ESPHome “pulse_meter” counting less?

ESPHome
1

Hello!

I have a electricity measuring device that outputs 1000pulses per kWh. I have set up a esp8266 that would count pulses. It is connected to D12. I have it running for a few months but the manual measurement is different from pulse count.

Month: ESPcounter measurement / Data from electricity meter diplay
July: 140.93 kWh / 173.44 kWh
August: 125.69 kWh / 157.94kWh
September: 127.27 kWh / 153.28 kWh

So it seems the ESP somehow counts less pulses but why? How could I correct it?

esphome:
  name: pulsemeter

esp8266:
  board: nodemcu

# Enable logging
logger:

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: "XXXX"

ota:
  password: "YYYY"

wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password

  # Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
  ap:
    ssid: "ZZZZ"
    password: "UUUU"

sensor:
  - platform: pulse_meter
    pin: 12
    unit_of_measurement: 'kW'
    name: 'Electricity Usage'
#    internal_filter: 100ms
    accuracy_decimals: 3
    filters:
      - multiply: 0.06
    total:
      name: "Electricity Total"
      unit_of_measurement: "kWh"
      accuracy_decimals: 3
      filters:
        - multiply: 0.001
2

Assuming that your measuring device outputs 1000 pulses per kWh your code should be correct.
However, looking at your results it looks like there is a reduction of approx. 20 %, and this difference is reasonable constant over these three months:

afbeelding

So how sure are you about the 1000 pulses / kWh?
What kind of power sensor is this? Is it a S0 pulse meter?
One solution could be to modify your filters such that the measured value comes closer to the real value, by multiplying the filter values by 1.23 like this:

sensor:
  - platform: pulse_meter
    pin: 12
    unit_of_measurement: 'kW'
    name: 'Electricity Usage'
#    internal_filter: 100ms
    accuracy_decimals: 3
    filters:
      - multiply: 0.0738
    total:
      name: "Electricity Total"
      unit_of_measurement: "kWh"
      accuracy_decimals: 3
      filters:
        - multiply: 0.00123

Another option to try is enabling the internal_filter setting and set it to 50 or 100 ms, which is recommended for S0 pulse meters.

A third option could be to change the Pulse Meter Sensor into a Pulse Counter Sensor, but I don’t expect this will make a difference in this case. The difference between these two sensors is nicely explained here: ESPHome_Pulse_counter vs pulse_meter.

1 Like
3

It is Alpha count A3b device.

A3B-VAADE-PAREMALT-VALGE-TAUST-web
A3B-VAADE-PAREMALT-VALGE-TAUST-web714×800 35.3 KB

4

The image you posted clearly shows this meter to be a S0 meter, indeed giving 1000 pulses/kWh:

afbeelding

So next step could be to test one of the suggestions I gave, and personally I would start with setting the internal_filter to 50ms as this is recommended for S0 meters (the default value is 13 us which are microseconds).

1 Like
5

Thanks!
I added 50ms to internal filter.

But I did notice that my nodemcu was acting weird. I couldn’t install new fw with wifi. Using USB worked.
Then I let it run and it died again after about 10 minutes. So I think that nodemcu is near death.

I then used a wemos d1 mini and soldered it to the place. Used pin4 and other schematic stayed the same.
I’ll test it for few days and see how is the result.

6

Update.
Alpha count device after about 13 hours: 2,69kWh
Home assistant count after 13 hours: 2,72kWh
1% difference, pretty good.

I also had problems with wifi coverage in the room. I have fireproof door between the counter and access point. I closed the door and tried to update wemos mini through wifi. It failed. I tried couple times more and it failed. Then I opened the door and it updated successfully. With closed door the wifi was about 86dbm. With the door open was 66dbm.

I also had a access point in the same room as the counter so I enabled wifi on that access point.

7

Update.
After about 2 days.
Calculated from device: 12,13kWh
From Home assisatant: 12,16kWh.
So that seems it is fixed. Thank you thusassistint

1 Like