narg:
@ffimonCan you please share with us the code for transmitting and receiving the data with the "reader".
Can you please share too the schematic or an idea of the schematic how to do an reader.
Sorry have not been back to the forum for a while.
The Circuit I used was very simple on the transmit side it was a simple IR LED fed from the TX Pin through a 3k3 Resistor I don't know the Brand Ive found this picture I got 5 and 5 recievers for £8. Ignore the fact it says its 38Khz, Its baseband. Also if you get the model Pictured Ignore the + 5v its NC its the same pcb used for several components.
For the receiver I used a bpw96 photo-transistor, which works in the visible Red band (as well as the IR band I think). I wired the emitter to ground and the Collector 5V via a 10k variable resistor I think I replaced this with a 10K resistor in the end as 10k worked. I took the signal from the collector into a 74hc04 inverter as the signal was inverted IE when the LED was off the Output was High the output of the Inverter I connected to my receive Pin. From what I have read if you use software serial you can invert the input in the software serial declaration.
As for software I can't find it sorry as I hadn't got anything useful back from the meter I didn't keep the code. The code I rote simply converted the 7 bit characters to 8bit ones with even parity. I then sent the commands to the meter with a short delay between the command and the Acknowledge and echoed the responses back to my laptop. If it turns up on my NAS I Will post it.
In the end I just ended up counting pulses to get my import. I can read my generation using simple IRDA and I used a currrent CC128 with a clamp meter to get my Consumption. The arduino pro mini reads the Generation meter and the import count. It decodes the XML from the ct128 and extracts the Consumpion data and temprature. The data is summed and collated into Minute, Hour and Day Readings and sent to A raspberry PI. I can see for any given minute/hour/day what my consumption/import/export and generation is. The raspberry Pi (Model A) stores the data to its SD Card In a database, I have done some software in VB.Net to run on the Pi which converts the data Into graphs in a JPG format which I hope to send to My Digital photo frame Via bluetooth. I have done some simple graphs using open flash charts in PHP on the pi which I can access from my laptop.
Hopefully all the data will help me to determine whether it would be worth me storing some of the excess consumption from my solar panels and using it for my lighting which now averages 200W now I have LED and low energy Lighting. I get paid for the energy whether I export it or not so I just need to work out how much it will cost me to store the energy and how much storage I need. I should easily be able to charge 2 * 163Ah 12v Batteries everyday that should be enough to provide power for 8 hours of lighting a day and run my NAS, Router and switches total 50w. The best part being It gives me a UPS functionality too, so If the power goes off I will still have Lighting and My Nas drives wont need Rebuilding after a brown/black out.