I took the Hopi to bits.

And here I thought I was the only person who found new "hidden" features after having a product for quite some time. I recently "found" a towel holder in my kitchen in my house. I have only owned this house for 8 years and walked by the holder every day. Unfortunately, that is not the first nor will it be the last thing like that to happen to me I am sure.

There's no way I could possibly compete with a Chinese manufacturer for designing and putting out a similar product. If I did all the work of the design it would promptly get sold from other sources.

Big Clive

Clive's reaction to the button was amazing. Like holy shit there's a button??

I watched a program on the national grid and it showed how they had stations " hot running " and ready to kick in when demand goes up. Its a scary balancing act as if that frequency goes to far out of balance and stations are not put on and taken of the network in time the entire grid can brown out or overload. I have a lot of a respect for those guys balancing the system. I am sure they are going to love the smart meters as they will get a hell of a lot more information on local demand ect than they do now. Not a job I would want to do and I have been on a team assembling ICBM warheads many years ago. Talk about stress !!!!!! WOW

Clive. Why not design the "clive alive " power analyser ? The chips are available and you could even use a decent SBC like a Pi or beaglebone. You could have it display everything you want. These CT pickups are so good these days. You would have to tap the supply to power it and help calculate real power / apparent power / power factor. Watts, coulombs, ma/A, voltage and impedance. Anything you want. You could have the pcb,s made up to test and tweak then have it made abroad. Once designed you would not have to do much. I can even have the unit calibrated to MOD standards for you as I know someone in the calibration business. You could end up with a VERY good product once the hard work is done you farm it out. I know your feelings on having things made in China ext but if you specify decent tolerance and specific parts you could make a nice little earner. I would love a really good quality power analyzer and I am sure I am not the only one. You could have IEC output, normal mains socket, bayonet cap and screw in. You could even offer a quick test unit that would plug into the IEC for example. Add a 10ma rcd on the output and use an isolated output supply and I think you would be onto a winner. Seriously it could bulk your pension up as it would be a highly accurate power analyser built to a high standard and the quality of the unit would make it sell itself. What are your thoughts ? I am sure you would get loads of support from us and yes it would be hard work and take some time but you could end up with a lab grade power analyser that would be portable and regarded the best of the best. Forget the fluffy things like CO2 output estimates and cost per year. Once you know what it eats for ten minutes you can work out the rest. Clive m8 I see the most stupid crappy things appear on kickstarter ect but you could really end up with something very useful for engineers and for fault finding ect. What do you think ? I am sure everyone here would back you and you could supply free units to those who put work into the project. Its worth considering isn't it ?

It's possible the 1-24 multiplier can be used to input how many pounds/euros/dollars your electricity costs. It can then read out numbers consumers might relate to. Maybe.

Roger Reinsch

It used to be hard enough to find the Hopi meters at all let alone from a UK seller. They're very much a Chinese thing.

Big Clive

Anybody know of a UK stockist for these?

SWITCH FUNCTIONS: https://bit.ly/2K1brXF https://bit.ly/2WnzfXo

mikenco

The "T" switch, according to the Chinglish manual: "Key: Adjust hours, display model, clear energy data."

mikenco

Here in Ireland, the line frequency does fluctuate quite a bit. Going by the EirGrid website, it varies according to the supply and demand with 50Hz meaning they are in balance. They have a webpage that shows the live frequency here: http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all/frequency

Seán Byrne

How long will it be until we see Big Clive taking apart Big Clive?! At least I'm glad that the Hopi didn't explosively self-disassemble after the experiment.

Xasin

that link shows details on the HOPI "T" button's use -

https://www.dhgate.com/product/hopi-hp-9800-handheld-power-meter-power-analyzer/435688031.html

ooooh no! The hopi is like buster from myth busters. The mascot of the show...

Michael Gilchrest

Damit, thought I would be the clever dick as I thought the CO2 may have been Cosine or CO Tangent. Could that second IC be being used as a counter and the serial data is actualy flowing the other way ?

These are the same instructions that mine came with too. After playing about with it, I found the default setting as the most useful. Things like how much CO2 has been "consumed" isn't really all that useful. The option to show the "Active electric energy" was quite useful to me, however you have to sacrifice the line frequency to see it which is a shame.

Berkeloid

That's interesting! :-) So annoying when the sellers put so many photos of the same thing at slightly different angles though... :-/

Stephen Eyles

I hope that you got it back together okay!

Rocco Rizzo

Technically you didn't take it to bits because it's still functioning :P

Jeroen van Oosten

Have posted the instructions I had on the community page.

Rather than rotate the socket why not just remove and blank off the shitty speaker terminals?

Jono Harley

How do you dare to touch the sacred flicker-thingy? :D

I've just put mine back together - I have a little program that reads the values off the USB port :)

I think the multiplier is a setting for the number of hours per day of use. I did some quick math and seems to fit with the numbers in the video.

Thor Syvertsen

It says what the button does here on the Ali Express page. I remember seeing it when I was looking at buying one. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/m.aliexpress.com/item/32375959317.html

🤣🤣🤣 the excitement and surprise when you notice the button!! Brilliant!

‘Bout time!

Adam Pepper