Hi All,

I was hoping to get some advice on how I might communicate with an EATON IQ 100 power meter. The meter has an RS 485 port and Modbus-RTU Protocol. The datasheet is attached if it helps. The meter is located in a generator room, unfortunately, there is no wifi or internet in that room. However, there is a wired R485 link from the meter to another part of the building where an internet connection is available. Until now the meter has simply been connected via the Modbus port to a local laptop in the generator room. Data is stored on the laptop and periodically downloaded. I would like to remove the need to have a laptop on site and simply have the meter push data to the cloud through an internet connection. The data can then be accessed remotely by the client. Ideally, it would log the meter registers and save data to a.csv file. I think this should be possible and have found the following device (http://www.iccdesigns.com/millennium-series/10-eth-1000.html). No idea if this would be compatible or useable with the EATON meter.

Any ideas or advice would be appreciated.

 

I'm the product specialist at ICC for the ETH-1000. While the ETH-1000 can certainly communicate Modbus RTU to the Eaton IQ meter, I don't believe it is the correct product for your requirement to push data to the cloud or log to a CSV file. The ETH-1000 is intended for device to device communications, converting between different protocols such as Modbus, BACnet, EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, etc.

However, it should be possible to achieve your goal with a third-party Modbus RTU IoT gateway. A product such as this will need to be capable of being a Modbus RTU master to read/write data on the power meter and communicate to an IoT cloud using a protocol such as MQTT. The cloud platform will store the data sent by the gateway and should have the ability to analyze and export the data in various formats (including CSV format). Some vendors supply both the gateway and IoT cloud platform, while others provide only the gateway and require the customer to setup the cloud platform with a cloud service provider, such as Amazon AWS.

 

Hi,

Thank you for that very clear explanation. I believe this is the type of device you are referring to https://us.msasafety.com/IIoT-Gateways/System-Integrators/QuickServer-Gateway/p/quickserver

Any suggestions on low-cost devices that are available. As we are only looking to connect with max of two meters the above device seems like overkill... Thanks for your help.

 

Yes, the QuickServer is one example of an IoT gateway backed by the manufacturer's own cloud solution.

Here is an example of just an IoT gateway (no manufacturer's cloud, you must create and manage your own AWS account):
https://www.csimn.com/CSI_pages/MQ-61.html

Since you are concerned about cost, keep in mind that there are often monthly or annual fees for cloud platforms, so you may need to consider more than just the cost of the IoT gateway itself.