Issue with Generator Sensing with non-ATS Generators

My Sense is also outside the panel, way too crowded to fit inside and also makes connecting to a second generator panel easier. I don’t think there is any concern about unplugging and reconnecting different sensors to the main Sense box while everything is still powered, as long as you are not reaching inside the breaker panel.:slight_smile:

The ammeter will work for sure, but it won’t broadcast to your phone. As long as you have internet and wifi with the generator Sense is more convenient since you can monitor generator load with your phone. I used to have an efergy system that I used exactly as you noted, to monitor power consumption with the generator. I would swap the probes when I powered up the generator, It had a small battery LCD display that sat on the kitchen counter that would show power. efergy was all battery powered so it worked just fine during a power outage.

If the power outage is local to our neighborhood block, then using the SENSE flex clamps would be ideal.

If it is a city-wide outage (power is off to the internet provider servers due to a hurricane), then maybe the local ammeter might be a better solution. @gbertocci You are correct, if there is no internet, then there are no SENSE readings available to the phone.

@capngeo I agree with your comments.

Dcdyer,
Shouldn’t the SENSE work when on the same (local) wifi even when the internet is down?

If you have working house power (generator or battery), but the internet is down, Sense will collect the data, up to its buffer limit, but you won’t see the new data collected during the outage in the app or web app until you can connect back up with the Sense mothership. The app doesn’t talk to the local monitor directly, except during setup or network test.

A post was split to a new topic: Survey: Does your home Generator have an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS)?

So, yet another weekend with my nose buried in the spaghetti of my panel. I have support scheduled to “LOOK” at my generator from their end tomorrow morning. I have been able to spoof the SENSE into reading the generator by plugging the Flex CTs into the mains port. Today I fired up the genny in anticipation of tomorrow’s support event, it took the load, and WTF??? SENSE is now reading the genny!

The Flex CTs are the second set they sent me, in the center port, and are on the wires backwards from the instructions. BUT it’s working so the decals don’t bother me much. The display has my HVAC in the “other” bubble, and only is recognizing one device (Fridge), but clearly shows the load on the genny, which is all I ever really wanted.

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Can you please post a picture of your breaker panel wiring or post a diagram on how you made it work. Thanks

UGH, the panel is spaghetti and hard to follow.

Here’s my best description: I have a generator interlock which forces the main breaker off before the generator breaker is able to close, back feeding the buss. The generator breaker (double pole) is fed by an inlet box near the generator. There is a 10/4 SOOM cord with L14-30 connectors which plug into the genny panel and the inlet box bringing 2x hot, neutral and ground from genny to breaker. I installed the flex cables decal facing genny. NOTE: I have tried this config before without success. It only seemed to start working after spoofing the SENSE by plugging the Flex into the mains port. Since putting the flex back to the center port, they read the generator and several (but not all) devices while on generator power.

Hi everyone. Sit tight on a solution for this for a few, please. There was some experimentation done on our end to get this to work for @capngeo. Replicating his set-up / configuration will not get this to work for you right now. I will have an update this week on what we’d like folks without an ATS to do.

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@JustinAtSense Let me know if you want me to switch the load to the generator. I can do it at any time, but really need to be going off to work soon.

@capngeo We don’t need you to do anything on your end. We’re set.

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Thanks for the patience here, everyone.
Please reach out to support@sense.com if you have a generator without an ATS that you are trying to monitor.

As a note, there are several potential issues that could arise from the adjustments we have to make on our end that support will notify you of prior to making any changes.

Justin,
Is there any progress to change the way generator monitoring for those with an ATS? We need the power consumed on the main panel and the ATS panel displayed simultaneously just like Solar. Having only one or the other displayed is not particularly helpful since one is unable to ensure that the loading is correct before a power outage.

I need to use Solar mode to make the feature useful even though this is a bit of a hack.

Thanks

Hi @gbertocci.
For users without an ATS, our Support team is able to make several adjustments on our end to get it to work for this group of community users as they write in. With no additional Dev work required to make this change, we were able to roll out a solution rather quickly with our Support team taking the lead

There is nothing like you have mentioned on the immediate roadmap, but if it is something you would like to see in the future i recommend creating a post in the Product Wishlist community subcategory with this request.

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I have the same issue as the others here, a backfeed breaker with an interlock bracket blocking the main breaker. I was disappointed to find the Sense with Flex could not calibrate without an ATS. The sales literature didn’t specify that.
I am, however, hopeful that the support team gets me all set up. I just emailed them. Has anyone else gotten theirs working?

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Please add your vote to this survey:

Survey: Home or Portable Generators? - Technical Questions - Sense

If you have read all of the posts in this forum, then you are aware that the SENSE software does not currently have a user-defined setup option for customers without an ATS (or who have a manual interlock system). However the support team can individually modify your system for you that allows your generator to be monitored. The problem is that you must coordinate your implementation (enter a ticket request) with the Support Desk. They made changes to my personal setup and now I can register my non-ATS home generator wattage input. They can setup a working solution for you.

Please take pictures and post your solution on this forum so other users can learn from your experience. Good Luck!

I just heard back from Sense support. This is what they said:

Thanks for reaching out to us. Sorry for the confusion on this.
Sense does not currently support generators without an ATS. This is still part of our long term plans for the generator monitoring feature, but is not available at this time. There was previously a work around which we had been able to create which allows for us to configure the generator monitoring feature for users previously, but we have made some updates to the back end of Sense which no longer allows for us to use the workaround that we had previous had for these situations.
We wouldn’t be able to turn that for you at this time, but we do still hope to support that moving forward. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Thanks,
Sense Customer Support

So, I guess I will have to wait, or try to trick the system to calibrate with the flex sensors one way, then move them and see if it works later on generator power.
I’ll post pics if I have any luck.

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I got the same response. Bit of a bummer as the interlock style of transfer should be the simplest system to configure. Since the interlock acts as an OR gate you don’t need to correlate and calibrate the generator consumption to the main feed consumption

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