Any TED Experts?

Since I don't know what a TED is, I'm guessing I'm not an expert.

Hi Jeff,

I don't know if I would call myself a TED expert but I have been using a TED device for about 1.5 years now for measuring our electricity consumption. I also use it to monitor and log our Tesla's energy consumption.

Feel free to ask me any other questions but here are my thoughts:

We purchased the basic TED 5000 as it was the cheaper option and looked to be good enough for what we wanted. So with the TED 5000 you are only able to measure your home's entire electricity consumption. They claim that it can do "load profiling" where it can categorize specific loads but I had no luck in trying to get it to identify any loads whether it was the Tesla charging, hot water tank, heat pumps, etc.

What this has forced me to do is to record the data manually every time I charge which is super inconvenient and probably introduces some error. I recently purchased a cheap CT probe that I am going to rig up to measure only the EV circuit to eliminate me having to record manually.

However, if I had my time back I would have purchased the TED Pro Home with the TED Spyder so I could have had one system to monitor everything. I still may do this at some point.

With the TED Spyder you can measure up to 8 separate circuits or up to 16 with two Spyders.
When your order you can specify different Spyder packages to make sure you have the right CT's for what your measuring.

You mentioned you were using an HPWC, so depending on which charge setting you have set you will have to get a different CT. If you are charging at 60 A or less you could use a 60 amp CT's but if you are charging at the full 80 A, you will have use a 200 A CT. They have different packages with a mix of CT's so select one that suits your needs. Probably can't go wrong with the Spyder pop package as its got a good mix of different sizes.

I would suggest:
- TED PRO HOME - $300
- Spyder pop package - $170 which includes (2) 200 A CTs, (2) 60 A CTs, and (4) 40 A CTs.
- You can also add the wired or wireless displays if you'd like but I never use the one I have as I am always viewing the data on my phone or tablet or computer.

Like I said, any other questions I can try to help further.

I have had a TED for quite a few years now. I have 3 MTUs in my setup: one on the whole house, one on my electric water heater circuit and one on the circuit that supplies the NEMA 14-50 in my garage for the car.

It works well enough, but I did have a tricky time getting it set up. It uses PLC (powerline carrier) to communicate between the MTU in your breaker panel and the base unit that you place near your router for internet connection. I was already utilizing a PLC-based Home Automation system and the two technologies sharing the powerlines to "talk" could not get along. I had to "isolate" the branch circuit between my panel and the TED base unit with filters so that it could talk on a clear path. It meant that I could have no HA devices on that circuit, and I had to filter my plasma TV (on that same branch) with its own plug-in noise filter.

Things like TVs, CFL light bulbs and such can all create "noise" on the powerline which can make getting the TED to work problematic until you figure it all out. PLC is the Achilles Heel of this technology. IMHO, they should have used something like a ZigBee wireless connection.

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>NetZero said:

So with the TED 5000 you are only able to measure your home's entire electricity consumption. They claim that it can do "load profiling" where it can categorize specific loads but I had no luck in trying to get it to identify any loads whether it was the Tesla charging, hot water tank, heat pumps, etc.

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Not necessarily. While most would use a single MTU TED setup to measure the whole house, there's no reason you couldn't just put the CTs on the EV charging circuit.

I also did not have much luck with TED's profiling ability.

The TED Pro Home with the Spyder pop package should be able to what you want if I understand what you want to monitor.

The TED Pro Home comes with one set of 200A split core CT clamps that will go around your two mains coming into your main panel. This will measure the main panel.
Using the TED spyder and the pop package:
Use one of the 200A split core CT clamps for measuring your HPWC.
Use the other 200A split core CT clamp for measuring the 100 A circuit going to your main house panel.
Use one of the 60A single core CT clamps for measuring the other EVSE circuit (assuming this circuit is 60A or less)

You'll be left with one 60A and four 20A CTs that you won't need unless you want to measure specific circuits on your main house panel. However, to do so your going to need another MTU and another spyder. I don't think you can buy the spyder separately so you'll need to purchase another spyder package which will come with even more CTs.

jeffro01 said:

THANKS!!! By any chance do you happen to know how I should connect the two CTs for the quad pole 200amp main? My thought is put both Red wires in one and both Black wires in the other but I have no idea how big these things are (the CTs).

Sucks that I'll need another MTU for the other panel but I believe that's "normal" from what I can tell.

Jeff

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Careful here. If you don't know what your doing get an electrician to install. If you shut your main off the main wiring and bolts itself is still live and WILL kill you if touched.

Not sure I follow you on two red wires and two black wires.

The two CTS for the for your main panel will be clamped around the two mains coming in to the panel shown in these two photos. The other end of the two CTS is plugged directly into the MTU. There is more information available in their support documentation at http://www.theenergydetective.com/prodocs



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yobigd20 said:

Careful here. If you don't know what your doing get an electrician to install. If you shut your main off the main wiring and bolts itself is still live and WILL kill you if touched.

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Agreed. Definitely something that should not be done unless you know exactly what you are doing. Hire an electrician if you have even the slightest doubt. Actually, on second thought, I would recommend everybody use an electrician when installing one of these devices.

OP did you ever go ahead with the installation? I'm looking at TED and, like you, was equally confused by their web site.

I have a main panel and a subpanel/manual transfer switch for connecting in a generator. I have no need to monitor the subpanel as a whole, but some of the circuits (AC, water heater) I want to monitor individually. My 50A charging circuit is on the main panel, which I naturally want to monitor as well.

It's not clear if I should get the package with 2 MTUs, along with two spiders, or if I can do this with one MTU. The panels are immediately adjacent so a spider should be able to reach between the panels. I would probably just run some conduit between the two panels and route the spider wiring through that.

Thoughts/suggestions?

jeffro01 said:

Nope... I'm still trying to get a clear answer as to how I can monitor my panel when the service wires from the meter to my main 200amp breaker are 4 separate wires rather than 2 as most installations are. Do I put one coil around the two black wires and one coil around the two red ones or do I need four coils? Should put the coils around the incoming service wires before they hit the meter since there is only the two there?

Until I can understand how that works, then I won't purchase anything and given that it's been several months since I asked this... Yeah...

Jeff

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It seems like putting them around the incoming service wires would work. I'm not familiar with this setup and why there are four incoming leads. What's on the other side of the breaker? Do the two reds attach to a common bus, or do actually have four different hot busses in your panel?

jeffro01 said:

Nope... I'm still trying to get a clear answer as to how I can monitor my panel when the service wires from the meter to my main 200amp breaker are 4 separate wires rather than 2 as most installations are. Do I put one coil around the two black wires and one coil around the two red ones or do I need four coils? Should put the coils around the incoming service wires before they hit the meter since there is only the two there?

Until I can understand how that works, then I won't purchase anything and given that it's been several months since I asked this... Yeah...

Jeff

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It sounds like they have parallelled the incoming lines from the meter to the panel to provide enough capacity. I'm not sure that is to code, although if both conductors are the same size, there should be no imbalance in the current flowing on each pair. Yes, you should put one CT around the two black wires and the other around the two red (if it will fit).

dkellyb717 said:

OP did you ever go ahead with the installation? I'm looking at TED and, like you, was equally confused by their web site.

I have a main panel and a subpanel/manual transfer switch for connecting in a generator. I have no need to monitor the subpanel as a whole, but some of the circuits (AC, water heater) I want to monitor individually. My 50A charging circuit is on the main panel, which I naturally want to monitor as well.

It's not clear if I should get the package with 2 MTUs, along with two spiders, or if I can do this with one MTU. The panels are immediately adjacent so a spider should be able to reach between the panels. I would probably just run some conduit between the two panels and route the spider wiring through that.

Thoughts/suggestions?

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If you don't want to spend a lot of money you might consider this Bayite meter for each individual load. I have several at home, and a couple I wired to extension cords so I could monitor anything I plug into that extension cord. I have an older TED1000 on my water heater, and a Neurio energy monitor in my main panel monitoring my whole house power usage and my solar generation. The Neurio was pretty cheap - around $280. All this stuff is real easy to install, and if you're not sure where to clamp the CTs, its not like you're going to blow something up if you put them in the wrong place. Just have to be careful where you put your hands. Wear rubber gloves and proper PPE when working in your main panel.

I can't think of any. Haven't tried it myself. But the CTs can't hurt anything. They just have to face the right direction to work properly. My Neurio took a lot of playing with to get it working right. (If you haven't seen them, the CTs will have a dot or other mark on one side, and the directions will tell you to make sure the dot or whatever faces the source of power. I of course installed them every wrong way possible before getting them correct.)