Basic questions about the products for monitoring AC current

Hardware
1

We are a software company that needs to purchase equipment for CT sensor monitoring for the first time, and your products look like what we need, but we need to understand them a bit better before we buy. I apologize if any questions seem repetitive of information you already give in your product descriptions, but we are just trying to be absolutely sure we are purchasing the right combination of products.

Questions for this product: IoT Wireless Current Receiver

  1. This is meant to take input from a conditioned signal of a current sensor, and then output it wirelessly, correct?
  2. Is it necessary to purchase one of your modems in order to receive the data? ( If necessary, we would prefer ethernet, such as this one: https://store.ncd.io/product/industrial-iot-wireless-ethernet-modem/ ). If so, then given that we already have a current sensor, a signal conditioner and an instance of Node-Red, would we need anything other than these two products?
  3. Does “256 Sensor Node per Network” mean we could connect up to 256 of these transmitters to one gateway?

Questions for this product: Industrial IoT Wireless AC Current Monitor Sensor

  1. Does this product replace all the following components in one: A current sensor clamp, a signal conditioner, and a wireless transmitter?
  2. If it’s also the clamp, are there multiple sized clamps? We may be working with large cables.
  3. If this product transmits processed current data, would we also need a modem in order to receive this data? If so, then again, would we only need this product and the modem in order to have what we need to receive data into Node-Red?
2

Hi,

IoT 4-20mA Current Receiver:

  1. Yes and no. In a technical sense it is designed to take a conditioned signal from any 4-20mA source and output it wirelessly. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a current sensor. Although if you have a current sensor that outputs 4-20mA then yes.

  2. Yes it is necessary to have a modem to receive the translate the data into a protocol supported by most computers. Unfortunately our Node-Red library doesn’t currently support the Ethernet modem. It requires a serial port currently. While it is possible to create a virtual serial port to an ethernet TCP socket, we haven’t tested this for this particular scenario so we can’t guarantee it would work. Basically I would recommend the USB modem at least for testing/validation.

  3. That is correct. Keep in mind that if you speed up the reporting intervals on the sensors you can reduce this.

Industrial Current Monitor

  1. Yes

  2. Currently there are not multiple sizes of clamps. Using a different clamp will require custom firmware to calibrate the sensor.

  3. Yes. You only need this product, a modem, and a computer attached capable of running Node Red to work with these sensors.

3

Thank you for the thorough response, this definitely makes everything clear.