A typical use for the Pulse counter is the measurement of the electricity consumption/production. But there are also meters available for gas/water consumption with a pulse output.
Hardware:
The meter that generates the pulses, has to be connecter to the input of a TDS12117 (Digital Input interface).
- Meter output type
- Open collector (;NECESSARY) (So output).
- Connection
- So+ on the input, So on the common.
- Cabling
- individual shielded (same as sensors/dimmer).
Software:
A pulse sensor can be created in PROSOFT Suite by selecting the option “Use as pulse counter sensor” under the selected input on the TDS12117.
By default the sensor will be generated for the measurement of electricity consumption (kWh). To measure other units you can change the sensor type to “Other”. To change the input back to a ‘normal’ digital input, you can change the sensor type back to “digital”.
For a kWh sensor the following parameters apply:
- Unit
- enter the number of pulses that need to be measured for 1 kWh.
- Decimal places
- the number of decimal units you want to display on displays and screens.
- Timebase
- Select today if you want the value displayed on your displays and screens to be the total power consumption since midnight. Select “last 24h”, if you want the total value for the last 24 hours displayed.
- Show Real Time value
- check this option if you want to display current use instead of total use (e.g.: kW instead of kWh).
For a custom pulse teller you have to insert the units and the number of inputs per unit (e.g.: 250 imp/ m³). If “Show Real Time value” is checked, the following parameters will be added:
- Real Time unit
- the unit that has to be used to display Real Time values (e.g.: L/h).
- Real time units/unit
- the number of Real Time units per Unit (eg.: 1000L in 1m³).
Regardless the type of sensor you use (kWh or others) and regardless the selected option “Show Real Time value”, you can link a “High Action” on this sensor. This means that this action will be executed as soon as the measured value is higher than the preset value (the action will be reset when the measured value is below the preset value).
Possible uses are: to inform the user when too much power is used (with messages and alarms) or to keep the power consumption within limits during high peak usage by shutting down high consumers (eg.; electrical boilers).
Like with other sensors you can define two presets (day and night).
Some examples to explain the settings:
This setting will give you basically the number of pulses per minute:
In this case, when there is an average of 6 pulses/minute the value will show 6p/m
This setting will give you basically the number of pulses per hour:
In this case, when there is an average 6 pulses/minute the value will show 360p/h
Let say that 2 pulses per minute are equal to 1 km/h:
Here we will see 3km/h when there are 6 pulses/minute the value will show 3km/h
This is the same (2 pulses per minute are equal to 1 km/h):
Also in this case, when there are 6 pulses/minute the value will show 3km/h