Plug & Play PP2-200 Install
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 3:07 pm
After quite a bit of planning, reading the docs and this forum, a lot of trial and error and some anal-retentive wiring, I now have what I think is a pretty good installation of a great monitoring system.
Some wiring channels and a re-purposed PVC instrument enclosure that has a clear lexan cover panel were used. There were two well placed mounting rails and was even room for the third ECM-1240 should expansion be needed. Because of the backup generator panel some CT's were run to each panel through 3/4" PVC conduit. The 5V and 12V wall-warts were left outside on a power strip to minimize heat buildup in the enclosure. The Gateway-Mux is tucked on the left edge of the enclosure and runs back to the ethernet switch. Numbering the free end of each CT lead with the breaker number made the final hookup very easy. L1 and L2 were kept on separate CT's (CH1 and CH2) so an eye can be kept on the L1/L2 balance to see if any loads need to moved around. A $170 Shuttle XS35 (Only 40 Watts! fanless net box powered by an Intel Atom, no HDD, no DVD) and a $30 2GB ram card were bought from Newegg. An old 2.5" HDD from a laptop was re-used to install an old XP-Pro license via USB stick (steep learning curve there). Once the XS35 was set up with EngineG, Remote Desktop is used from a laptop upstairs to keep any eye on things.
I hope Ben gets time to work on the Brultech Graphing utility. It's very nice even though quite buggy at this time.
It's a great system. I've already seen some energy usage habits that need to change.
Some wiring channels and a re-purposed PVC instrument enclosure that has a clear lexan cover panel were used. There were two well placed mounting rails and was even room for the third ECM-1240 should expansion be needed. Because of the backup generator panel some CT's were run to each panel through 3/4" PVC conduit. The 5V and 12V wall-warts were left outside on a power strip to minimize heat buildup in the enclosure. The Gateway-Mux is tucked on the left edge of the enclosure and runs back to the ethernet switch. Numbering the free end of each CT lead with the breaker number made the final hookup very easy. L1 and L2 were kept on separate CT's (CH1 and CH2) so an eye can be kept on the L1/L2 balance to see if any loads need to moved around. A $170 Shuttle XS35 (Only 40 Watts! fanless net box powered by an Intel Atom, no HDD, no DVD) and a $30 2GB ram card were bought from Newegg. An old 2.5" HDD from a laptop was re-used to install an old XP-Pro license via USB stick (steep learning curve there). Once the XS35 was set up with EngineG, Remote Desktop is used from a laptop upstairs to keep any eye on things.
I hope Ben gets time to work on the Brultech Graphing utility. It's very nice even though quite buggy at this time.
It's a great system. I've already seen some energy usage habits that need to change.