# Connecting pulse outputs to the Wattics Octopus

Written by Antonio Ruzzelli
Updated over a week ago

DISCLAIMER: The Octopus Gateway is no longer available through Wattics – please contact our support team (support@wattics.com) about connecting your Aquametro CONTOIL VZO 4 / 8 liquid fuel meters to the Wattics energy management platform through another gateway device (Carlo Gavazzi, Schneider, Accuenergy and more) available though Wattics.

This post outlines the wiring steps for connecting pulse units to the Wattics Octopus Gateway and I/O Extension units. Pulse units may come from pulsed meters such as Utility electricity/gas/water meters, electrical, water, gas and heat submeters, PLCs and other production control systems.

Once the pulse units wired, the Octopus devices must be configured to count, log and show measurements on your Wattics Energy Management Dashboard.

You can connect the pulse units to the Octopus Gateway or I/O Extension units in any available analog input.

## Hardware Connection – Octopus Gateway unit

The Octopus and I/O Extension units can accept 4 types of pulses, please refer to the correct wiring diagram depending on your metering setup.

### Dry Contacts Pulses

Dry Contacts (with no power source):

1. Power the Octopus off
2. Connect the Octopus V+ line to the meter’s input line
3. Connect the meter’s pulse output line to the Octopus digital input line
3. Power up the Octopus

Dry Contacts (already with power supply on common):
The first check is to ensure that the 3rd party power supply is DC and does not exceed the maximum voltage of 24VDC. Once this is confirmed, follow the steps below:

1. Power Octopus and controller off
2. Connect the GND from Octopus Power Supply to the GND of Controller power supply
3. Connect pulse output(s) from Controller to Octopus digital inputs
4. Power up both units

The problem with not having a common GND is that the voltage at the controller’s input can be higher than 24VDC.

### Diode Pulses

Same connection as the dry contact pulses but with polarity. That means the 24VDC and the pulse unit need to be connected to the right terminal input/output of the pulse meter.

### Transistor (PNP/NPN) Pulses

Pulses types need to be verified before the installation to avoid any problems.

## Hardware Connection – Octopus I/O Extension unit

The Octopus I/O Extension units can accept 4 types of pulses:

### Dry Contact Pulses

The Octopus I/O Extension unit has 16 pulse inputs and a 12VDC V+ terminal output. You can use that 12VDC V+ terminal output as common for all the pulse devices and wire the pulse outputs back to the Octopus I/O Extension unit.

​Another option in a Gateway + I/O Extension configuration is to use the 12VDC V+ terminal output of the I/O Extension unit for all the pulse devices connected to the Gateway and the I/O Extension unit, so you have a single common for your devices. Both options work the same equally.

Dry Contacts (with no power source):

1. Power the Octopus Gateway and I/O Extension unit off
2. Connect the Octopus I/O Extension unit’s V+ line to the meter’s input line
3. Connect the meter’s pulse output line to the Octopus I/O Extension unit’s digital input line
3. Power up the Octopus Gateway and I/O Extension Unit

Dry Contacts (already with power supply on common):
The first check is to ensure that the 3rd party controller’s power supply is DC and does not exceed the maximum voltage of 24VDC. Once this is confirmed, follow the steps below:

1. Power the Octopus Gateway, I/O Extension unit and third party controller off
2. Connect the GND from Octopus Power Supply to the GND of the 3rd party’s controller power supply
3. Connect pulse output(s) from third party controller to Octopus I/O Extension unit’s digital inputs
4. Power up all units

The problem with not having a common GND is that the voltage at the controller’s input can be higher than 24VDC.

### Diode Pulses

Same connection as the dry contact pulses but with polarity. That means the 24VDC and the pulse unit need to be connected to the right terminal input/output of the pulse meter.

### Transistor (PNP/NPN) Pulses

Pulses types need to be verified before the installation to avoid any problems.

You may contact us at support@wattics.com for any wiring clarification.

## Octopus Pulse Troubleshooting

If you have a question that is not asked and answered on these pages, please contact us at support@wattics.com

Does the GND lines of the Octopus server and IO extension units need to be connected if both units are used for pulse counts?

If the Octopus Gateway and the I/O Extension unit are on the same CANBus then they already share the GND, so you just need to connect it on one of the units.

- About

- Latest Posts

## Anthony Schoofs

Chief Technical Officer at Wattics

Anthony drives Wattics' innovation on energy efficiency for industrial and grid environments. Anthony is also behind WSNbuzz.com, a blog covering technology advances within the smart grid and IoT markets, and was listed in 2011 amongst the top 100 IoT thinkers. Anthony was recently awarded the Globe Sustainability Research Award for his contribution to advancing knowledge on sustainability.

### Latest posts by Anthony Schoofs (see all)

- Export your Wattics data to Tableau business intelligence software - December 8, 2017

- Connect your Schneider PowerLogic PM8000 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

- Connect your EIG Nexus 1500 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

How to wire different types of pulses?

The Octopus and I/O Extension units can accept 4 types of pulses, please refer to the correct wiring diagram depending on your metering setup.

### Dry Contact Pulses

Dry Contacts (with no power source):

1. Power the Octopus off
2. Connect the Octopus V+ line to the meter’s input line
3. Connect the meter’s pulse output line to the Octopus digital input line
3. Power up the Octopus

Dry Contacts (already with power supply on common):
The first check is to ensure that the 3rd party controller’s power supply is DC and does not exceed the maximum voltage of 24VDC. Once this is confirmed, follow the steps below:

1. Power Octopus and controller off
2. Connect the GND from Octopus Power Supply to the GND of the 3rd party controller’s power supply
3. Connect pulse output(s) from the 3rd party’s controller to Octopus digital inputs
4. Power up both units

The problem with not having a common GND is that the voltage at the 3rd party controller’s input can be higher than 24VDC.

### Diode Pulses

Same connection as the dry contact pulses but with polarity. That means the 24VDC and the pulse unit need to be connected to the right terminal input/output of the pulse meter.

### Transistor (PNP/NPN) Pulses

Pulses types need to be verified before the installation to avoid any problems.

- About

- Latest Posts

## Anthony Schoofs

Chief Technical Officer at Wattics

Anthony drives Wattics' innovation on energy efficiency for industrial and grid environments. Anthony is also behind WSNbuzz.com, a blog covering technology advances within the smart grid and IoT markets, and was listed in 2011 amongst the top 100 IoT thinkers. Anthony was recently awarded the Globe Sustainability Research Award for his contribution to advancing knowledge on sustainability.

### Latest posts by Anthony Schoofs (see all)

- Export your Wattics data to Tableau business intelligence software - December 8, 2017

- Connect your Schneider PowerLogic PM8000 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

- Connect your EIG Nexus 1500 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

Pulses are not counted by the Octopus, what should I do?

Should pulses not be counted by the Octopus devices, you can follow the following steps to troubleshoot the issue:

1 – Use a multimeter to verify that:

- Pulses are generated by the pulse-emitting device and visible at the multimeter. No pulses means an issue with the pulse-emitting device and not with the Octopus.

- The output voltage line of the pulse-emitting device goes back to near 0V between pulses. Any base voltage over 1V can possibly mean that the 0-24V transitions are not captured by the Octopus, requiring remote assistance to update the pulse threshold on the Octopus.

2 – Short the V+ terminal outputs of the Octopus devices with any of its terminal inputs to simulate pulses and check if these are counted by the Octopus. If they are not counted then it means that there is a misconfiguration with your Octopus software project, please check you have used the correct driver and the correct input number.

- About

- Latest Posts

## Anthony Schoofs

Chief Technical Officer at Wattics

Anthony drives Wattics' innovation on energy efficiency for industrial and grid environments. Anthony is also behind WSNbuzz.com, a blog covering technology advances within the smart grid and IoT markets, and was listed in 2011 amongst the top 100 IoT thinkers. Anthony was recently awarded the Globe Sustainability Research Award for his contribution to advancing knowledge on sustainability.

### Latest posts by Anthony Schoofs (see all)

- Export your Wattics data to Tableau business intelligence software - December 8, 2017

- Connect your Schneider PowerLogic PM8000 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

- Connect your EIG Nexus 1500 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

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- About

- Latest Posts

## Anthony Schoofs

Chief Technical Officer at Wattics

Anthony drives Wattics' innovation on energy efficiency for industrial and grid environments. Anthony is also behind WSNbuzz.com, a blog covering technology advances within the smart grid and IoT markets, and was listed in 2011 amongst the top 100 IoT thinkers. Anthony was recently awarded the Globe Sustainability Research Award for his contribution to advancing knowledge on sustainability.

### Latest posts by Anthony Schoofs (see all)

- Export your Wattics data to Tableau business intelligence software - December 8, 2017

- Connect your Schneider PowerLogic PM8000 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

- Connect your EIG Nexus 1500 meter to Wattics with the Obvius AcquiSuite EMB A8810 Data Acquisition Server - December 7, 2017

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