I’ve had my head down for a few weeks with some outside things as well as trying to get PVoutput support out. There may be a few wrinkles as folks start to use it, but I think it came out pretty well and enables all of the functionality of PVoutput. This service is not mutually exclusive with the others. I have PVoutput churning away on my home unit along with a full configured influx service and a emoncms service.
The other major development going on is development of a new enclosure. This has been ongoing for a couple of months, and there is now a 3D design which should be prototyped with a 3D printer this week. If all goes well, the design then goes off to China to have a mold made. Long story short there should be a new enclosure available within about three months.
What does that mean? Well, the primary driver is cost. The current enclosure is produced in Vietnam, machined and printed in Japan, and then shipped here for assembly with the locally produced circuit board. It is expensive, has a long lead time, and there is a capacity issue. The new enclosure will cost 90% less and be produced locally here in New Hampshire with short lead times. The IoTaWatt will then qualify for a complete “Made in USA” label.
Another benefit is that the old enclosure was maxed out on openings. With this new enclosure, there will be two additional 5.5mm jacks for Direct-Reference three-phase use. With that addition, users who want greater accuracy for three-phase will need only two extra VTs (and receptacles to plug them into) to use Direct reference. I plan to make all new IoTaWatt three-phase capable for both the very successful and easy derived method and the more accurate Direct method.
There is another project underway to build a new high-current 50/60Hz CT calibration unit. With that, I plan to retest all of the CTs and do 50Hz or 60Hz phase correction based on the measured line frequency. This will work retroactively on all of the existing units, it’s just about doing the measurements and then pushing support in a future release.