Meter-Bus for Python

About

M-Bus (Meter-Bus) is a European standard (EN 13757-2 physical and link layer, EN 13757-3 application layer) for the remote reading of gas or electricity meters. M-Bus is also usable for other types of consumption meters. The M-Bus interface is made for communication on two wires, making it very cost-effective.

Python version

I've decided only to support active Python version. Thus, any EOL version is not supported.

Current State (2025)

I’m still active, but as with most side projects, this one often takes a back seat.

If you have improvements that could benefit the project, feel free to submit a pull request. If it’s a good fit, I’ll be happy to merge it.

Current State (2022)

The library works, but it lacks proper documentation. Well, it lacks any documentation, to be honest.

The implementation is currently under heavy development. Its original intended use case was particular, as a library to aid in decoding M-Bus telegrams sent over HTTP, and might thus not suit everyone.

Still, it is a generic library and supports several different use cases.

• Decoding of re-encoded M-Bus frames sent from an Elvaco Wireless M-Bus master over HTTP.
• Communicating with M-Bus devices over RS-232 serial.
• Communication with M-Bus devices over RFC 2217.
• As a debugging tool to decode M-Bus frames.

Currently, only the variable data structures are implemented. The library can only decode M-Bus frames. It does presently NOT support encoding and transmission of M-Bus frames, such as control frames.

However, if the need arises, I might implement missing pieces on a request basis.

Tools

You can find a set of utilities in the tools folder.

• mbus-serial-request-data.py
• mbus-serial-request-data-multi-reply.py
• mbus-serial-scan.py
• mbus-serial-scan-secondary.py

These tools can communicate over a serial device /dev/ttyX or even over RFC2217 using the format rfc2217://host:port.

Suppose you are using ser2net as an RFC2217 server. You need to configure it the following way:

2000:telnet:0:/dev/ttySX:2400 remctl banner

Known Issues

• Missing: Fixed data structure parsing.
• Missing: Encoding to M-Bus frames.
• Missing: Slave configuration.
• Missing: Extended VIF codes.

What works

• Querying an M-Bus device over serial.
• Parsing of a complete telegram.
• Parsing of just the Used Data segment.
• Generating a basic JSON structure from the telegram/user-data/records.

Basic API documentation

meterbus.load(data)

• data[str]: M-Bus frame data

Returns an object of either type WTelegramSndNr, TelegramACK, TelegramShort, TelegramControl or TelegramLong. If an error occurs, it will raise an MBusFrameDecodeError.

meterbus.debug(state)

• state[bool]: set the global debug state

Produces debug messages to stdout.

meterbus.send_ping_frame(ser, address)

• ser[pySerial connection]: an open pySerial object
• address: The target's primary address

Sends a PING frame to address over the serial connection ser.

meterbus.recv_frame(ser, length)

• ser[pySerial connection]: an open pySerial object
• length: The minimum length of the reply. An ACK frame is one (1) byte.

Reads an entire frame and returns the unparsed data.

meterbus.send_request_frame_multi(ser, address, req)

• ser[pySerial connection]: an open pySerial object
• address: The target's primary address

If req is None, build a new request frame using address and send it.

meterbus.send_select_frame(ser, secondary_address)

• ser[pySerial connection]: an open pySerial object
• secondary_address[str]: A target using secondary address format

Sends a select frame with the supplied secondary address.

meterbus.XXX

More to come...

Code examples

Decode the value of a single record (record 3)

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import meterbus

data = "\x68\x6A\x6A\x68\x08\x01\x72\x43\x53\x93\x07\x65" \
       "\x32\x10\x04\xCA\x00\x00\x00\x0C\x05\x14\x00\x00" \
       "\x00\x0C\x13\x13\x20\x00\x00\x0B\x22\x01\x24\x03" \
       "\x04\x6D\x12\x0B\xD3\x12\x32\x6C\x00\x00\x0C\x78" \
       "\x43\x53\x93\x07\x06\xFD\x0C\xF2\x03\x01\x00\xF6" \
       "\x01\x0D\xFD\x0B\x05\x31\x32\x4D\x46\x57\x01\xFD" \
       "\x0E\x00\x4C\x05\x14\x00\x00\x00\x4C\x13\x13\x20" \
       "\x00\x00\x42\x6C\xBF\x1C\x0F\x37\xFD\x17\x00\x00" \
       "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x02\x7A\x25\x00\x02\x78" \
       "\x25\x00\x3A\x16"

telegram = meterbus.load(data)
print telegram.records[3].parsed_value

~$ 2014-02-19T11:18

Request a frame over Serial and dump it in JSON format

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import serial
import meterbus

address = 254

with serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM0', 2400, 8, 'E', 1, 0.5) as ser:
  meterbus.send_ping_frame(ser, address)
  frame = meterbus.load(meterbus.recv_frame(ser, 1))
  assert isinstance(frame, meterbus.TelegramACK)

  meterbus.send_request_frame(ser, address)
  frame = meterbus.load(meterbus.recv_frame(ser, meterbus.FRAME_DATA_LENGTH))
  assert isinstance(frame, meterbus.TelegramLong)

  print(frame.to_JSON())

M-Bus Packet Format

License

Please see the LICENSE file