Green Eye Monitor Channel Expansion Support (GEM)

[Teken]

Last year in one of my threads I had asked about the road map for the GEM. One of the topics discussed was having the ability to expand the 32 channels to 48. I thought this would be a great official New Years thread to discuss this possibility.

As the initial question was posed deep in another discussion and would be lost.

So, my question is can the GEM actually be expanded past 32 channels? If it can will it come in a form of a daughter board or will it be another magic box that connects via RS232, WiFi, Ethernet, Zigbee?

I believe quite a few folks would be very interested if the GEM could support more 1-wire sensors and the different types such as humidity, moisture, light, etc. If this new magic box could do this task it would outstanding to say the least.

Please cast your vote, as this might help Brultech gauge the interest and the ROI in considering such a project.

[bgrubb1]

I have 8 more breakers I would LOVE to measure
Might make my DB actual match the POCO
..Barry

[bgrubb1]

Should have also mentioned
1 Wire is way cool, but I cant get wires to my GEM to make more than 2 work. Wireless solution ?

[daudet]

Same thing for me.
An extra 16 channels will be welcome so I can monitor individual cct on the shed panel. I am already maxed out after adding a 100A secondary panel.

Expanding 1-wire to accommodate more channels and other type of sensors like humidity, solar radiation and more would be an asset.

My vote is in.

[jloram]

32 power measuring channels is more than enough for me. If I could use some of those unused power measuring channels to measure voltage I could connect various sensors to them! That would be very useful!

[Teken]

32 power measuring channels is more than enough for me. If I could use some of those unused power measuring channels to measure voltage I could connect various sensors to them! That would be very useful!

Can you expand on that use case?

[ben]

I'll pass this on to Paul, the 16 channel upgrade is definitely on the road map.

In terms of an expansion module, 1-wire/pulse will probably not be happening. But, it looks like we should give a standalone 1-wire/pulse counting box (wireless) some more attention.

Ben

[jloram]

32 power measuring channels is more than enough for me. If I could use some of those unused power measuring channels to measure voltage I could connect various sensors to them! That would be very useful!

Can you expand on that use case?

There are a large number of low cost 'three wire' (pwr, gnd, signal) sensors avaiable to measure all sorts of things; pressure (liquid, air, barometric, differential, absolute), temp, flow, light, movement, moisture, humidity, sound, rpm, you-name-it. A lot of them come out of the automotive world. They require a ground connection, a few milliamps of 5-12 vdc for power and produce a signal voltage proportional to the physical parameter being measured.
-john-

[Teken]

32 power measuring channels is more than enough for me. If I could use some of those unused power measuring channels to measure voltage I could connect various sensors to them! That would be very useful!

Can you expand on that use case?

There are a large number of low cost 'three wire' (pwr, gnd, signal) sensors avaiable to measure all sorts of things; pressure (liquid, air, barometric, differential, absolute), temp, flow, light, movement, moisture, humidity, sound, rpm, you-name-it. A lot of them come out of the automotive world. They require a ground connection, a few milliamps of 5-12 vdc for power and produce a signal voltage proportional to the physical parameter being measured.
-john-

As I understand it, the GEM can not measure or display DC voltages, only AC.

[scyto]

[quote="Teken
As I understand it, the GEM can not measure or display DC voltages, only AC.[/quote]

But perhaps a magic new daughterboard could... or a different unit the DB could talk to on its second COM port?