Arlec Grid Connect PC191HA Series 2, Plug-In Socket with Energy Meter Teardown

I recently bought a new 4 pack of these sockets from Bunnings and quickly found that flashing these devices with cloudcutter didn't work. Double checking the packages shows these devices as a Series 2.


Opening the device shows a CB2S, with updated details on the unit.


Was able to connect to the CB2S without removing from the board and program using the Openbeken apt (BK7231N).
And have the following config working.



Going to try cloudcutter again now that I know what is inside.

Thanks, so let me sum up - the "Series 2" is a CB2S version (BK7231N) and older version (no Series in the title?) is WB2S?

Yes, I have both if you would like side by side photos

Added after 6 [minutes]:

According to the grid connect app it is running the v1.1.8 firmware.

I have also been able to use cloudcutter to flash the BK7231N with latest firmware 1.17.104
- Choose the device by firmware version - 1.1.8 - BK7231N / oem_bk7231n_plug
- Select brand - Tuya Generic
- Select device LSPA9 Plug v1.1.8

Device photos are always welcome here, you can post them here if you think you can make even better comparison between older and newer model of this plug.

Btw, if anyone here is using UART flasher, the latest version of the flasher can detect GPIO settings from 2mb device binary (Tuya firmware):

I've noted these sockets get warm even when not on, I'm assuming it's the power supply for the CB2S.
A power save mode is mentioned in other posts, is this something I should be switching on by default?

PowerSave is always recommended. Some cheap Tuya devices have power supplies so weak, that using it without power save may actually damage the device:
https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/topic3898805.html
I am planning to enable power save by default soon, but I am not sure if it is 100% reliable and I do not want to brick user devices just after flashing.

So, if you want, try PowerSave and report here if it's working for you.

So far all the devices I have pulled apart have transformer type power supplies.

Do you have any guides on using startup commands?
I have added ( PowerSave; SetupEnergyStats; ) to the startup command dialog, but not sure it's working?
I still have the "Periodic Statistics Disabled" message still showing on the index page.

Are you using backlog? Are you missing arguments from SetupEnergyStats?

Yes I think I'm missing arguments from the commands, PowerSave 1, is correct I believe. I'm seeing 2/38 POWERSAVE in the web app log.

What should the command SetupEnergyStats look like?
Might have found what I'm looking for here, https://github.com/openshwprojects/OpenBK7231T_App/blob/main/docs/commands-extended.md

For example:

See docs:
https://github.com/openshwprojects/OpenBK7231T_App/blob/main/docs/README.md

I recently purchased the black version from Bunnings and can't seem to get it working correctly. If I set BL0937SEL to pin 24, the plug keeps switching the relay on and off continuously. I've tried to extract TuyaConfig using the GUI Tool but it could only figure out one pin. Any idea?

They may have changed something in GPIO and/or binary config. Can I see the full Tuya partition binary dump myself?

"plug keeps switching the relay" - this means that the relay is on P24, not BL0937SEL.

I'll try to set Pin 24 to relay. Please see attachment for the config dump.

I applied the config posted in this thread: https://www.elektroda.com/rtvforum/topic3944452-30.html




Everything seems to be working except for Power Reporting. Any idea?

You may have to open it up and look inside.

Do you have a photo/link to the item? I haven't seen the black version during my Bunnings walk-through.

What do you mean by "power reporting"? You mean, you don't have voltage/power/current measurements in OBK, or do you mean you have them but they are not sent to HA?

Power reporting is not showing up in the web interface.

Have you restarted your device? How does your web interface look now? Do you have BL0937 driver running?

I just flashed one of these Series 2 plugs with cloudcutter, during flashing I tried the PC191HA (BK7231N) profile a couple of times but it failed. I decided to give the other PC191HA profile a shot (BK7231T) and it worked. I installed libretiny and everything is working as expected.

I don't want to open it to see what model the chip is but it has me wondering - Is it possible the manufacturers change the chip between batches and possibly have some produced with BK7231T?

Is there any way BK7231T configuration could possibly work on a BK7231N?

Just purchased 5 of these through Bunnings in NZ.

One as a single pack that was a 7231T that flashed with cloudcutter.
Four as a four pack that ended up being 7231N's that also flashed with cloudcutter.

Does anyone know how to turn off the blue power light on the button?
I'd like this off as it's right under my TV screen

Thanks for any help with this.

Isn't this a P26 LED? It seems to be the only controllable LED in this device.

If the LED is connected to relay or directly to the VDD, then you may need to physically remove it or reattach it to GPIO

Or just to be sure, can you attach Tuya JSON extracted this way:

Hi and thanks for your reply,

I have attached the bin extracted following the video, hopefully this is what you asked for

Currently Pin 26 is set as WiFiLED.
The button on the plug flashes red when booting and then goes off.
It turns blue when it is turned on.

Thanks again

I think Pin 24 'Rel' is bound to the blue LED also.
This seems true for
Chipset: BK7231N CB2S
Model: PC191HA

If there isn't some programmable way of disabling the relay light,
then it might have to either crack it open and attempt to cut the LED from the circuit, not sure I'm confident in doing a great job there
or disabling the button and taping over it, covering the LED, much easier and should be fine for what I'm using it for.

However for the
Chipset: BK7231T WB2S
Model: PC191HA
The Pin assignment is different and the template has Pin 26 set for LED.
So this model can be disabled.

I checked your config and sadly there is no Tuya pins data to extract this time. That device may have a bit more custom firmware.

So, we are left to either guessing or checking physically with a multimeter where the traces go.

If you have a LED that is connected between VDD and GND (with a resistor) and not controllable by any GPIO, you can also consider routing it manually to one of the unused GPIOs of WiFI module with a small wire. Just make sure to include the resistor in the circuit and respect LED polarity. LED conducts only in one direction.

p.kaczmarek2 wrote:

Thanks, so let me sum up - the "Series 2" is a CB2S version (BK7231N) and older version (no Series in the title?) is WB2S?

To throw a spanner in the works.... I have a PC191HA Series 2 (stamped on box and printed on back of device) that has a BK7231T / WB2S in it!

Added after 5 [hours] 25 [minutes]:

I have my PC191HA Series 2 (CB2S) running in HA using ESPHome with the pinout help from this thread - thanks! I also have a PC191HA Series 2 running the other module (WB2S). The CB2S has the red wifi LED (P11 I believe) always on unless the relay is on and the blue LED (P26) is lit.

Any ideas on why the red LED is always on and why it is not on for the WB2S module PC191HA?

I bought this 4 pack a few days ago... I used cloudcutter 1 with ESPhome firmware and 3 with Openbeken...
Initially, I had issues configuring the right pins to work it out for the Openbeken... but after a while, it's running well now... with the config below



Now my question for the unit I flashed with ESPhome... I'm having issues with the ltchiptool as it seems like it's not supported... I have the BK7231N with 1.1.8 and I got this error

The chosen device doesn't contain pin configuration.

Possible causes:
- it has vendor-specific firmware
- it uses TuyaMCU (report error if that's the case!)

Auto-generating ESPHome YAML is not possible.

Does anyone have the correct YAML for this chip to work? or maybe convert it to OpenBeken?
any guides or links will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

EDIT:
This guy helped me convert the ESPhome to OpenBeken... happy days...

But now one of my Openbeken devices is doing solid red... not sure what's happening

Hello, what is solid red? Are you referring to the LED diode?

Maybe it's really TuyaMCU? Have you looked inside?

Or maybe we can check for TuyaMCU without that... but, for a good start, have you tried using GPIO Doctor from the Web App to try to identify possible GPIOs for LED and relay?

If not, please try. And if there are no GPIOs for that, I will be happy to help you with setting up TuyaMCU as well. We'll get your devices running well soon.

After about 6 months my PC191HA became unable to reliably control the relays.
Looking inside I could see the 470uF 10V electrolytic had a crowned top. It's the center of the three in the photo.
After replacing that the unit is working normally again.

Did you have PowerSave enabled for those 6 months?

No. This is the first I've heard of it.