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Old 18th Jan 2018, 8:42 pm   #21
McMurdo
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

I'd have thought most people still have 'old analogue' meters, dont they? I do..and my Dads, and in fact everyone I know. At work we only had a digital meter because we found out they were charging us 3 standing charges for 3 analogue meters..one per phase on a 3-phase supply.
Evesdropping on two guys from Western Power, when they get called out to a main supply fuse that's blown, first thing they do is pull the terminal cover off and turn it over to inspect for copper-plating. Modern digital meters, cheap and plasticky as they are, often go bang and then melt their innards just before the fuses blow. Quality.
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Old 18th Jan 2018, 9:03 pm   #22
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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'I'd have thought most people still have 'old analogue' meters, dont they? I do..and my Dads, and in fact everyone I know...'
We were on an Economy 7 dual-rate electromechanical meter, even when we did away with economy 7 about eleven years ago and went single-rate. I got it replaced with a plastic solid-state meter only when it started giving disputable readings maybe five years back.

When we did up next door, the E/M meter was ripped out and replaced with a solid state LCD version. My mam still has an E/M meter.

I suspect that the older meters will only get phased out as they fall below the legal 2% accuracy or otherwise fail, though this might be accelerated with the onset of 'smart' meters, which we're not obliged to sign up to at the mo, although we're being nudged in that direction.

Wonder if anyone still has one with the separate analogue dials rather than the mechanical digital display?
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Old 18th Jan 2018, 9:31 pm   #23
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

I like looking at old bakelite meters, its a snapshot of a UK electrical industry thats disappearing. Names like Ferranti, GEC, Brush, Sangamo Weston, AEI. Even Landis & Gyr, (now siemens) who took over the GEC Meters factory in Stone, who had taken it over from Lotus Shoes, and is now occupied by ABB.

I dont think I've ever seen an LCD one made by a company I recognise.
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Old 18th Jan 2018, 9:33 pm   #24
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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I can remember old electricity meters that would not register at all if the load was VERY small, less than about 10 watts IIRC.
I made a small and crude battery charger that would charge a 12 volt battery at a low enough rate that the consumption did not register. !
From memory, with nothing else connected, a pygmy lamp wouldn't reliably start the meter-so that would have been 15W or maybe 25W -at that time the lowest load we had available.
It was a very old meter. Dials instead of digits and a coin box on the right hand side.
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Old 18th Jan 2018, 10:01 pm   #25
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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'I like looking at old bakelite meters, its a snapshot of a UK electrical industry thats disappearing.'
Likewise. In a similar vein, I like looking at, maintaining and testing the older 'spinning disc' IDMT relays that we still use on power boards at several of our sites: AEI and GEC. They're beautifully made and still accurate, although the likes of the Alstom MiCOM instruments are more versatile and consistent - if more complicated to set up.

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I dont think I've ever seen an LCD one made by a company I recognise.
Ours and next door's are Landis and Gyr ones, same as these.
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Old 18th Jan 2018, 10:20 pm   #26
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

Hi, I recall one of my elderly, now deceased, colleagues from a former workplace telling me some years ago that he once attempted to slow his meter disc down (and hence reduce his electricity bill) with some form of electromagnet, possibly of similar design to/or a degaussing coil, but all it did was make the disc move considerably faster!

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Old 18th Jan 2018, 11:39 pm   #27
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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Ours and next door's are Landis and Gyr ones
I must be behind the times..google tells me Siemens have sold them to Toshiba who have resurrected the old name!

Now it's stopped raining I can go outside and show you mine. Thankfully (I was doubting myself) it's a british GEC.
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Old 19th Jan 2018, 1:15 am   #28
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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Now it's stopped raining I can go outside and show you mine.
Nice bell transformer!

Here's our old one that went faulty.
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Old 19th Jan 2018, 11:24 am   #29
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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Ours and next door's are Landis and Gyr ones, same as these.
Mine is similar, but the E110 version of the 5235.

The generation meter on the Solar PV is by someone called Elster that I'd never heard of, though apparently it's a big name in the business.
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Old 19th Jan 2018, 1:22 pm   #30
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

Ours is a spinning disc type with mechanical digital readout, made by Landis & Gyr.
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Old 19th Jan 2018, 6:48 pm   #31
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

I seem to remember my Dad telling me a long time ago that there was a time when you could run a torch bulb for nothing by connecting it between earth and neutral. Neutral is earthed now isn't it? So that's not going to work. Never tried it though!

Now we've got a Smart meter - don't get me started on that!!
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Old 19th Jan 2018, 7:07 pm   #32
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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I seem to remember my Dad telling me a long time ago that there was a time when you could run a torch bulb for nothing by connecting it between earth and neutral.
Neutral / earth potential is quite common in long electrical runs and is caused by the voltage drop in the neutral length (strictly a 'live' conductor), carrying a load sufficient to produce it. The first time I experienced it was as an apprentice electrician a hundred years ago working in an iron foundry, and being very surprised at the sparks when I touched both together!

I used to do the torch bulb thing when I had a shack at the bottom of the garden, some distance from the house, and I had the electric fire on full whack.

It's a sort of phyrric victory, economy-wise, if you like.

Getting back to electricity meters, when Whitehaven had its own power station (d.c.) it was discovered that the meters could be by-passed simply by putting an earth stake into the soil and connecting one of the consumer-side leads to that!

It was quickly changed...
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Old 19th Jan 2018, 7:13 pm   #33
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

It is possible to run a torch bulb from the neutral and earth it works due to voltage drop along the neutral caused by unbalanced loads across the 3 phases which leads to voltage drop on said neutral wire. However it wont work on PME supplys where earth and neutral are joined where the supply enters your house. Also it MAY cause RCDs to trip
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Old 21st Jan 2018, 11:05 am   #34
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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Originally Posted by Herald1360 View Post
The generation meter on the Solar PV is by someone called Elster that I'd never heard of, though apparently it's a big name in the business.
Elster are (or were) in Stafford, funnily enough on the Stone side of Stafford. I say were because I'm convinced the name on the building has change recently. I'll check if we go past later.
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Old 21st Jan 2018, 1:52 pm   #35
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

No need, just remembered they are now Honeywell.
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Old 22nd Jan 2018, 7:16 pm   #36
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

I once had a Ferranti pay meter I picked up from a car boot sale for a few pounds.

I used it was a money box, but my parents made me get rid of it.
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Old 22nd Jan 2018, 10:34 pm   #37
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

Why? Were you charging them for electricity they'd already paid for?
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Old 24th Jan 2018, 10:16 am   #38
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

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The wheels were aluminium in old meters so a magnet wouldn't affect them. I have seen devices consisting of a couple of turns of wire wrapped around the primary of a stripped down mains transformer. The extra winding was then placed with it's ends shoved up the outer meter connections. Connecting one way around stopped the wheel and connecting the other way around wound the wheel backwards.

I hope it's ok to mention this on here as afaik such analogue meters are well past their sell by date.
I remember someone at work saying they knew someone who had done this and had left the meter running backwards for too long. They then had to leave several electric fires on to get the meter back past the starting point at which it was last read. I thought this was just a story at the time but 30 years later it now seems it may have been true.
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Old 24th Jan 2018, 10:27 am   #39
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

Yes, they did exist. I came into contact with several of them and they were just mains transformers with a very high current, low voltage secondary. This winding was fitted with probes (like meter probes) which could be jammed into the meter's cable entry points to make contact with the connections. Get the winding the right way around and the meter would either stop or go backwards, depending on the urge of your transformer and the load at the time.
I kept well away from the people who used them, they seemed like right low-lifes.
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Old 25th Jan 2018, 4:36 am   #40
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Default Re: Analogue Electricity Meters.

Hi Gents. The meters have a voltage and a current coil. the voltage coil is connected between L&N. The current coil is in series with the L wire (usually the 2 outer terminals).
This is the coil that can be shunted with some thick wire as in increasing the range of an ammeter, or it can have a current forced back through it (Kirchoff's law) to reduce the net current flowing and "shave" a few % off the meter reading.
AFAIK readings have been statically checked for sudden changes in reading over the quarter etc.
The magnet round the disc is a brake magnet that simply stops the disc rotating at very light loads. The gap is tiny and the poles are right over the disc, so even modern high power magnets will have little effect unless they encircle the disc.

I was involved with a company that developed a split CT that fitted within the meter, so that if a bypass was added, a mercury coulomb meter would register the imbalance.

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