Introduction
If your meter supports Power Line Communication you can read your meter using existing power lines and you don't need external wires to read data from your meter. PLC is very handy if the distance between the client and the meter is not too long and if there are no big engines, etc. that are causing disruptions to the power line.
You need meter that supports PLC and PLC modem to get started. PLC modem is connected to your PC. There are different kind of modems so make sure that it supports CENELEC-A band. Usually meters are using CENELEC-A band, but you need to check that from the meter documentation.
There are two different PLC protocols.- PLC Logical link control (LLC) profile is used with IEC 61334-4-32 connectionless LLC sublayer
- PLC Logical link control (LLC) profile is used with HDLC
GXDLMSDirector
First you need to find all the PLC meters from the network. This is done using PLC discover. You can find it from the Tools menu.Connect to the modem
Select media type. Modem can be connected to your PC using serial port or you can connect using TCP/IP connection. Then set correct communication parameters to access the modem.Interface type
As described before, DLMS meters are using two different type of PLC interface type. You can select correct interface type fro the Edit menu. If the meter doesn't reply, try the other one.Discovering the meters
After you can connect to the modem, it's time to discover the available meter. Some times discovery might take a long time and for this reason there is no timeout for discovering the meter. If the meter is not reply, just stop the discovering and try to search again. After you have find the correct meter you need to check is this a new meter or is it registered already. If it is a new meter, you need to register it.
Registering a new meter
Register menu is disabled until you have close the discovery. In the registration phase you give System title and MAC address for the meter. Each meter must have unique MAC address. MAC address is unsigned integer value. After you have registered the meter, try to search it again and verify that MAC address is changed.
Creating the device
After you have register the meter you can create the device from it. You can create it as normal, but there is a "Create Device" that sets correct parameters. Select meter that you want to create and set the name for the meter. When the device is created, you can start to communicate with it as always.Client example
Meter must be registered if you are using client example. Client example only read data from the meter and register functionality is not added to it. You can read the PLC meter using correct interface type (Plc or PlcHdlc) and setting meter MAC address. MAC address is unsigned integer number.
GuruxDLMSCLient -h MODEM_ADDRESS -p PORT_NUMBER -i Plc -m 4 -t Verbose