How to change the pulse input voltage threshold on your Octopus

Posted on by Anthony Schoofs

Pulses offer a simple way to output the amount of energy that has been measured by a meter (electrical, thermal, gas, water, etc). Pulses are brief bursts of DC (direct current) voltage, with each burst having an abrupt beginning (or rise) and an abrupt ending (or decay), and their output is typically proportional to energy consumed (e.g. 1 pulse = 10kWh).

This posts documents how to change the pulse input voltage threshold on your Wattics Octopus Gateway. The voltage threshold defines the reference value that must be crossed to count a burst of DC voltage as a pulse, as a way to filter out noise and avoid interference. As depicted in the Pulse wiring instructions, the Octopus provides a 24VDC voltage reference to allow pulsed meters to deliver 0-24VDC pulses to any of the Octopus pulse inputs. The Octopus is also configured to count as pulses any voltage transition over a 1.5VDC threshold.

In some occasions, when 3rd party power supplies are used or when a voltage baseline exists, the meter may not deliver clean 0-24V bursts of DC voltage, and may instead deliver bursts of DC voltage from a baseline voltage over the 1.5VDC threshold, e.g. 3-24V bursts. In such a situation, no pulses are counted by the Octopus, and the voltage threshold of the pulse input to which that meter is connected to must be increased to be over the baseline voltage. The following describes the steps to update the voltage threshold for specific pulse inputs of your Octopus device.

 

STEP 1:

Go to the IDOMPROJECT subfolder (or Sys subfolder) and double click on the iDomProject executable file to run the Firmware Updater software.

 

 

STEP 2:

In the top menu, click on Advanced > Driver Builder.


 

STEP 3:

Search for Pulse.


 

STEP 4:

Select STD-GenericEnergyPulseCounter and double click on input in the Members list on the right end side.


 

STEP 5:

Select AnalogInput and click on Edit


 

STEP 6:

Set a new threshold value between 0 and 1023, with 1023 being 24VDC. For instance, a value of 511 would set a threshold at 12VDC.


 

STEP 7:

Click OK twice to save the changes, close the IDomProject application, reload your project in the WatticsTool and deploy the project on the Octopus. The project will be compiled with the new voltage threshold onto the Octopus.
 

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Anthony Schoofs

Chief Technical Officer at Wattics
Anthony drives Wattics' innovation on energy efficiency for industrial and grid environments. Anthony is also behind WSNbuzz.com, a blog covering technology advances within the smart grid and IoT markets, and was listed in 2011 amongst the top 100 IoT thinkers. Anthony was recently awarded the Globe Sustainability Research Award for his contribution to advancing knowledge on sustainability.

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