This video provides a good view of some important components, that are common on FOCUS model meters. FOCUS AX/AX-R and similar variations share the same physical shell. Now I'm going to talk about what people watching this video really want to know - what can be adjusted to adjust how much you 'pay' for electricity. The answer is remarkably simple. Pause this video around the 2:06 mark where you can see several sets of wires. This wiring scheme is standard for all FOCUS meters: 1) Red/White pair: controls the remote disconnect relay if the meter is equipped with it. These are the -SD variants, so AXR-SD for example. The -SD means "service disconnect". Apply a DC voltage around 25-30 volts to actuate the relay, noting that polarity must be reversed going from closed to open or vice versa. 2) Red/Gray AND Blue/BlueWhite: These are thicker wire sets that you see on the outermost sides. These leads plug into the meter PCB to detect voltage as it is flowing through the relay. Note that these are not the leads the power the meter, they are there so that it can be known if after the relay is open there is voltage or not flowing to the service end. In other words, they are a sort of confirmation system. If the relay is open (disconnected) then there should be no voltage going to the house, and if the relay is closed there should be voltage. If someone's service was remotely disabled, and they manually turn it back on without first unplugging these wires, it will usually trigger a service call and the meter will be replaced. 3) Blue/White: Here we have the most important set. The thinner blue/white wires that are in the center connect to a current transformer (the donut shape thing) and these are used to measure the current. If you only disconnected these wires you'd gain unmetered electricity, but over time would likely trigger a service call and they would replace the meter. There are two options for dealing with this in a more discrete manner to lower the amount they charge: Splice in a stereo potentiometer (50-100K ohm is fine) and turn the knob as far clockwise as it can go, then turn on your most power-heavy appliances (electric oven, electric water heater, a/c, crypto miners) and slowly turn the knob counter-clockwise until the power reading is in some comfortable range. In order for it to work this way, you have to wire the pot properly. A stereo pot will have six pins in two rows of three. If you look at the pot from the front, with the knob facing you, lets number the front row of three pins 1, 2, and 3 with the rearmost row pins 4,5, and 6. The middle pins, 2 and 5, are connected to the wiper of the pot. This allows you to adjust the resistance between the these pins and the others. The connection would be like this: Cut the white wire and strip the ends. Solder one end to pin 2 and the other half to pin 3. Cut the blue wire in half and strip the ends. Solder one half to pin 5 and the other to pin 6. In this manner, the pot will operate just like the volume knob on a stereo. Turned fully counter-clockwise is max-resistance which means the power reading will be at or near zero. Full clockwise means min-resistance and the power reading will be at or near 100%. Note that instead of cutting and soldering directly to the wires in the meter, you can use solderless wire splice connectors (two per wire) to connect the pot to the wire. This way you can solder longer wires to the pot, then splice them using the snap connectors and lastly snip each wire on the meter as before. BLUE WIRE : -----[SPLICE 1]-----[CUT AFTER SPLICING]-----[SPLICE 2]----- WHITE WIRE: -----[SPLICE 3]-----[CUT AFTER SPLICING]-----[SPLICE 4]----- WARNING: Do not remove your meter while doing this. If you remove the meter or even tilt it, it will send a notification and within a week or two it will be replaced. You can remove the outer clear shell but you must leave the base of the meter in place while you do these things. To remove the clear shell, there is a small pin that has to be pulled out. If you do it carefully, you can pull that pin out without damaging it. There is plenty of room splice the wires but you need to be careful. The solderless wire splices make this a very easy mod.
@@LuisRamirez-pm7kv Those wires connect the current transformer found on the back plate to the PCB, which is how the meter measures power usage. Based on the amount of current flowing through the meter lugs, the voltage in these wires will be higher or lower. If you were to do something like splice in a voltage divider, you could have the meter read less than the actual current. If you unplug it, it will not meter power at all, but it will still be monitoring voltage.
@@RECESSIM Being that its just a DC brushless motor, it rotates till it hits a micro switch which then interrupts it so the motor doesnt burn out, micro switchs like that fail by the dozens, look at teslas door handle debacle for a good example of how it was re-engineered, so the motor probably has close to infinite life, it would be the gears and limit switchs that would die
For these ones, sent wirelessly. But you can’t shield the meter or it will disappear from the network and power company will come replace it or remove the material blocking it
@@RECESSIM interesting. I’m not saying I would do this (seriously, it’s not worth the effort), but it sounds like one could successfully put foil or metallic window screen around the meter temporarily, only when a forced blackout might be imminent, like this winter. But with this winter’s event in Texas, was the power cut per house with these smart meters? I assumed it was at neighborhood or substation switches.
@@RECESSIM - You are right. Load shed is normally done on a larger scale - usually at substations or feeders. They are (usually) remotely triggered through the network. In the case of Feb.2021 in Texas, a number of those remotely triggered off were unable to be turned back on remotely due to conditions caused by the extreme freezing temperatures. What was supposed to be short 30 to 60 minute rolling blackouts turned into days for many (including my home - 76 hours continuous). Crews had to go to the remote sites to fix what went wrong and then turn power back on. IF there was proper security on smart meters, and an established plan to identify what meters to cut off, smart meters would have been a better choice (where available). In that scenario, the substations would not have been the issue.
Hi! Great your content, I'm watching all your videos. Is it possible for the company to discover energy theft due to the difference in current on both phases and neutral?
I haven’t looked into that, but if you’re interested the data sheet for the Teridian chip used for metering outlines what features it has to help with detecting fraud.
They can't detect theft remotely of you use the plastic shut off clips on all four prongs and bridge the connections. When they shut you off though they only do one and obviously they don't use the caps anymore since it's all remote now. As for detecting theft it all depends on how it's wired and if your meter is working properly
Simple answer is yes. Your utility will normally track your average usage on both hot legs through a single CT pickup and create a baseline of common watthour consumption. Once the baseline is made, any drops in consumption are flagged and a technician might be dispatched to investigate the pan for tampering. These meters have multiple parameters and data setpoints as well as a few sensors built into them to detect and flag anything considered to be an abnormal operating condition. To circle back to your question regarding phase-to-neutral differences, that would only apply if you had a 120/208 3-wire service, because only that style meter would reference the neutral in order to measure watthours. A 120/240 3-wire service meter does not reference the neutral. In less words, much harder to steal the pixies...
So the remote disconnect feature will be used to make sure that people with better political connections will get more reliable power because they will influence the disconnect priority laws.
Yo so e strange question I can't get answered. A friend has a smart meter on pay as you go and debt so there's a account balance and debt to clear reading. She hasn't top up in months credit is -100+ debt to clear over 70 (debt to clear has to be zero before electric recobected) she doesn't want to alert anyone for obvious reasons but a family member recons it's the same as a 0day. Could you help shed a lil light plz. Would transform her life if a bounty could be changed and wanna go out of my way a little. Respect for your strange hobby :-)
Cant remove the meter without removing/cutting the tag with its wire . They will see the wire and its tag cut. Why cant I disrupt the meter with a rare earth magnet?
902-928MHz ISM band. Appears to be a custom frequency hopping protocol developed long ago and used in CellNet/UtiliNet devices along with L+G meters branded as GridStream
@@RECESSIM Security? Yeah. Wishful thinking. As a cyber guy in this industry, security is the last thing they think about on "smart" meters, if at all.
Thanks for this video. I have a sub-panel with its own smart meter that's behind my main meter, also a smart meter. This enables the power company to cut power to my sub panel to manage peak demand. In exchange, I get this electricity at a discounted price. This sub-panel handles heat, AC, and hot water. I also have an emergency generator. Here's the issue... If the sub-panel meter/switch were open (under load management) and there was an extended power outage, the sub-panel meter/switch stays open and the emergency generator can't provide power to the sub panel with heat, AC, etc. This leaves the possibility of being without heat/AC for an extended period if a large-scale power outage occurred. Thanks to your video, it looks like I have an emergency workaround but it would require breaking the seal. Is there any way to send a "close" signal to the meter when my generator kicks on? This is a problem that many people have but most don't know it. I assume it applies to numerous load management switching schemes.
That’s quite interesting, I’ve heard you can also control the relay within the meter via the IR port on the front as well, but need a password. I believe I have a password for a meter so I was thinking about making a device that could send commands to possibly turn it on/off. For emergencies like you mentioned, it would be very handy.
@@RECESSIM on a completely different topic, the fact you are replying to comments on videos over a year old shows me that you are engaged with your viewers which you don’t see that much on YT anymore. Granted, your content earned my subscription about a hour ago but seeing this just solidifies that decision. Now I just need to stop myself from binge watching every bit of your content so I actually learn a thing or two lol
Thanks for subscribing. I learn a lot from random comments or get ideas for new directions to go so I enjoy replying. Hacking & Reverse Engineering are “doing” endeavors in my view. Nice to watch some then take a break and see if you can replicate things or just try installing something new for fun.
@@RECESSIM well you’ll see a good bit of me in your comments from now on. I love hacking everyday items as well. Usually to fill some purpose like repairing, discovery or teaching my kids. Even though my software skills are weak at the moment my hardware knowledge isn’t and if I can help with my experiences I’ll be happy to contribute when I can. Just keep up the great work. My son and I are really enjoying your series about smart meters
Hi Brian, Hi all! I watched the other video with Gnu radio where i heard that Brian contributes to the project. Do You have the Rom from this switch some where in the internet? Maybe the IrDA password or the public key of the company could be extracted. I think that Meter doesnt sign its own messages sending and only forwards blobs from other meters. The idea of sending messages to the neighbour sounds plausible
They can remotely connect and disconnect from a computer with the tap of a key ,and charge more to turn your power back on then when they sent technicians out. Plus they can change meter reading remotely and no one would ever know. Change the meters over a large area by 1 point and make millions extra and nobody would be the wiser.
Before smart meters they put a plastic cap on the prongs that connect to the buildings circuitry. Super easy to leave the plastic in place and bridge the connections. Also you could do the same to a smart meter as well and all the button pushing in the world wouldn't stop you from having electricity. It's actually pretty trivial to steal power. Not that I am encouraging this behavior. Just mentioning it as it's relevant to the conversation. I used to be the guy that came and turned on your power and cut you off. I've seen people do everything from drilling holes and using a piece of metal to block meter gears to people wrapping their smart meter in tin foil.
I'm the guy who told guys like you to stop trespassing upon my private property, and proceeded to have you arrested if you showed up again without written permission. Needless to say, my interactions with your kind were minimal. One and done. BTW the "easement" myth is just that - a myth, especially in states where "code" requires 'residences' to have a power meter connected. It's also statutory in nature, and statutes require a contract - which you don't have.
Yes. As long ago as the 1980's there were stereo systems where you could plug an adapter into a 120 volt power outlet and another one into a 120 volt power outlet at another location in your house and you could have speakers at both locations to hear your stereo AND control the volume of the speakers and the CD track, radio station selection at each location.
This is very interesting and could provide a way for companies to cut the load. During the black out companies need to cut the load, and unfortunately it was not not cut in a smart way. (ok well in fairness, they kept the grid up, which was smart, but i digress...) If people used power smartly, and everyone only used 1/4 of the normal power, they could have kept some power on to everyone. It would have been nice if everyone was given a choice, limit your power use to 1 killowatt per hour, or have your power cut. It might also have been nice if power outages rolled like they were intended too but that is another story. Instead if people then could have turned off hot water heaters, stoves, furnaces ect, but still had lights, internet, and a few light bulbs near freezing water pipes to keep heat on. (Now whether that load be 1 killowatt per hour or 3 or 10 the point is load needed to be cut fast.) Coming from a northern climate, I would like to point out that people that wanted a warm home, they could have had a $150 kerosene heater, and 20 gallons of kerosene and produced enough heat to keep a house warm. Also if you had a generator, you likely ran that which also come in handy during hurricanes. The power company really needs to focus on big problems, -keeping power one for everyone, building new plants, insulating pipelines, having some power via alternative energies (coal ect), and not into micromanaging power cut. All that said, a smart meter than could cut power, might allow a system to limit that load. Each person gets X number of killowatts per day, (or per 6 hour window). Unfortunately shutting off the power is about the only way to get people serious attention, but once off people are willing to go to great lengths to get it back on. if one tripped these meters based on usage, you could cut load in a much less troublesome way. Cutting the power that way, allowing it to cycle more frequently, and making people aware of their usage would be a better outcome.
I understand that the power outage was complicated by many factors, uninsulated natural gas lines, complex power markets, weather, trees on lines, spot natural gas markets, foolish actions of people. What I find sad is some was easily preventable. The second largest user of power in homes is hot water heaters, something most of us would gladly give up, if the choice was a cold home. Everyone should be smart enough to approach the circuit breaker box and cut the circuit to the hot water heater. That was a public informational gap (and many people did burn out hot water heaters because they did not do this after power came back on). And many people failed to weatherize homes. Basic things like insulating water pipes, go a long way. And some of this can be done with very simple materials, (skirting around mobile homes). Sadly, there were lots of lost opportunities to make things better.
Yep. Unfortunately, load shed, may be done at a (remote) substation or feeder. The power is turned off by remote means, but many of those were unable to be switched back on during the February Storm Uri. Crews had to be sent to the substations to manually power them back on. If only people were smart enough to use power smartly... I heard of many people who said "My power's on and I'm cold (68F). I'm cranking the heat up!" while others were freezing and had no choice. :( I turned my heat down to 60 during the day and 50 at night. I wore plenty of layers of clothes. I ate canned food or other food that did not need to be heated. I would have cut the water heater to save, but the water pipes froze and exploded and made that decision for me anyways! LOL. Yes. There is much that *could* have been done. Some by the electric companies and some by individuals. This is not the last time we'll have these conditions. It's happened before and it *will* happen again. Personally, I'm weatherizing my residence and preparing for the next winter storm (generator, solar, no more frozen pipes, etc.). Lots to do and winter is coming sooner than you think.
Ridiculous. If you cut my power for high usage, but left all my neighbors on, I'm running an extension cord. We do it all the time after hurricanes. One side of the street might be without power while the other side has power. You'll see dozens of power cords running across the street.
@@fauxque5057 And that probably would not be a problem. A typical extension cord can handle up 1500 watts (up to 1875 temporarily) on a 15 amp circuit. I have run extension cords to neighboring houses as well. In these Load shedding situations you have homes pulling a lot more power. A hot water heater pulls 4500 watts. Electric Baseboard heaters can pull 1000 watts each and homes can easily have 4 or 5. The whole point is to get demand down, to where everyone still has power. One extension cord, or one heater will not keep your house warm, maybe one room, probably could keep your pipes from freezing (if the heat is put in the right place). It would be better to spread out the power so everyone can have a little. Any way that is done, is way better than having one person waste it all, and another have none.
Well actually he told you everything you need to know and see. All you would really need to do is slice Into the control wires and a attach and button you can click. The mechanism controlling the electric ports is simply a small rc motor going forward it reverse to open or close the ports which wouldn't take much force or effort.
Thanks for showing the mechanism and how it works. Most people don't know they can be disconnected or reconnected at will.
This video provides a good view of some important components, that are common on FOCUS model meters. FOCUS AX/AX-R and similar variations share the same physical shell. Now I'm going to talk about what people watching this video really want to know - what can be adjusted to adjust how much you 'pay' for electricity.
The answer is remarkably simple. Pause this video around the 2:06 mark where you can see several sets of wires. This wiring scheme is standard for all FOCUS meters:
1) Red/White pair: controls the remote disconnect relay if the meter is equipped with it. These are the -SD variants, so AXR-SD for example. The -SD means "service disconnect". Apply a DC voltage around 25-30 volts to actuate the relay, noting that polarity must be reversed going from closed to open or vice versa.
2) Red/Gray AND Blue/BlueWhite: These are thicker wire sets that you see on the outermost sides. These leads plug into the meter PCB to detect voltage as it is flowing through the relay. Note that these are not the leads the power the meter, they are there so that it can be known if after the relay is open there is voltage or not flowing to the service end. In other words, they are a sort of confirmation system. If the relay is open (disconnected) then there should be no voltage going to the house, and if the relay is closed there should be voltage. If someone's service was remotely disabled, and they manually turn it back on without first unplugging these wires, it will usually trigger a service call and the meter will be replaced.
3) Blue/White: Here we have the most important set. The thinner blue/white wires that are in the center connect to a current transformer (the donut shape thing) and these are used to measure the current. If you only disconnected these wires you'd gain unmetered electricity, but over time would likely trigger a service call and they would replace the meter. There are two options for dealing with this in a more discrete manner to lower the amount they charge:
Splice in a stereo potentiometer (50-100K ohm is fine) and turn the knob as far clockwise as it can go, then turn on your most power-heavy appliances (electric oven, electric water heater, a/c, crypto miners) and slowly turn the knob counter-clockwise until the power reading is in some comfortable range.
In order for it to work this way, you have to wire the pot properly. A stereo pot will have six pins in two rows of three. If you look at the pot from the front, with the knob facing you, lets number the front row of three pins 1, 2, and 3 with the rearmost row pins 4,5, and 6. The middle pins, 2 and 5, are connected to the wiper of the pot. This allows you to adjust the resistance between the these pins and the others. The connection would be like this:
Cut the white wire and strip the ends. Solder one end to pin 2 and the other half to pin 3.
Cut the blue wire in half and strip the ends. Solder one half to pin 5 and the other to pin 6.
In this manner, the pot will operate just like the volume knob on a stereo. Turned fully counter-clockwise is max-resistance which means the power reading will be at or near zero. Full clockwise means min-resistance and the power reading will be at or near 100%.
Note that instead of cutting and soldering directly to the wires in the meter, you can use solderless wire splice connectors (two per wire) to connect the pot to the wire. This way you can solder longer wires to the pot, then splice them using the snap connectors and lastly snip each wire on the meter as before.
BLUE WIRE : -----[SPLICE 1]-----[CUT AFTER SPLICING]-----[SPLICE 2]-----
WHITE WIRE: -----[SPLICE 3]-----[CUT AFTER SPLICING]-----[SPLICE 4]-----
WARNING: Do not remove your meter while doing this. If you remove the meter or even tilt it, it will send a notification and within a week or two it will be replaced. You can remove the outer clear shell but you must leave the base of the meter in place while you do these things. To remove the clear shell, there is a small pin that has to be pulled out. If you do it carefully, you can pull that pin out without damaging it. There is plenty of room splice the wires but you need to be careful. The solderless wire splices make this a very easy mod.
Hello bro how can i contact you
@@LuisRamirez-md6oz What do you need, my man?
I would like to know a little more information about the blue and white cables.
@@LuisRamirez-pm7kv Those wires connect the current transformer found on the back plate to the PCB, which is how the meter measures power usage. Based on the amount of current flowing through the meter lugs, the voltage in these wires will be higher or lower. If you were to do something like splice in a voltage divider, you could have the meter read less than the actual current. If you unplug it, it will not meter power at all, but it will still be monitoring voltage.
Hey brother, what if I only put a 100k resistor?
This is an awesome channel.
Thank you for the content.
Do I just remove the plastic ND put it back or do I open it up for I to disconnect the wires
Good video. How would you disable this? For testing purposes of course
Any way to force that on/off with a big magnet ;)
What is the model number?
Do you know what frequencies the remote disconnect signal comes through what modulation any wireless demonstration of this
It will be RTTY/CW. The frequency will be around 900MHz range.
on the bad meters, check the limit switchs, they tend to go bad quick, the motors usually fine
What do you mean by “limit switches?”
@@RECESSIM Being that its just a DC brushless motor, it rotates till it hits a micro switch which then interrupts it so the motor doesnt burn out, micro switchs like that fail by the dozens, look at teslas door handle debacle for a good example of how it was re-engineered, so the motor probably has close to infinite life, it would be the gears and limit switchs that would die
How can i contact you to show you the probes so maybe you can make a video about it? 🙂
those disconnects fail pretty often, surprised you found one still working on ebay haha
Yea, I took some others apart and noticed the gear mechanism had failed. I figured that’s why those were on eBay!
Is the disconnect command transmitted wirelessly (and could be blocked by shielding the meter) or sent through the power line?
For these ones, sent wirelessly. But you can’t shield the meter or it will disappear from the network and power company will come replace it or remove the material blocking it
@@RECESSIM interesting. I’m not saying I would do this (seriously, it’s not worth the effort), but it sounds like one could successfully put foil or metallic window screen around the meter temporarily, only when a forced blackout might be imminent, like this winter.
But with this winter’s event in Texas, was the power cut per house with these smart meters? I assumed it was at neighborhood or substation switches.
I never saw power cut at the meter level, it was on some larger scale because even the meters were all shut off.
@@RECESSIM - You are right. Load shed is normally done on a larger scale - usually at substations or feeders. They are (usually) remotely triggered through the network. In the case of Feb.2021 in Texas, a number of those remotely triggered off were unable to be turned back on remotely due to conditions caused by the extreme freezing temperatures. What was supposed to be short 30 to 60 minute rolling blackouts turned into days for many (including my home - 76 hours continuous). Crews had to go to the remote sites to fix what went wrong and then turn power back on. IF there was proper security on smart meters, and an established plan to identify what meters to cut off, smart meters would have been a better choice (where available). In that scenario, the substations would not have been the issue.
Wouldn't u think that they might make a meter with a internal battery to trigger an alarm for ppl who open it
Hi! Great your content, I'm watching all your videos. Is it possible for the company to discover energy theft due to the difference in current on both phases and neutral?
I haven’t looked into that, but if you’re interested the data sheet for the Teridian chip used for metering outlines what features it has to help with detecting fraud.
They can't detect theft remotely of you use the plastic shut off clips on all four prongs and bridge the connections. When they shut you off though they only do one and obviously they don't use the caps anymore since it's all remote now. As for detecting theft it all depends on how it's wired and if your meter is working properly
Simple answer is yes.
Your utility will normally track your average usage on both hot legs through a single CT pickup and create a baseline of common watthour consumption. Once the baseline is made, any drops in consumption are flagged and a technician might be dispatched to investigate the pan for tampering.
These meters have multiple parameters and data setpoints as well as a few sensors built into them to detect and flag anything considered to be an abnormal operating condition.
To circle back to your question regarding phase-to-neutral differences, that would only apply if you had a 120/208 3-wire service, because only that style meter would reference the neutral in order to measure watthours. A 120/240 3-wire service meter does not reference the neutral.
In less words, much harder to steal the pixies...
How do I open it
In my country we disconect metters using an IR probe. I am trying to get the apk to open and close metters with a probe with no success :(
Don’t have to pay anybody or worry about bad neighborhoods and still be asking for rate increases
How o open it up
So the remote disconnect feature will be used to make sure that people with better political connections will get more reliable power because they will influence the disconnect priority laws.
Yo so e strange question I can't get answered. A friend has a smart meter on pay as you go and debt so there's a account balance and debt to clear reading. She hasn't top up in months credit is -100+ debt to clear over 70 (debt to clear has to be zero before electric recobected) she doesn't want to alert anyone for obvious reasons but a family member recons it's the same as a 0day. Could you help shed a lil light plz. Would transform her life if a bounty could be changed and wanna go out of my way a little. Respect for your strange hobby :-)
How much rupees one parsal
Cant remove the meter without removing/cutting the tag with its wire . They will see the wire and its tag cut. Why cant I disrupt the meter with a rare earth magnet?
You have to be smarter than the tag. Use your mind and you can figure out how easy the security tag is to remove. I did years ago.
So, where does the signal come from? WIFI? LORA 915mhz?
902-928MHz ISM band. Appears to be a custom frequency hopping protocol developed long ago and used in CellNet/UtiliNet devices along with L+G meters branded as GridStream
Is there any security in the meter to prevent unauthorized people from remotely disconnecting the meter?
Don’t know yet…
@@RECESSIM Hopefully it is relatively secure fingers crossed.
You and me both
@@RECESSIM Security? Yeah. Wishful thinking. As a cyber guy in this industry, security is the last thing they think about on "smart" meters, if at all.
Never mind security. What about gov mandated cut off.
Thanks for this video. I have a sub-panel with its own smart meter that's behind my main meter, also a smart meter. This enables the power company to cut power to my sub panel to manage peak demand. In exchange, I get this electricity at a discounted price. This sub-panel handles heat, AC, and hot water.
I also have an emergency generator.
Here's the issue... If the sub-panel meter/switch were open (under load management) and there was an extended power outage, the sub-panel meter/switch stays open and the emergency generator can't provide power to the sub panel with heat, AC, etc. This leaves the possibility of being without heat/AC for an extended period if a large-scale power outage occurred.
Thanks to your video, it looks like I have an emergency workaround but it would require breaking the seal.
Is there any way to send a "close" signal to the meter when my generator kicks on? This is a problem that many people have but most don't know it. I assume it applies to numerous load management switching schemes.
That’s quite interesting, I’ve heard you can also control the relay within the meter via the IR port on the front as well, but need a password.
I believe I have a password for a meter so I was thinking about making a device that could send commands to possibly turn it on/off. For emergencies like you mentioned, it would be very handy.
@@RECESSIM on a completely different topic, the fact you are replying to comments on videos over a year old shows me that you are engaged with your viewers which you don’t see that much on YT anymore. Granted, your content earned my subscription about a hour ago but seeing this just solidifies that decision. Now I just need to stop myself from binge watching every bit of your content so I actually learn a thing or two lol
Thanks for subscribing. I learn a lot from random comments or get ideas for new directions to go so I enjoy replying. Hacking & Reverse Engineering are “doing” endeavors in my view. Nice to watch some then take a break and see if you can replicate things or just try installing something new for fun.
@@RECESSIM well you’ll see a good bit of me in your comments from now on. I love hacking everyday items as well. Usually to fill some purpose like repairing, discovery or teaching my kids. Even though my software skills are weak at the moment my hardware knowledge isn’t and if I can help with my experiences I’ll be happy to contribute when I can. Just keep up the great work. My son and I are really enjoying your series about smart meters
Hi Brian, Hi all! I watched the other video with Gnu radio where i heard that Brian contributes to the project. Do You have the Rom from this switch some where in the internet? Maybe the IrDA password or the public key of the company could be extracted. I think that Meter doesnt sign its own messages sending and only forwards blobs from other meters. The idea of sending messages to the neighbour sounds plausible
They can remotely connect and disconnect from a computer with the tap of a key ,and charge more to turn your power back on then when they sent technicians out. Plus they can change meter reading remotely and no one would ever know. Change the meters over a large area by 1 point and make millions extra and nobody would be the wiser.
Before smart meters they put a plastic cap on the prongs that connect to the buildings circuitry. Super easy to leave the plastic in place and bridge the connections. Also you could do the same to a smart meter as well and all the button pushing in the world wouldn't stop you from having electricity. It's actually pretty trivial to steal power. Not that I am encouraging this behavior. Just mentioning it as it's relevant to the conversation. I used to be the guy that came and turned on your power and cut you off. I've seen people do everything from drilling holes and using a piece of metal to block meter gears to people wrapping their smart meter in tin foil.
I'm the guy who told guys like you to stop trespassing upon my private property, and proceeded to have you arrested if you showed up again without written permission. Needless to say, my interactions with your kind were minimal. One and done. BTW the "easement" myth is just that - a myth, especially in states where "code" requires 'residences' to have a power meter connected. It's also statutory in nature, and statutes require a contract - which you don't have.
How do I hook my power up I only need it for 2 days until pay day
How do you bridge a meter safely?
@@alphaforce6998I have the same attitude. I’m not paying you for what is effectively a necessary-for-life utility. Gtfo my land and get a warrant.
I haven't put my meter on its been 3 dayss
So there is a hidden network on the actual electrical grid?
You can in fact send a signal through a power other than just the regular power.
Yes. As long ago as the 1980's there were stereo systems where you could plug an adapter into a 120 volt power outlet and another one into a 120 volt power outlet at another location in your house and you could have speakers at both locations to hear your stereo AND control the volume of the speakers and the CD track, radio station selection at each location.
They still use it for home automation, it's cslled PLC, power line communication
So they see if ur real intions of getting ur power on
Oh, here IT is :)
Google said hacking is a crime sir!
This is very interesting and could provide a way for companies to cut the load. During the black out companies need to cut the load, and unfortunately it was not not cut in a smart way. (ok well in fairness, they kept the grid up, which was smart, but i digress...) If people used power smartly, and everyone only used 1/4 of the normal power, they could have kept some power on to everyone. It would have been nice if everyone was given a choice, limit your power use to 1 killowatt per hour, or have your power cut. It might also have been nice if power outages rolled like they were intended too but that is another story. Instead if people then could have turned off hot water heaters, stoves, furnaces ect, but still had lights, internet, and a few light bulbs near freezing water pipes to keep heat on. (Now whether that load be 1 killowatt per hour or 3 or 10 the point is load needed to be cut fast.) Coming from a northern climate, I would like to point out that people that wanted a warm home, they could have had a $150 kerosene heater, and 20 gallons of kerosene and produced enough heat to keep a house warm. Also if you had a generator, you likely ran that which also come in handy during hurricanes. The power company really needs to focus on big problems, -keeping power one for everyone, building new plants, insulating pipelines, having some power via alternative energies (coal ect), and not into micromanaging power cut. All that said, a smart meter than could cut power, might allow a system to limit that load. Each person gets X number of killowatts per day, (or per 6 hour window). Unfortunately shutting off the power is about the only way to get people serious attention, but once off people are willing to go to great lengths to get it back on. if one tripped these meters based on usage, you could cut load in a much less troublesome way. Cutting the power that way, allowing it to cycle more frequently, and making people aware of their usage would be a better outcome.
I understand that the power outage was complicated by many factors, uninsulated natural gas lines, complex power markets, weather, trees on lines, spot natural gas markets, foolish actions of people. What I find sad is some was easily preventable. The second largest user of power in homes is hot water heaters, something most of us would gladly give up, if the choice was a cold home. Everyone should be smart enough to approach the circuit breaker box and cut the circuit to the hot water heater. That was a public informational gap (and many people did burn out hot water heaters because they did not do this after power came back on). And many people failed to weatherize homes. Basic things like insulating water pipes, go a long way. And some of this can be done with very simple materials, (skirting around mobile homes). Sadly, there were lots of lost opportunities to make things better.
Yep. Unfortunately, load shed, may be done at a (remote) substation or feeder. The power is turned off by remote means, but many of those were unable to be switched back on during the February Storm Uri. Crews had to be sent to the substations to manually power them back on.
If only people were smart enough to use power smartly... I heard of many people who said "My power's on and I'm cold (68F). I'm cranking the heat up!" while others were freezing and had no choice. :( I turned my heat down to 60 during the day and 50 at night. I wore plenty of layers of clothes. I ate canned food or other food that did not need to be heated. I would have cut the water heater to save, but the water pipes froze and exploded and made that decision for me anyways! LOL. Yes. There is much that *could* have been done. Some by the electric companies and some by individuals. This is not the last time we'll have these conditions. It's happened before and it *will* happen again. Personally, I'm weatherizing my residence and preparing for the next winter storm (generator, solar, no more frozen pipes, etc.). Lots to do and winter is coming sooner than you think.
Ridiculous. If you cut my power for high usage, but left all my neighbors on, I'm running an extension cord. We do it all the time after hurricanes. One side of the street might be without power while the other side has power. You'll see dozens of power cords running across the street.
@@fauxque5057 And that probably would not be a problem. A typical extension cord can handle up 1500 watts (up to 1875 temporarily) on a 15 amp circuit. I have run extension cords to neighboring houses as well. In these Load shedding situations you have homes pulling a lot more power. A hot water heater pulls 4500 watts. Electric Baseboard heaters can pull 1000 watts each and homes can easily have 4 or 5. The whole point is to get demand down, to where everyone still has power. One extension cord, or one heater will not keep your house warm, maybe one room, probably could keep your pipes from freezing (if the heat is put in the right place). It would be better to spread out the power so everyone can have a little. Any way that is done, is way better than having one person waste it all, and another have none.
Now if I put it back in I will be telling them I'm in the network
Smart meter turned on air conditioning when 20 degrees out side. We never touched meter
If you have a smart thermostat it’s also possible it was controlled that way too. Heard about that in Texas a while back, was in the news
Mine looks different
Email me a pic, hash@RECESSIM dot com
Dude I need help
sorry but this actually tells us nothing about how to disconnect the smart meter
Well actually he told you everything you need to know and see. All you would really need to do is slice Into the control wires and a attach and button you can click. The mechanism controlling the electric ports is simply a small rc motor going forward it reverse to open or close the ports which wouldn't take much force or effort.