EEVblog
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ม.ค. 2025
- Teardown Tuesday.
What's inside an EDMI Atlas Mk10A Smart Meter?
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I think those small terminals are for connection of test gear for line monitoring etc. without having to connect to the big beefy cables.
@22:00 The use of current transformers is surely the safest and most reliable means of isolating the current sensing circuits from the line voltage. I suspect this is the thinking rather than the equally valid problem of micro - ohm input resistors. Also perfect for transient/lightening pulses.
Hi Dave, great Video as everytime! Actually, the two LEDs on the top of the main processor board are for rs232 communication through the case. After the device is calibrated, one can program vendor-specific (or data from the electricity company) into this through rs232. Also there are two modes, one for calibration and one for the vendor specific settings(and also an mode for the end-user of course). If I remember correctly you can activate this mode via a jumper. Greetings from Germany
I can never get over the amount of kit in Dave’s lab
Awesome video Dave !..I work with these meters everyday and I can tell you they are very reliable and we consider them basically a power quality meter and not just a smart meter because of their functionality. Also EDMI started out making irrigation controllers in Australia. I will look around work for a schematic for you if your still interested.
May i ask help on how you communicate with edmi meters via modbus? Can i directly connect it to a PLC? I currently have mk6n
Hi Dave, there's an application note from TI, "Implementation of a Three-Phase Electronic Watt-Hour Meter Using MSP430F471xx" (slaa409a) that seems similar to the metre shown in the video, and which uses an MSP430 in the same 4xx family.
The meter is also designed to be immune to the 12kv @ 9 Joule impulse test. Hence all the isolation on the inputs, comms etc.
Nice. Thanks. Did you power it up?
PS: the 2 LEDs on front - could they be IR transmitter/receiver?
I was a little bit surprised, I expected a higher spec 16 bit converter.
Most enthusiastic moment of this episode:
18:58 "oh look at that, look at that...beautiful! Ooho...That's..." (real fans know the standard vocabular)
Ah yes, of course. Forgot about the modem, that would need a few watts during TX.
2A is a common current requirement @4V for GSM/LTE Modems during TX so the SWPS will need to put out circa 10W for a few seconds. The 2W budget for overall power consumption is not really affected as the time the modem spends transmitting is a small fraction of the time that it is not transmitting.
The round window with the metal ring is to hookup an infra-red probe so the meter guy can read all the info out.
Sure you can choose not to have a 'radiation source' in your home. The biggest radiation source in your house, by a couple of orders of magnitude, is 50/60Hz radiation from power wires, so you can choose not to have that, and you don't need a meter then either.
Honestly, calling a 3G modem a 'Radiation Source'.
It's a cell phone that messages a whopping 1% of the time. Think of the children!
As for the shunt bypass detection, perhaps the meter temporarily draws extra power through the voltage detection taps (the ones that are connected to those removable metal clips), then monitors the current transformer outputs to make sure they rise.
PSU is not overkill once you connect that GSM modem.
Nothing like sexy switch action to get an EE excited!
In oz maybe the majority are, but still plenty on 3 phase. My office has 3 phase in the panel box.
Great teardown as usual Dave, would be interesting to see it powered :o)
One of the leds on the right of the device is actually a IR-receiver. German hacker groups already started tmpering with the firmware without opening the case :)
Good
What you really need to realise they actually were given authorisation by the manufacturer without sudden secret keys. This is impossible for the meter to accept most of the communication.
Not that I'm aware of. I know a guy that used to design the alarm panels for EDM.
Those two leds (black and clear bluish) at 10:20 are most likely 2-way Infrared port.
Focal plane array
Those LEDs on the front look like they are for IrDA or the like.
It's probably there for reading the meter without opening it or having to plug something in.
actually they might have the means... look at 07:22 where external contactor drivers might be hooked - tb3 etc. if you seal the contactor, the customer supply might be stopped.
As Dave walked through the spec sheet, the current transformers are fairly immune to DC offset, the same thing that would be seen as your relatively slow hand movement would move over the meter box providing you have magnets powerful enough to do so. At which point you now have to worry about the interacting of the magnets with the mains leads making your hand vibrate at mains frequency. :-)
I have to agree with Dave as well. There is no reason to be afraid of being near devices like this...just don't touch the terminals! It's no more harmless than a wireless router or even your microwave which is probably ten thousand times more powerful...you might have noticed that when you reheat something and can't get a good WiFi connection.
Don't fear the unknown -- learn about it (by taking it apart)... :)
You can never cut this off...cell a d routers you can
@@johnpublic793 -- Not sure what you're talking about there. Your sentence didn't make sense.
@@johnpublic793 nope if you turn the phone off the signal is still going into the building from the phone mast and it is way more powerful
Great stuff :) I work at EDMI and most of the company including the team in Brisbane who designed the meter has seen it and loves the enthusiasm!
Shame to see so many ridiculous comments here... dont even know where to begin! Just in case anyone wants to know these meters use a GSM/GPRS modem, the same frequency and power as their mobile phones (NOT microwaves!). The meters are usually connected ONCE per day usually at night to send readings, commonly via a data telephone call (CSD call) or a packet data connection (GPRS) and lasts around 20s for the former and 5s for the latter. The rest of the day the modems sit idle just as a mobile telephone.
Am i to believe these people who are crying out that smart meters are dangerous also don't own mobile telephones and keep them on their person at all times? Also don't own microwave ovens and especially don't have WiFi routers in their home?
As it happens, no i don't :)
Thanks for the fun video!
Leon Wright And they are better than BPL!
Broadband over Power Line? In most cases yes - mainly because the infrastructure around BPL adds a fair cost, GSM/GPRS solutions are cheap and easy! However in sparsely populated countries this isn't an option as coverage can be terrible. There are a lot of other options to carry data over power lines, and in fact BPL is VERY rarely ever used as meters do not need high data rates. Most common is G3, PRIME & S-FSK :)
+Leon Wright Is there any article that available to public ? Any articles to back up what you said ? Or it is "company trade secret" ?
+Khanh Ly Each county will have their own regulations around smart meters, but in the UK the smart meter rollout (which promises to install a smart meter in all homes by 2020) is completely government regulated - and as such is completely transparent on the technology. Data infrastructure companies bid to carry the information from meters which included mostly Mobile (cellular) data carriers and some new technologies, and in the end a company called Arqiva won the northern region of the UK contract, and Telefonica (aka O2) the mobile cellular carrier won the central and southern region. So - 100% of the UK's smart meter communications will use either cellular communications (telefonica) or long range radio (arqiva) as mandated by the government. We as meter manufacturers have to fall in line with this. As you requested - here is a great place to start: www.gov.uk/guidance/smart-meters-how-they-work. Secondly this may be more of interest: www.gov.uk/government/news/award-of-smart-meters-dcc-licence you may want to google some of the references there.
I hope that kind of answers your question if not let me know - but perhaps be a little more specific - what exactly do you want an article relating to?
Cheers :)
+Leon Wright I thought you are from Aus ...
This says it can detect bypass current? Is it talking about a wire "jumping" around the meter?
What if I took power before the meter =D
Don't think it could detect that lol
On smart meters there is a way of stopping power theft by grow houses, and it done where everyone has to have a smart meter but they is also a smart meter connected to the main bus for each power transformer. The meters communicate with each other and the utility control center constantly, the meters check to ensure power going out on the bus matches to what is metered in total at all the customers properties, if a mismatch occurs the utility can come out and trace where the extra current is flowing, easy.
bjtaudio believe it or not that's way too expensive. In Australia (well at least in Victoria Australia) they use the volt drop method. Where they can detect, pretty much to an address an anomaly in volt drops using surrounding houses smart meters. It's an automatic analysis feature built into the system that auto flags
bjtaudio Or it could be legalized and they could actually pay the bill for the grow house without fear of persecution.
In France they use the method stated by njaudio. In essence it is the same as what you just said.
No more two butter knives bypass.
i was almost screaming at the moment you tried to bend the tin pieces with the screwdriver.."lift the terminal block! lift the damn TB!" hehe i really enjoy watching you vids ... but sometimes i think i get too much into them:)
One meter I worked with actually (probably) had a detector for external magnetic fields as a tampering tool! Didn't ever crack one open, but there was space reserved in the memory for tamper alarm, both switch and external magnetic field.
Didn't see anything related to magnet field detecting on that meter though.
I am having a herd time understanding info you thow at us. I am an EET student. I whatch your vids to catch as much knowledge as I can but you don't go into any detail about the purpose of the individual components and how they are used within the whole assemblies. So in you next vids could you tak more time to explain the parts ,components,and how they work together to accomplish the job it was built to do. Love the show keep them coming
Those people are crackpots. It's just a regular GSM phone that calls maybe once a day or week or something for a minute or two.
one reporting every 20 seconds is what we have to endure in the UK
And its wireless which means it will make you sick.
@@bsnellgrove you’re not really enduring anything if it can talk to a phone last the phone mass is already penetrating the building with radio signals let alone the wires is giving off magnetic field
@@sushiming7544no
It would only have to report once a day or week for a few minutes, and you'd program them all for random times.
In case no one else has mentioned it, the 2 "LEDS" on the front panel inside the metallic circle is actually a ultraviolet communications link with an LED and sensor that can be used for various purposes like reading the meter manually.
What are those large blue discs around the 11:00 minutes mark? They are connected near the terminal are they similar to fuses protecting internal circuits?
ThingsToDo Transient supressor. They turn voltage spikes on the lines to heat, stopping surges damaging the meter.
I believe they are, programming or reading the meter - I have a small "eye" window on my own meter at home, it's not a "smart meter" but it is a digital one (replaced our old black rotary analog one).
One might use 4 pieces of 14 gauge wire, bent into "U" shapes. Then solder 2 pair together, creating 2 jumpers, each good for 40 + amps (14 ga. wire is rated at 20 A, but that's with insulation and in a conduit. But these would be in the open and have better heat dissipation). To do the soldering, one might make a temporary jumper to run the iron. The jumper ends could be filed flat, for better contact. Each jumper would complete the circuit for each of the two 120V legs of the 240V supply.
bypassing current is when you have a wire that will bypass the meter for example if you tap directly into the fuses before the meter on the active as most people would do that will detect it by messuring the load via netural as Netural is connected back to a RCD. Reverse Current is simple, for solar or wind turbines that people get for there homes so they can messure how much you put back into the grid.
Hey Dave, are you part of Ausgrid area? My mate is an EE with them and they have rolled out their own private 4G (LTE) network. They now have full coverage and plan to start using it for metering as well as remote switching at sub stations etc. Big advantage for us is you can log onto your account and see real time usage. All part of the network gold plating that we are paying for...
The white relay is actually a photovoltaic silicon relay. You might want to try opening it up- might be interesting as a mini-teardown.
The external battery could be for powering the unit when taking it back to the lab for testing unexplained faults, and preserving data in case of tampering.
A common trick used about that time was to cascade x10 gain amplifiers - two or three of them. The chopper amp principle allows AC coupling. Then each of the amp outputs arrive at the ADC MUX. The amp output/s not saturating are used for the measurement and scaled accordingly. Hence good resolution at both low and high load currents.
I'd love to see really reliable double blind tests done on people who claim to be able to feel em fields around cell phones.
The proof is all in. The Radiation is Illegal
@@sushiming7544 the radiation of the smart meters is not illegal. They literally have the same communication chips in as mobile phones.
In the US, all houses have 220V 3 phase coming from the pole pig. Some houses only have 220V 2 phase for cost reasons or the size and location of the house. Both the 3 phase and 2 phase have a 110V tap to ground. Down under (are both capitalized?) as I guess should be using 440V 3 phase, or 440V 2 phase. Both the 3 phase and 2 phase have a 220V tap to ground.
You buy a block of data, just like a consumer would with a data plan. But you consolidate your usage over all of the devices and get a big discount. You also design the modem to transmit a short burst of data a few times a day. Most of the messages utilize compression as well.
it is easy to detect bypass, because in every electric installation, you will have a parasitic currents, for instance a FID Fuse will use some current form each phase to detect current loss, and capacitive and inductive losses in cables, will draw very small currents.
(not checked datasheet) You can in practice get well over 12 bits of range (though not absolute accuracy) with this type of circuit - simply as the input is a nice slow sine-wave that is changing much, much slower than your ADC. You end up with individual measurements being 12 bits, but if you have 1024 measurements, your resolution goes up by about sqrt(1024).
I see. I remember the secondary school I used to go to had a number of EDM alarm systems throughout the school buildings, I remember them because I remember at least one of them was a Digitalarm of some kind, I think it was a Digitalarm 903. I suspect all those security system have been upgraded and replaced. Are EDM still around now? Are they still making alarm systems?
Those loops through the coils are a current transformer. The ratio could be as high 1,000 to 1 or even 10,000 to 1. That means that a 100Amp current could generate 10 volts. The circuity could divide that down to some useful voltage .
Please could you tell me what happened if the direction of the current passing through the CT has changed in this case ; the meter will measure the KWH & KVA &PF Correctly ?
New technolgy will continuously adjust power. The tower will send data packets to the phone information of how well the tower is hearing your phone, based on BER rates and/or RSSI level, Some phone transmitt as low as 20mw and at the most 600mw typ. The reason for this is to conserve the battery power, as it can be a big selling point(battery life talk time). I know I cannot convice you otherwise that using a cell phone is not harmfull under normal use. Oh, remember to answer my simple question?
An optocoupler is a device that optically isolates an electric signal. It's just an LED pointed to an fototransistor inside a chip
1 Pulse/ 100 Wh, you should be able to wire this up as a single phase test meter, it'd be handy for measuring your workshop power consumption :)
We actually use the AC cycles to sync the clock in australia as it is more accurate than using the RTC. In Oz we actually make up the number of Cycles in a day, so is is more accurate to use that than the RTC.
Dave, what made you think they would use shunts in place of current transformers? In any design that measures AC in the industrial setting I have only seen current transformers used, and it makes more sense because of less hardware to deal with since the isolation is already there. But with shunts, extra hardware for isolation to move the measured date to the MPU is needed and an isolated power supply would have to be used for the differential amplifiers that would measure the voltage drop.
I here there were complaints that shame exposure did the same thing. Ironically in some cases where people were complaining about all sorts of cellphone tower effects the provider later revealed with documentation that they never even powered the system up for years just to show how it isn't doing anything.
Dave, could You please reverse engineer PSU of this meeter?
@Robert Slackware one way to do this would be to desolder at least one of the current shunts and apply 230V to the consumer-side terminals. However it could be argued that the consumer isn’t paying for the initial equipment cost, and functionality while no consumer connection is taking place.
Pretty sure those two LEDs on the face (with the ring around them) are an IRDA programming/service port.
The big power supply is to give you an extra 3.6Watt power supply for the Modem (which uses more than the meter!)
I noticed you stumbled across Bypassing and reverse current protection, can you elaborate on how it can detect this? Reverse current means exporting surplous energy from solar panels to grid, would this trip alarm? if so why?
Generally, you have to have an energy agreement that allows you to export and then they can reprogram the media either remotely or through the optical port. The reason behind this is is so you can actually get paid for it.
Dave , they are starting to force these smart meters on us in British Columbia Canada. We are very concerned about the rumoured health problems from the radiation when these meters start to communicate with the power companies receiver. Any thoughts on this. thanks
If there is such an effect, it's due to the battery getting warm. Do the thermo calculations on how much RF power would be required to feel that warming; it's almost certainly more than the phone is capable of producing.
You cannot use shunt resistors in a polyphase one since you need to isolate each voltage. Otherwise you get 380V between current sensing inputs. Current transformers are more suitable for this three phases ones. Shunt ares used un single phase ones where VCC and shunt voltage are both referred to LIVE. Still posible to use shunts in a poly but need isolation transformers on each current channel. And since the voltage drops are small at low loads, transformers tend to make it worse.
pretty impressive current transformers,
28:00 Dave, is an external ADC better than the one build into some microcontrollers?
Yes, it is. There ADC basically has an analog section and a digital section. When embedded in an MCU, the ADC has to share the same noisy power rails as the MCU circuitry. So they are not too good (that's why you don't see ADCs of 24-bit, etc on MCUs). High res ADCs are best implemented in a separate package.
In what country you claim wires which are not yours?
Woa, we just got one of these installed!
Well im pretty sure the communication is TLS(or something like that) encrypted.
An external bypass between phases would probably be detected by the resistance drop between the 2?
Cool, I did a Teardown on a Landis & Gyr E350 Smart Meter, The quality is pretty good for something made in China, (uses NEC and other Japanese componentry)!
3 phase 415v seems a bit hefty for home use would seem that meter would be found in more comercial place like stores and warehousing. Arent homes single phase?
They obviously have a single one for home and commercial
what causes the phase error of the CT to change with temperature?
You have one company which owns the distribution network and then you have other companies which can rent it and provide their services and prices. It works like phone lines and ADSL where you can choose from many providers. So we have competition here already but the for regular household the price difference isn't that high.
:( I wonder what was inside all other Mail Boxes, no more mail openings ?
Possible unless they encrypt it or something.
Very nice meter, the power supply caps have been beefed up to improve reliability. The anti-tamper is basically the micro-switch, the software stores usage history and events such as a unauthorized break in, It also relies on the physical security seals on the screws on the box. It however cannot detect a full power diversion where power is connected to the service cable or street bus before the meter. This type of tampering is typical to take power to run grow houses, without detection. Detection is only found from suspicious activity reported to police by neighbors.
Those ones at 10:20 aren't LEDS, they are Infrared Input/Output diodes, when the electrical company comes at home to install the meter, they load on the meter customer infos with a IR gun connected to a laptop or palm PC
They probably could find you bypassing the meter with the software on their end. Meters in the same cluster still show the same phases up yet the sum power used does not match the sum measured by the meters in the same cluster. Your bypassed meter would be the glaring 'black hole' in such a case. Sometimes analogue is better than digital. P-)
I suspect that this would be installed inside a weatherproof NEMA (or the non-USA equivalent) locked enclosure. The antenna would be the weak point, and they'd then investigate when the unit failed to "check in".
By the way, there's a bit of a health scare (among some) of the effects of RF exposure.
The RF coming out of these is low-power non-ionizing radiation - the only health problem this thing could cause is provoking paranoia already present in someone's nutcase.
What do you need to realise is literally every country apart from the US and Canada put metres inside enclosures either inside the property or some other electrical thing the reason is because you can replace the meter without having to worry about a stupid socket needing replacement every 2 to 3 years when they create a new standard and it doesn’t work
dear Sir, can we get a link to user's manual ?
Those two round LEDs not in lightpipes: Are they a UV and IR? The colour of the packages suggests that. I wonder why. Maybe it is some diagnositc thing not intended for customer consumption.
Infrared port. Diagnostics, configuration,..
for programing tariffs and ripple signals load shedding New Zealand
So i have a GSM transmitter in my home without my consent?!
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6663779/Dementia-patients-tracked-smart-meters-doctors-monitor-sudden-changes.html
Dementia patients to be tracked by smart meters so that doctors can monitor any sudden changes that indicate illness, falls or mental decline
Only if you’re not subscribing to the service.
Hello Jesse Levesque Try wikipedia
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a vacuum, or through matter-containing media that are not required for their propagation. Waves of a mass filled medium itself, such as water waves or sound waves, are usually not considered to be forms of "radiation" in this sense.
And do you have proof that this is indeed a four watt transmitter? Doesn't seem nearly large enough, and even if it was, do you have measurements to see if it uses full power or not?
Glad to hear, you're not using mobile phones:) And live somewhere in the middle of desert. I bet your phone is way more active in the wireless network or even if not you then people around you, compared to this device. Rediculous to say that you'll fry in the radiation caused of theese meters.
Oh, missed that one, didn't bother to read the part number.
The GSM module has a "BOOT" on the mask...possibly there's a serial boot output on some of those pads for diag/programming.
It's surprised they're using only a 12bit ADC. Perhaps due to the slow nature of AC mains they can afford to extend their resolution by averaging.
I mean the file is just missing off of their server; I don't believe they intentionally removed it to keep prying eyes out of it.
+EEVblog: You entirely missed to mention one major task of this unit. Measunring the line frequency. And thats the optocuppler in the middle of the HV board is for. A zero cross detection circuit.
Please do a video of this working!
i stand corrected at 26:54 in this video at a top view angle its obviously a 33m resistor - my bad
The reason for the external battery is probably for temporary metering, think temporary main distribution points for building sites or similar.
Does EDMI have anything to do with the Australian security alarm manufacturer EDM?
Most of the smart metering tampers are caught by exception reports that troll thru the data. If you data changes drastically from "normal", it ends up on someone's desk. This was true before smart metering only now you can catch it faster because you see the change nearly instantly instead of monthly. Smart meters also send wireless messages for "powered down", or "powered down and disconnected from load/source", or "current above limits", or "temperature out of bounds", or "cover open" etc.
LOL @ all the rubes posting warnings about how wicked and evil this meter is from their cell phones. The communication method here is *quite literally* a cell phone; or a cellular modem to be more specific. This meter doesn't operate on an RF mesh network. It has a SIM card and an IP address and connects to a central office directly. The utility has to pay for that cellular service for each individual meter, just like regular people... which is why these datalogging polyphase meters are only generally used in commercial or industrial (high $$$/heavy load) applications. They've also been around FOREVER (landlines were used before cellular became viable, and still are used where cell signals don't reach) and yet somehow we've all survived no worse for the wear.
+doctor zaius
You're right, but only partially. Some meters operate on a mesh network, and some run a hybrid between that and what you said.
Still, I think all this privacy stuff is way overblown. Like, there is more than one person on this planet, hellooooo?!
Benjamin Esposti Sure, these days there are almost as many different communications methods as there are meters. RF mesh, mobile and fixed-network AMR, power line carrier, cellular, landline, ethernet - and many systems utilize a combination of all these technologies. iTron and Silver Spring Networks are the heavy hitters at the moment but there are probably about 50 other companies out there offering similar products as well.
That said, it's been my experience that utilities are generally only willing to invest in dedicated cellular/landlines for large or complex billing accounts, reactive metering, independent generating facilities, load-shedding/demand response participants, etc. The more widespread AMI mesh/fixed network systems now becoming commonplace for residential and small(er) commercial purposes typically only use cellular, landline or ethernet communication for data backhaul from a central collection point.
American smart meters are a danger to the public, and have been banned in many states.
Nope, I'm right they're wrong. This meter is literally a cell phone.
rationalwiki.org/wiki/Barrie_Trower
Psudoscientist.
I was surprised to learn that the smart meters being fitted in France work on KVA consumption rather than the traditional KW. Seems to mean that has most devices nowadays use switch mode PSUs, and lighting has been changed to LED or low energy fluorescent then home electrickery bills are dearer than they were before with the old traditional meter using the same devices.
To avoid bypassing the current sensors, they rely on the existing safety system to prevent bypassing the old electromechanical meter (which fits the same plug and form factor). The box is physically sealed with an actual company seal, so they can just inspect it to detect a breakin to the part with unpaid electricity.
In the US everything from the meter to the electric company is their property. Wires, poles, everything. The same applies to any other metered utility like water and gas. If you have underground wiring, the transformer box put on your land is not yours. The same applies to cable TV with those boxes for underground wiring.
What will happen if you submit the meter to large magnets, would it alter the meters ability to read to current being used.
Where was the zigbee module?