Switchboard meter sending phone calls when alarm triggers

EE_Wisco

New User
Location
Fond Du Lac, WI
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to have a switchboard meter or online meter platform to send plant managers a phone call in the instance the meter alarms from phase loss, over current, over/under voltage, etc. which is set up during commisioning. I know, currently, the online meter platform is capable of sending emails, but the owner would like a phone call. If no meter allows such function, is there a third-party device that can do so? I know if could potentially be set up through a BMS system via CTs on the mains and ran to the BMS controller to send the phone call. Let me know what y'all have seen.

Thanks
 

jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Are you looking to spend thousands or just a few hundred dollars?
I would look for a meter/relay with a hard contact output to a standalone autodialer.
 

hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
Something like this?
Just use the alarm output to trigger the autodialer.
 

Todd0x1

Senior Member
Location
CA
Something like this?
Just use the alarm output to trigger the autodialer.
That's pretty cool.

I tend to overcomplicate these sorts of things. I would use a meter with modbus TCP (I like the accuvim ii). Then I would have a small embedded PC or raspberry pi with asterisk/freepbx and nodered on it. Node red reads whatever modbus registers I want from the meter and triggers a sip call based on whatever criteria I set, those sip calls from nodered go into freepbx and initiate the outbound phone call and playing of recorded message. The beauty of such a setup is the ability to have any number of different autodialed recordings based on different criteria retrieved from the meter.

Is this thing calling a mobile phone, or a POTS landline? Could you use text messages instead of phone calls? Another, and slightly less complicated way to do it would be with SMS. Not only could you send the alert, you could include the meter data in the SMS message. Just need node-red for this and not the asterisk/freepbx setup.

Example SMS message something like: "ALERT PHASE LOSS phase C <TIMESTAMP>" or "ALERT GROUND FAULT 135 AMPS <TIMESTAMP>" or "ALERT OVERVOLTAGE EVENT PHASE A-N 148v rms <TIMESTAMP>" (I just made these up, I have no idea what your desired alarm parameters are)
 
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