Low Cost Remote Meter Reading
IMB Enterprises, Inc. actively pursues opportunities for non-IT computing solutions, including test and measurement. We maintain a web site dedicated to these solutions, Industrial Strength Ethernet.
One of our customers is working on a solution for remote meter reading. Our customer provides management services for utility usage to large industrial clients. As part of his service he publishes electrical usage information every 5 minutes to his customers via his own interactive website. He is collecting information using two devices that he purchased from IMB Enterprises, Inc.:
Our customer encountered a problem. The cost of the cellular data bandwidth required to capture readings from remote meters via the Raven XT exceeded his business model. He decided to stop pursuing wireless methods of collecting the data, for now, despite the lower labor cost associated with wireless transmission.
We found him an alternative solution: Drop the need for cellular data communications by implementing point to point, or point to multi point serial radios from Digi Maxstream. We have successfully communicated, bi-directionally with the COM1000 from a PC via these radios.
To solve the need for a custom application to:
1) Query the remote locations/radios as required and
2) Collect the data and save it in a useful format for the customer's application (in this case common spreadsheet software)
we are recommending an "erector set" piece of software, Collect from Labtronics. Collect is an "erector set" in that application-unique steps can be added to Collect in the form of VBA macros; thus, the application is useful for a range of applications. We feel that the acquisition cost for Collect ($500.00 US Dollars at the time of this writing) pales when compared to the hourly cost of custom programming and revision.
Please contact us at (802) 457-2929 if you would like to hear further about this solution.
Please visit Industrial Strength Ethernet for further information on the devices used in this solution.
Copyright © October 9, 2008, IMB Enterprises, Inc., all rights reserved