The first posting in our blog series on the generation of our product names was dedicated to the level converters. Today we elucidate the product names of our data loggers.
The name of all data loggers commence with “MUC“. MUC is an acronym for “Multi Utility Communication“ and is the central component respectively the core of the automatised remote meter reading known as Smart Metering.
According to the european directive all conceivable utilities are affected by Smart Metering, giving rise to the term “multi utility communication” (MUC). The term alludes to the gist of Smart Metering: taking readings of the consumption of various utilities (electricity, water, gas …), storing and transitting these according to the state of the art.
Precisely this is the taks of our MUC data loggers.
Our two data loggers of the MUC.easyplus family are advanced versions of the prior model MUC.easy. The “plus“ highlights new software features respectively extensions of the software. The “easy“ reflects the ease in commissioning, also when lacking expert knowledge in the operation and peculiarities of M-Bus communication. A simple configuration and the omission of external software pave the way for this.
These models query sensors and meters on their own for all utilities, analyse the received data and provide them for further processing. True Plug’n’Play saves time and effort.
The MUC.easyplus 4G is able to communicate also via a 4G WAN-interface (LTE).
The data loggers composing the MUC500 family are the specialists among our data loggers. They are intended for addressing large meter infrastructures.
Wired, the MUC500 M with its versions 125/250/500 is able to handle up to 500 unit loads, wherein the “M“ stands for M-Bus and the „125“, „250“ and „500“ reveals the quantity of M-Bus-meters that can be connected.
The wireless version MUC500 W (“W“ is for wM-Bus) houses up to two receivers. This enables for example the parallel operation of infrastructures working in the S-, T- and C-mode or the exploitation of two different frequency bands.
The MUC500 W1 supports the frequency band 868 MHz, established for the OMS-communication, and the MUC500 W2 supports the reading of meters using the frequency band 433 MHz.
To this adds our data logger MBUS-GSLE. It has a special position. While its software is comparable to the other data loggers, it serves as “second“ master in a M-Bus installation. If inserted between the existing master and the meters, the MBUS-GSLE carries out the actual reading. It thus enables the provision of the M-Bus data for the existing master, and the remote transmission via Ethernet to a second receiver as data in the format XML or CSV. The data are fed into the existing master via the slave interface of the MBUS-GSLE and the data stored therein.
On this background we can derive the product name: “G“ stands for gateway. Gateway? Why not data logger? For that we have a simple explanation: because our MBUS-GSLE master is dubbed slave and this function was and is the prime task. Data logging is rather a fringe feature. Put alternatively: it has grown historically.
Also the rest is plausible. “SL“ is for slave and “E“ stands for Ethernet.
In the next part we will delve deeper in the labeling of our M-Bus gateways.
