Thanks for showing the mechanism and how it works. Most people don't know they can be disconnected or reconnected at will.

This video provides a good view of some important components, that are common on FOCUS model meters. FOCUS AX/AX-R and similar variations share the same physical shell. Now I'm going to talk about what people watching this video really want to know - what can be adjusted to adjust how much you 'pay' for electricity. The answer is remarkably simple. Pause this video around the 2:06 mark where you can see several sets of wires. This wiring scheme is standard for all FOCUS meters: 1) Red/White pair: controls the remote disconnect relay if the meter is equipped with it. These are the -SD variants, so AXR-SD for example. The -SD means "service disconnect". Apply a DC voltage around 25-30 volts to actuate the relay, noting that polarity must be reversed going from closed to open or vice versa. 2) Red/Gray AND Blue/BlueWhite: These are thicker wire sets that you see on the outermost sides. These leads plug into the meter PCB to detect voltage as it is flowing through the relay. Note that these are not the leads the power the meter, they are there so that it can be known if after the relay is open there is voltage or not flowing to the service end. In other words, they are a sort of confirmation system. If the relay is open (disconnected) then there should be no voltage going to the house, and if the relay is closed there should be voltage. If someone's service was remotely disabled, and they manually turn it back on without first unplugging these wires, it will usually trigger a service call and the meter will be replaced. 3) Blue/White: Here we have the most important set. The thinner blue/white wires that are in the center connect to a current transformer (the donut shape thing) and these are used to measure the current. If you only disconnected these wires you'd gain unmetered electricity, but over time would likely trigger a service call and they would replace the meter. There are two options for dealing with this in a more discrete manner to lower the amount they charge: Splice in a stereo potentiometer (50-100K ohm is fine) and turn the knob as far clockwise as it can go, then turn on your most power-heavy appliances (electric oven, electric water heater, a/c, crypto miners) and slowly turn the knob counter-clockwise until the power reading is in some comfortable range. In order for it to work this way, you have to wire the pot properly. A stereo pot will have six pins in two rows of three. If you look at the pot from the front, with the knob facing you, lets number the front row of three pins 1, 2, and 3 with the rearmost row pins 4,5, and 6. The middle pins, 2 and 5, are connected to the wiper of the pot. This allows you to adjust the resistance between the these pins and the others. The connection would be like this: Cut the white wire and strip the ends. Solder one end to pin 2 and the other half to pin 3. Cut the blue wire in half and strip the ends. Solder one half to pin 5 and the other to pin 6. In this manner, the pot will operate just like the volume knob on a stereo. Turned fully counter-clockwise is max-resistance which means the power reading will be at or near zero. Full clockwise means min-resistance and the power reading will be at or near 100%. Note that instead of cutting and soldering directly to the wires in the meter, you can use solderless wire splice connectors (two per wire) to connect the pot to the wire. This way you can solder longer wires to the pot, then splice them using the snap connectors and lastly snip each wire on the meter as before. BLUE WIRE : -----[SPLICE 1]-----[CUT AFTER SPLICING]-----[SPLICE 2]----- WHITE WIRE: -----[SPLICE 3]-----[CUT AFTER SPLICING]-----[SPLICE 4]----- WARNING: Do not remove your meter while doing this. If you remove the meter or even tilt it, it will send a notification and within a week or two it will be replaced. You can remove the outer clear shell but you must leave the base of the meter in place while you do these things. To remove the clear shell, there is a small pin that has to be pulled out. If you do it carefully, you can pull that pin out without damaging it. There is plenty of room splice the wires but you need to be careful. The solderless wire splices make this a very easy mod.

This is an awesome channel. Thank you for the content.

Good video. How would you disable this? For testing purposes of course

Do I just remove the plastic ND put it back or do I open it up for I to disconnect the wires

Any way to force that on/off with a big magnet ;)

on the bad meters, check the limit switchs, they tend to go bad quick, the motors usually fine

Do you know what frequencies the remote disconnect signal comes through what modulation any wireless demonstration of this

Wouldn't u think that they might make a meter with a internal battery to trigger an alarm for ppl who open it

In my country we disconect metters using an IR probe. I am trying to get the apk to open and close metters with a probe with no success :(

How can i contact you to show you the probes so maybe you can make a video about it? 🙂

those disconnects fail pretty often, surprised you found one still working on ebay haha

Yo so e strange question I can't get answered. A friend has a smart meter on pay as you go and debt so there's a account balance and debt to clear reading. She hasn't top up in months credit is -100+ debt to clear over 70 (debt to clear has to be zero before electric recobected) she doesn't want to alert anyone for obvious reasons but a family member recons it's the same as a 0day. Could you help shed a lil light plz. Would transform her life if a bounty could be changed and wanna go out of my way a little. Respect for your strange hobby :-)

Cant remove the meter without removing/cutting the tag with its wire . They will see the wire and its tag cut. Why cant I disrupt the meter with a rare earth magnet?

Don’t have to pay anybody or worry about bad neighborhoods and still be asking for rate increases

Is the disconnect command transmitted wirelessly (and could be blocked by shielding the meter) or sent through the power line?

What is the model number?

They can remotely connect and disconnect from a computer with the tap of a key ,and charge more to turn your power back on then when they sent technicians out. Plus they can change meter reading remotely and no one would ever know. Change the meters over a large area by 1 point and make millions extra and nobody would be the wiser.

Hi! Great your content, I'm watching all your videos. Is it possible for the company to discover energy theft due to the difference in current on both phases and neutral?

So the remote disconnect feature will be used to make sure that people with better political connections will get more reliable power because they will influence the disconnect priority laws.

Thanks for this video. I have a sub-panel with its own smart meter that's behind my main meter, also a smart meter. This enables the power company to cut power to my sub panel to manage peak demand. In exchange, I get this electricity at a discounted price. This sub-panel handles heat, AC, and hot water. I also have an emergency generator. Here's the issue... If the sub-panel meter/switch were open (under load management) and there was an extended power outage, the sub-panel meter/switch stays open and the emergency generator can't provide power to the sub panel with heat, AC, etc. This leaves the possibility of being without heat/AC for an extended period if a large-scale power outage occurred. Thanks to your video, it looks like I have an emergency workaround but it would require breaking the seal. Is there any way to send a "close" signal to the meter when my generator kicks on? This is a problem that many people have but most don't know it. I assume it applies to numerous load management switching schemes.

Is there any security in the meter to prevent unauthorized people from remotely disconnecting the meter?

So there is a hidden network on the actual electrical grid?

So, where does the signal come from? WIFI? LORA 915mhz?

How do I open it

How o open it up

I haven't put my meter on its been 3 dayss

How much rupees one parsal

Before smart meters they put a plastic cap on the prongs that connect to the buildings circuitry. Super easy to leave the plastic in place and bridge the connections. Also you could do the same to a smart meter as well and all the button pushing in the world wouldn't stop you from having electricity. It's actually pretty trivial to steal power. Not that I am encouraging this behavior. Just mentioning it as it's relevant to the conversation. I used to be the guy that came and turned on your power and cut you off. I've seen people do everything from drilling holes and using a piece of metal to block meter gears to people wrapping their smart meter in tin foil.

So they see if ur real intions of getting ur power on

Oh, here IT is :)

Now if I put it back in I will be telling them I'm in the network

This is very interesting and could provide a way for companies to cut the load. During the black out companies need to cut the load, and unfortunately it was not not cut in a smart way. (ok well in fairness, they kept the grid up, which was smart, but i digress...) If people used power smartly, and everyone only used 1/4 of the normal power, they could have kept some power on to everyone. It would have been nice if everyone was given a choice, limit your power use to 1 killowatt per hour, or have your power cut. It might also have been nice if power outages rolled like they were intended too but that is another story. Instead if people then could have turned off hot water heaters, stoves, furnaces ect, but still had lights, internet, and a few light bulbs near freezing water pipes to keep heat on. (Now whether that load be 1 killowatt per hour or 3 or 10 the point is load needed to be cut fast.) Coming from a northern climate, I would like to point out that people that wanted a warm home, they could have had a $150 kerosene heater, and 20 gallons of kerosene and produced enough heat to keep a house warm. Also if you had a generator, you likely ran that which also come in handy during hurricanes. The power company really needs to focus on big problems, -keeping power one for everyone, building new plants, insulating pipelines, having some power via alternative energies (coal ect), and not into micromanaging power cut. All that said, a smart meter than could cut power, might allow a system to limit that load. Each person gets X number of killowatts per day, (or per 6 hour window). Unfortunately shutting off the power is about the only way to get people serious attention, but once off people are willing to go to great lengths to get it back on. if one tripped these meters based on usage, you could cut load in a much less troublesome way. Cutting the power that way, allowing it to cycle more frequently, and making people aware of their usage would be a better outcome.

Google said hacking is a crime sir!

Smart meter turned on air conditioning when 20 degrees out side. We never touched meter

Mine looks different

Dude I need help

sorry but this actually tells us nothing about how to disconnect the smart meter