The standard Amanzi Prepaid Water Meter that we see on many thousands of properties in South Africa has been around for a number of years.
The Water Meter unit is robust, can be buried in sand, can withstand being in water for long periods and be installed at any orientation and still work as desired. In addition the original white keypad (UIU) is also rated as water and sandproof. That does come with some ‘problems’ – chief of which is that the keypad does NOT have user replaceable batteries as it is a sealed unit.
The whte keypads have a battery life span of around 5 years – depending on the volume of use and then, at the end of life, are replaced.
Understandably these keypads then become a grudge purchase as landlords and tenants jostle over who should pay for the replacement.
BUT, help is at hand as Amanzi have released a Black Keypad with Replaceable batteries that is backward compatible with all versions of the prepaid water meter. Now, the tenants ‘pay for use’ only by replacing the UIU batteries when required.
Straton Prepaid ships these keypads all over South Africa and has gained insight and experience into trouble shooting where required.
A first for Straton Prepaid recently was a Cape Town Client who purchased two new sexy black keypads to replace the original white ones and successfully paired them, but the keypads failed to show the amount of water available or load more water with a new token.
The above problem is most likely a communication error and the way to troubleshoot this is as follows:
- Reset the UIU using the #981# command – The UIU will display “default”
- Then re-pair the UIU using the #999# Serial_Number### command.
After re-pairing the UIU will search for a meter using 2 different protocols.
(Explanation: It is important to take note on what protocol the UIU is on. 1 battery bar means Protocol 1 and 2 battery bars mean protocol 2. All sub-metering Rev 13 WMDs should be on protocol 1. When the WMD* is reset it starts searching for the WMD on Protocol 1 , if it cannot find the WMD the UIU will then switch to protocol 2 and continue searching. The problem is the UIU wont find the WMD (as only our Sigfox units are on protocol 2 ). The UIU will then remain on protocol 2 and not detect the WMD when you try to search again.)
*WMD – Water Management Device (Prepaid Water Meter)
Video: Fault Finding: Your New Water Water Keypad Pairs but Doesn’t accept Tokens or Water Availability Requests
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