitor actual house load. The EnviR display may be suitable - provided it can display comparable results to those from the CT transmitters.