Hi there,
I work for the IT service provider for a large office park (several square miles, Millions of square feet of commercial realestate) which is running an outdated E-Mon setup. They currently have about 30 chains of E-Mon meters, mostly Pro-Mon model units. Each chain has one 'head' meter with an analog modem, and the rest of the meters in that building or vacinity are daisy-chained from the head meter. The modems naturally communicate with an ancient dinosaur of a computer, currently running E-Mon v1.2.
So. Our hope here is that we can virtualize the PC, and switch out the modems for IP-enabled tech of some sort. Given the scale of the network, and the unknown status of network runs, we'd love to find some sort of wireless solution for communicating with the meters. E-Mon has a product called Wireless E-Mon Energy AMR System ( http://www.emon.com/products_wirelesssystem.html ), but they've told us it doesn't work in multi-building situations.
I was wondering if anyone here has experience with this product, or alternative approaches to wireless networking with E-Mon meters. Some specific questions:
* Can anyone confirm, deny, or add to E-Mon's claim that their system is limited to one building? I don't see why this would be the case with mesh-networked hardware. On the other hand, I'm not sure if sprinkling wireless transmitters all over the place is cost-effective either.
* The ideal solution would be to connect a single wireless transmitter to the head meter of each chain. Does anyone know of a reliable solution for this? I'd be interested to know of any third-party vendors that work in this market space.
* If anyone wants to recommend E-Mon's competitors, I'd be interested to leverage their knowledge to the challenge too?.. There's a chance I might be looking at replacing the whole system anyway?..
* Other suggestions or leads?
Thanks very much for any input.
Josh
I work for the IT service provider for a large office park (several square miles, Millions of square feet of commercial realestate) which is running an outdated E-Mon setup. They currently have about 30 chains of E-Mon meters, mostly Pro-Mon model units. Each chain has one 'head' meter with an analog modem, and the rest of the meters in that building or vacinity are daisy-chained from the head meter. The modems naturally communicate with an ancient dinosaur of a computer, currently running E-Mon v1.2.
So. Our hope here is that we can virtualize the PC, and switch out the modems for IP-enabled tech of some sort. Given the scale of the network, and the unknown status of network runs, we'd love to find some sort of wireless solution for communicating with the meters. E-Mon has a product called Wireless E-Mon Energy AMR System ( http://www.emon.com/products_wirelesssystem.html ), but they've told us it doesn't work in multi-building situations.
I was wondering if anyone here has experience with this product, or alternative approaches to wireless networking with E-Mon meters. Some specific questions:
* Can anyone confirm, deny, or add to E-Mon's claim that their system is limited to one building? I don't see why this would be the case with mesh-networked hardware. On the other hand, I'm not sure if sprinkling wireless transmitters all over the place is cost-effective either.
* The ideal solution would be to connect a single wireless transmitter to the head meter of each chain. Does anyone know of a reliable solution for this? I'd be interested to know of any third-party vendors that work in this market space.
* If anyone wants to recommend E-Mon's competitors, I'd be interested to leverage their knowledge to the challenge too?.. There's a chance I might be looking at replacing the whole system anyway?..
* Other suggestions or leads?
Thanks very much for any input.
Josh