How to configure my Eastron SDM230/SDM630mct - LoRaWAN with the Wattsense Box ?

This article is a tutorial for installing and setting up an Eastron SDM230/SDM630mct - LoRaWAN energy metering to your Wattsense product. This equipment is communicating through LoRaWAN. You can learn more about our LoRaWAN architecture in this article.

You can find attached the Eastron's datasheets for your information. Most of the informations in the current article are sourced from it.

Eastron side

Please follow the installation guide to set-up your equipment correctly. From chapter 4.3: Setting 2, you will start the LoRaWAN configuration. Note the DevEUI, the AppEUI and the AppKey of your equipment. You will need those informations later. Be sure your equipment is set in OTAA join-mode and not ABP.

Example:

DevEUI:8680000130268676
AppEUI:8680000230268676
AppKey:0B11EB267EC70FBEDCC85C1379C2D74A

I will be using an Eastron SDM630mct for the examples of this article. The principle is the same with the SDM230.

Wattsense side

You can now add your equipment to your Wattsense Tower/Bridge from the console.

Go to Configuration > Equipment tab and add an equipment from the Configuration Wizard.

Select your Eastron equipment in the list and choose LoRaWAN protocol. You can now enter your credentials from earlier.

You can enter 0 in the two additionnal parameters Active parameters configuration downlink and Active parameters per batch. We will come back to it later.

Set up your device as a Class C type.

On the properties selection page, you can select the points you want to monitor. In addition, you have to enable the Encoded downlink message and Raw encoded payload properties.

Save your configuration and push it to your box.

Check on the sensor if the JOIN procedure succeeded. If not, verify if the DevEUI, AppEUI and AppKey are matching. You can force a re-JOIN attempt directly on the sensor (chapter 4.3.3 of the user guide)

Enable the properties on the Eastron

An Eastron LoRaWAN equipment is expecting some commands in order to push the correct properties to the Wattsense. Those commands are sent from the Encoded downlink message property on the console.

To learn more about downlink commands from the Wattsense console, you can follow this tutorial.

Every commands informations are explained in Eastron's user guides and datasheets. We sum up the different steps to make it easier for the customer.

I. Authentication

First the equipment requires an authentication with a password. Three different downlinks are expected for that first step. Send them successively:

010300180002440C:1
01100018000204447A0000C62C:1
0103000E0002A5C8:1

 

II. Batch size

The next downlink is to define the number of parameters to send per batch (range 3~8). If the number of measured properties is higher than the batch size, the equipment will send them in multiple payloads.

Example: [Batch size = 5  |  active properties = 12]  --> The sensor will send 3 different payloads to communicate every properties.

0110FE1200010200057AEE:1

This part depends on the Batch Size you want. Here Batch Size = 5
The CheckSum (CRC) can be calculated using this website. Here CRC = 7AEE

 

III. Active parameters

Finally, the last downlink to send is the definition of the parameters. Every HEX registers for each parameters are defined in the Lorawan Table datasheet from Eastron. In the following example, I am requesting for Total active power, Total current and L1/L2/L3 voltage.

0110FE02000F1E0A13000102FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF2B7A:1

0A -> Total Current
13 -> Total Active Power
00 -> L1 volt
01 -> L2 volt
02 -> L3 volt
FF(25x) -> Empty
2B 7A: CRC (needs to be calculated as in the previous step)

The definition of the parameters must be 30 bytes long. Add FF for the empty parameters.

 

You should get a sucess response payload in the Raw encoded payload property when a downlink is received by the sensor. It usually takes the form 0110FE1200019024:1

 

If one of the downlinks could not be processed, you should get an error response payload: 0190018DC0:1 . You should try again and verify the CRC and the format of the downlink.

 

Finish the codec configuration

Now that the sensor is correctly set-up, we can finally synchronize the Wattsense codec with the enabled parameters.

Go back to your sensor's configuration and complete the two remaining fields with the informations sent to the sensor in the previous part (II. and III.)

Save and push the changes to the box. You should be able to read the properties you selected.

For more informations, you can check some configuration examples attached to this article. You can also refer to Eastron documentation for more details.

If you need any additional information, please contact us here.