How does City Power switch off our geysers?

In Edenvale I have ripple switch. I also have geyser wise installed so I can easily see when the geyser is off. From Monday to Saturday, it's switched off from 7:30 to 12:00, and 18:00 to 20:30.

My ripple switch is in the box on the wall to my house where the main line comes from the box outside, not by the DB board.
 
So in a perfect work with a decent power grid these ripple relays could be used to ensure that the country is power effecient. Obviously the power grid in SA is a balls up so they are used to keep the lights on rather than just conserve electricity like an environmentally conscious society should.
 
encrypted said:
They hooked mine up to half the houses power once. So everything turned off at night. Bypassing it was quick and easy.
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I watched one of the technicians who installed our ripple switch and he almost did the same thing.

killerbyte said:
So in a perfect work with a decent power grid these ripple relays could be used to ensure that the country is power effecient. Obviously the power grid in SA is a balls up so they are used to keep the lights on rather than just conserve electricity like an environmentally conscious society should.
Click to expand...

Sure, as long as they maintain the ripple transceivers properly. We didn't see the need for one as we switch our geyser off during the day and outside of shower hours anyway, but it got installed regardless.
 
CataclysmZA said:
I watched one of the technicians who installed our ripple switch and he almost did the same thing.



Sure, as long as they maintain the ripple transceivers properly. We didn't see the need for one as we switch our geyser off during the day and outside of shower hours anyway, but it got installed regardless.
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I am a leading expert on these systems.
You need to be careful because if you turn the geyser off in some cases that also cuts power to the receiver. Without power it won't receive commands and you could end up with the OP's situation of having no hot water.

The photo in this thread is of a very old receiver circa 1981.
There are even older ones... Which are electromechanical.
They are waaaaay beyond their useful service life and fail... Like the one I removed from my property because it had already burnt out and was bridged out by the previous owner.

They are using very old equipment especially in the West Rand... If that stuff breaks there is no spare. Same story in New Zealand... The transmitters are antiques...the company who made them doesn't exist anymore.

Even so the modern digital receivers accept the signal... Without issue. Of course they ignore garbage like when the timing slips... The electromechanical receivers work just fine even with slipped bit timing.

This system has its flaws... The signal is attenuated by transformers and getting the signal to penetrate every house has always been a challenge. The answer remains a GSM based solution but.... BEE and AA put paid to those plans a long time ago
 
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