On Dec 11, 9:06*pm, cynic wrote:
On 11 Dec, 17:59, "The Medway Handyman"



wrote:
Osprey wrote:
On 11 Dec, 11:10, wrote:
Hi All,

We had a new elec bill yesterday.
Their estimated was way off the actual reading.
On further investigation our meter is now running backwards!!
We dont have solar power or any other elecricity generating means.

About 18 months ago we had a new consumer unit fitted
with new tails to the meter from the main incoming fuse.

I wondered whether this had been wired incorrectly. Looking
at the cabling at the bottom of the meter left to right the 4
wires run as follows;
(from consumer unit) +ve, -ve, (from main fuse) -ve, +ve.
Is this correct? Anybody any ideas what is going on?
Would mis wiring a meter make it run backwards even?

They are coming to have a look in a fortnight but just wondered
whether anybody has any ideas?
Its very wierd...

It used to be a scam to reverse leads to make them run backwards -
then they out a ratchet mechanism in place to prevent this, so
surprised it's doing that.

Other scam used to be to place a magnet on side of meter to slow down
the horizontal disc .... but then they changed to Aluminium to beat
the dodge.

There was a distinctly dodgy gadget being sold around 20 years ago (maybe
longer). *It was a black box with 2 insulated leads coming out of it -
rather like the probes on a multi meter.

My mate had one on his factory. *The probes were pushed up next to the
cables (don't know which ones) & the meter did run backwards. *Got the
impression the black box contained a large coil of copper wire?

--
Dave - The Medway Handymanwww.medwayhandyman.co.uk-Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

'Twas usually a wall-wart supplying a current to the two probes at a
low voltage. Pushing the probes up alongside the outer two tails made
contact with the meter Lin and Lout then the wall wart injected a
current into the current coil of the meter. If you got them wrong way
round the meter ran faster. Greed was the usual tell-tale when
consumption suddenly dropped to rididiculously low levels or even
became negative if the wind-back exceeded the disc wind-forward of
normal usage. The other tell-tale was a 13A socket newly installed
next to the meter to power the cheatbox

Modern meters are modified to stop the scam working although some
utility companies re-use old recalibrated kit which may give you the
opportunity to cheat in the above manner

The next generation of smart meters that will be installed in the UK
in the next 5 years or so are a *lot* harder to beat. They have hall
sensors to detect if a magnet is used near them. They can detect
reverse current, bypass conditions. The readings are taken via GPRS or
PLC. Many also have contactors built-in so that the supplier can cut
you off remotely if you don't pay your bill on time.

Jon.