RTS meter makes clunking noise every hour, why ?

Hi ​@shetland ,

It’s likely the Contactor flipping a circuit on and off. However, it probably shouldn’t be doing that quite literally every hour, on the hour so you may want to get that checked out.

With that being said… RTS Service is ending permanently in September 2025 so you’ll want to get the meter swapped out for a Smart Meter sooner rather than later anyway.

Do you have a radio telemeter, or a radio teleswitch with associated meter? “RTS meter” could refer to either system. Here are two examples, similar on the face of it but one is a meter, the other isn’t.
  

  
I’m not sure how your E8 timings are delivered by the RTS, but it sounds unlikely that switching should be taking place hourly. The sooner you get your smart meter, the better.

Hey ​@shetland,

Our community members have offered some helpful advice here. Just wanted to add the following:
 

Check out our dedicated RTS FAQs page for more information.

Update on RTS shutdown:

As part of the RTS Project development, we are really happy to share with you our progress:

As you may be aware, the RTS signal that instructs some of our meters when to move to the “Off Peak Period”  will be closing down soon and we need to arrange for all of our RTS customers to have a meter exchange so they don’t lose any of their meter functionality.

The RTS signal will end for our customers on 30 June 2025. The period between 1 July - 30 September 2025 will then be used to close-down the RTS signal and allow us to manage any unexpected customers impacted.

Since June 2024 we have begun writing to our Economy 10 RTS customers to invite them to call us to arrange for their meter exchange. 

>  radio teleswitch with associated meter?

That one, there is also some kind of relay box connected in the mixture as well that is still there, with a new smart meter fitted today, no more clunking sounds, so I assume it was the radio teleswitch.

Still love to know, why it clunked ery hour, on the hour, even though it only gave us 7 hours of off peak electricity.

I was lucky I was the first customer the engineer visited, since they had been given 4 jobs to do in the morning alone, with mine taking 2 hours, add travel time on top of that ( It takes 2 hours to get to here from the hotel they are staying at on a good day.. ), no way they are going to be able to do that many !

What in the afternoon, another 4 ?

Is this why folk complain an engineer doesn’t show up to their appoitment, because management do not understand how long it takes to get from A to B, and to do the job.

Enginer told me ours wasn’t an easy quick job, and was full on busy the 2 hours.

I’m reminded a place I used to work, where management would pluck figures out of thin air to determine how many jobs was done per day, which didn’t match at all well, to reality.

Maybe this is why I heard talk of not turning off the RTS signal for another 3 years, as that might be a more realistic time scale to get everyone changed over.

This was our third engineer visit before we got a successful meter swap too.
 

7.10am CLUNK !

And the storage heaters are on.

Must be that relay unit then, since we now have a new meter.

But I didn’t hear it go clunk before..

Maybe because I’m going deaf in one ear, I don’t hear it so easily now !

Maybe it only does it when there is more than one storage heater on, so I’ll test that idea by turning all but one off, and see if it does any more clunking.

At least its not doing it every hour, just when turning them on and off.

Could be handy to build a sensor for that sound !

Though I imagine that would only tell me when they are being turned on, not off.

Anyhow:

Old meter setup on left, new meter setup on right:
( With identifiable details removed. )

Note, no additional costs have been mentioned at this point, so far, it appears a free install.

Left unit:
   KAIFA
   Adaptor: FL100
   MA100
   Manufacturer: Shenzhen Kalfa Technology ( Chengdu ) Co. , Ltd.
   No 99 Tianquan Rd., Hi-Tech Development Zone, Chengdu, P.R.C.

Right unit:
   EDMI ZigBee Certified product
   CS010A-08-B2
   2024-10-03
   Made in Romania
   HW version AE
   Standard 420

The clunky box, top middle that feeds to the consumer unit on the left, where all the storage heaters are connected, is I think an:

Eaton MEM Autoline 42ALCDP Double Pole 80A 250v AC1 unit

Since they don’t appear to make those new anymore, apart from haunting Ebay to find another, what modern unit would do the same job ?

Would I even need a new one, since maybe they all go CLUNK !

And, if I did get a new one, how much would an electrican typically charge to fit it, £6,000 ?

Since I imagine it would need at least 2 new consumer units, the whole house wiring tested, much paperwork/etc/etc.

I think that is the last quote I got !

Seems an awful lot, just to get of a clunk !

Or maybe replace it with a slightly newer sounding clunk. :-)

Now, this 7.10am turning on, I assume its supposed to turn on at 7am, but not everyone can be turnedon at the same time, as such my understanding is some are and some get slightly different times.

If I get a different time, will it be the same every day, or will it be like random ?

And, how much will it vary, I seem to recal someone mentioning it can be plus or minus 20 minutes from the time it is supposed to be, is that correct ?

I think I need AI to help me build a sensor to see when its on, or off, so I can coordinate that with other things that I only want to be on when the low tariff rate is active.
 

Hey ​@shetland,

Great to hear your RTS meter has finally been replaced!

I’ll see if ​@Lukepeniket_OVO can offer any helpful advice here 😊

In the meantime, we have lots of topics on the community where members have the same, or similar meter set ups. There might be some helpful advice in the following:
 

Asking AI might also be a helpful option. It does seem like a lot of money to get rid of the clunking sound! I suppose it depends on how distruptive you find it?

I usualy ask AI first, and then resort to forums when it doesn’t know the answer. :-)

Or I suspect the answer might be wrong !

The sound isn’t an issue, I want to know if its supposed to do that, or is it about to breakdown !

My guess is it’s supposed to, since its been doing that for like a decade.

I just wish I could find someone else, who said, “oh yeah, mine does that too, nothing to worry about !”

I ask everyone I can, but no answers so far.
 

​@shetland tagging you so you don’t miss this 😊 Luke to the rescue… AGAIN!

Tested it with just a single storage heater, and it still clunks, but at least it isn’t clunking every hour on the hour, just when the storage heater circuit is activated.

Gotcha, yeah that sounds much more like how it should be behaving!

If you’re happy to live with that then you should be good to go. Otherwise, you may be able to get some kind of sound dampening in the affected space to potentially neutralise it a bit.

What with your manifold obfuscations and the general blurriness of the photos, I’m having a bit of trouble deciphering your photos!

For a start, the EDMI box is on the left as I see it, with the KAIFA units on the right!

The EDMI unit is the comms hub, connected to the meter by means of the KAIFA FL100 Flying Lead. I suspect the engineer thought it would be easier to do this rather than juggle all those 25mm cables to make room for the comms hub on top of the meter where it would normally be. (All it does is provide a 12V DC supply to the comms hub; the communications from the meter are done over Zigbee. I don’t know why it’s made so complicated ...)

There appear to be six meter tails, which is unusual. The left-most two, a grey/blue pair, are the incoming line and neutral (N2) feeds from the service head (the black unit below the trunking).
  

Then guesswork takes over. N3 is the constant circuit’s neutral, and its line is the very dark one following it to the left and round an S bend to the white Henley blocks. That leaves two grey-sheathed ones. I suppose that the one closest to the camera is the line for the switched circuit, probably supplying the storage heaters. That switch is inside the meter and although it’s most probably a 100A beast, it will be less noisy when activating than the big old monster Luke referred to. That leaves a grey sheath with not much inside it, also coming from the right-hand end of the terminal enclosure. This could be a 2A line to the aforementioned control unit, e.g. for the hot water heater. Your electrician will be able to explain all this when he next comes to visit.

In any case, this is most probably a variant of the Kaifa MA120B (not MA100 as you wrote above), the ‘B’ signifying the fifth tail for the switched circuit. The sparse documentation I’ve been able to find indicates that the variant with buttons arranged vertically is V1, while the later V2 has buttons arranged horizontally. The first two digits of the meter serial number (MSN) which you so carefully hid from us give the year of manufacture; it may well be that the latest variants have reverted to vertical buttons again.

If I were you, I’d take some good clear photos of the whole lot, including the flimsy Meter Exchange Label to the left of the comms hub. You may have to refer to the readings it records at some stage in the future, and those labels have a habit of going missing over the years. 

Ah well, the left right mistake was a test to see who is observeant. :-)

I've taken some better resolution pictures to help.

The hot water is not controlled by the storage heater circuit, it can be turned on and off at will, and by a timer unit.

It for sure says MA120 and not MA120B :-)
 

There is a big switch on the wall, top right.

Hey ​@shetland,

Do you think it may be the control circuit like Luke suggested?

If the control circuit is the one that goes via this:

Eaton MEM Autoline 42ALCDP Double Pole 80A 250v AC1 unit

And then onto the consumer unit where the storage heaters are wired into, top left.

Then it must be, since the meter has been replaced.

Unless the new meter also clunks !

Do they clunk ?

It’s hard to be sure where the noise is coming from, since both units are so close to each other.

So it does, thanks. If ​@Lukepeniket_OVO is still watching, he might have some ideas about how to stuff six tails into four ports and, indeed, why:
  

I can only imagine that the control switchgear was there to help RTS protect the fragile island network from periodic overload. That may still be necessary, of course, so it will be interesting to hear what happens when the plug is finally pulled on RTS.  

Hey all, 

5&6 are in the ALCS connection which means its turning on a contactor, the contactor above is named ‘heating control circuit’, which when that is energised it makes the ‘clunk’ =]

Thanks, Luke. I know that’s what it looks like and what I initially thought when I couldn’t read the meter type. I can’t find any documentation for these meters, so I’m a bit surprised that the ‘non-B’ variant has a load control switch at all even if there’s no internal contactor:
  

Any idea why this Kaifa would have been installed instead of everybody else’s Aclara?

Do engineers routinely have flying leads in the van? I’m sure there are plenty of scenarios when it could be really helpful.

Hey bud =]

Yes it'll be down to stock levels, we haven't had Aclara 4T in a while so we are back to Kaifa/L&G.

Yes we do have flying leads and will also be getting longer versions aswell =]

Thanks ​@Lukepeniket_OVO - good to know.

Any news on how to deal with RTS on one side of the house while the meter’s on the other side? I’m thinking particularly of this scenario, which sounds as if it’s going to be really problematic: 
 

Hey ​@Firedog,

We currently have a Remote RTS technical solution currently going through sign off! So yes OVO will have a solution very soon.

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Unusual for a RTS to be clunking every hour but looking around the cupboard i can see the ‘control circuit’ and thats feeding a board. Its far more likely it was that control circuit clunking. =]
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By ‘control circuit’ do you mean the big box at the right top with a handle ?

That just has a fuse in it.

Or do you mean the box next to the top consumer unit on the right with:

Eaton MEM Autoline 42ALCDP Double Pole 80A 250v AC1 unit

Written on it.

That’s just a relay box isn’t it ?

Is that for a soft start for the storage heaters so them all coming on at once doesn’t cause any issues ?

As such, if it was clunking every hour, wouldn’t it be the RTS meter telling it to ?

With the new smart meter fitted, there is only a clunking noise when off peak comes on or goes off, not every hour.

Morning ​@shetland,

I’m just tagging ​@Lukepeniket_OVO so he can see your question and reply when he has the time to - I’m not sure on this one personally.