Crompton Instruments: Panel meters, MID energy meters, current transformers and protection relays

Overview

Crompton Instruments is one of the oldest names in British electrical measurement. TE dates the brand to 1878, when the engineer R. E. B. Crompton set up the firm that the Science Museum Group records as Crompton and Company of Chelmsford. That company merged with F. and A. Parkinson in 1927, by Grace's Guide's account, to form Crompton Parkinson, a broad electrical manufacturer whose instrument business moved to Witham in Essex in 1966. The instruments company was set up in November 1965 and renamed Crompton Instruments in 1989, according to Grace's Guide.

The business has been part of TE Connectivity, then Tyco Electronics, since January 2002, as its own site states. Today it is a brand rather than a company: the products carry the TE logo and the Crompton Instruments name, and are made and supported by TE's Energy business from the same Freebournes Road site in Witham. TE presents the brand on te.com for measurement and protection in car charging, power generation, process control, utilities, marine, and oil and gas.

What sets Crompton apart from most meter makers in this directory is breadth at the switchboard. Alongside its Integra digital meters and MID energy meters, it still sells analogue panel instruments, current transformers, DC shunts, transducers and protection relays, the parts a switchgear or generator panel builder needs on one order. Its digital meters are built for that setting: DIN 96 panel or DIN-rail formats, CT-fed inputs, and plug-in wiring looms that cut assembly time on multi-circuit boards. The communications are serial first, with Modbus RTU standard across the current Integra and DRR ranges and network protocols added by option card on the older Integra 1630.

Offering

TE groups the Crompton range into analogue power meters, electronic power meters, and current transformers and DC shunts on its brand page, and its older crompton-instruments.com site keeps the full product menu with 2026 datasheets.

Integra digital metering systems

• Integra 12xx panel meters. The 1221, 1222 and 1232 are DIN 96 meters for 5 A or 1 A CTs with Modbus RTU and two pulse outputs, harmonics to the 63rd and plug-and-socket CT wiring (RJ12 on the 1221, Q2C on the 1232). The 1232 datasheet adds MID approval. An Integra 1422 is offered in Asia and the Pacific only.
• Integra 1630 and 1530. The 1630 is a low-profile DIN 96 meter with red LED displays, 0.2% accuracy on key quantities and THD to the 31st harmonic, whose communications are plug-in option cards (catalogue).
• Multi-load meters. The SL1, DL1 and TL1 measure one, two or three three-phase loads from a single DIN-rail meter on 3-in-1 CTs. The Dual Load Wiring Solution sells the DL1 with CTs and 1.5 m looms for separate power and lighting metering on one board.
• DIN-rail meters. The Integra 0230 (MID approved), Ri3 and Ri4.
• Power quality. The Integra 2170 and 2270 add a colour touch screen, waveform capture and sag and swell classification to EN 50160, with pulse inputs for water and gas meters.

Energy meters

The DRR range is the newest line: eighteen MID approved single- and three-phase kWh meters in 1, 2 or 4 module DIN-rail cases, direct connected to 45 A or 100 A or CT fed, each with a pulse, Modbus RTU or M-Bus variant (brochure).

Measurement and protection

The range also covers current transformers (Ebony Excel moulded-case, split-core and protection CTs, ANSI CTs and VTs, Class PX and core balance types), Paladin transducers that convert electrical quantities to DC signals, Protector trip relays and earth leakage relays, meter relays, digital indicators, analogue switchboard meters and DC shunts. Products are sold through distributors and TE's own channels; in Australia, Colterlec lists the Integra, kWh meter, CT, relay, transducer and shunt ranges. Prices are not published by TE.

Technology

The current Crompton meters are serial instruments. Modbus RTU over RS-485 is standard on the Integra 12xx, SL1, DL1, TL1 and 2x70 meters, and the DRR energy meters add M-Bus as the alternative to Modbus, with remote configuration over M-Bus as well as readings. The catalogue gives the Ri3 and Ri4 a choice of Modbus RTU or Johnson Controls N2, RS-485 rates from 2.4 to 38.4 kbps, addresses 1 to 247 and normal or reversed word order, and protects settings with a four-digit password.

The Integra 1630 is the exception. Its communications are pre-calibrated option cards that slot into the back of the meter without recalibration: Modbus RTU with one or two pulse outputs, Modbus TCP over Ethernet, BACnet/IP, BACnet MS/TP or Profibus DP. Tyco Electronics announced the Ethernet module in July 2007 as a 10Base-T Modbus TCP server with a fixed IP address set before installation. The Integra 1630 communications guide publishes the register map: every measurement is a 32-bit IEEE 754 float in a pair of input registers, read in whole pairs.

Configuration runs on TE's free tools. The software downloads page lists a DMS Configurator for the 12xx, multi-load and DRR meters, an Integra 1630 configurator, BACnet configuration files for the 1630 (one for systems installed before June 2014), a Profibus GSD file, an M-Bus configurator, a LonWorks configuration file, and the RUInet utility for finding Ethernet-equipped meters. None of the meters has a web server or cloud service of its own; data leaves through the meter's protocol port or pulse outputs, and logging is done by the configurator on a PC or by the system reading the meter.

Accuracy and approvals are stated per model. The Integra 1232 meets IEC 62053-21 Class 1 and IEC 62053-24 Class 1 for active and reactive energy, the 2270 is specified to class 0.2S for active energy, and the DRR meters are certified to MID accuracy class B in the NMi Certin certificate T13149, issued on 30 December 2025. TE publishes no product security documentation or vulnerability disclosure route for these meters, and the only network-attached model in the range is the Ethernet-carded 1630.

Markets

Crompton sells to the people who build electrical panels. Its about page names switchgear and generator set manufacturers, panel builders and OEMs as the core customers, in power generation, process control, test and measurement, utilities, marine, defence and energy management, and TE adds car-charging stations and oil and gas on its brand page. The catalogue's back page groups the markets as generation (conventional, nuclear, wind, solar and hydro), transmission and distribution, and industry, including mining, petrochemical, railway and shipbuilding.

The brand is strongest in the UK and in markets with British electrical practice. Technical support centres are listed for the UK, the USA, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong in the catalogue, and TE claims a presence in 65 countries. Australia is a visible example: the distributor Colterlec carries the range, and a February 2025 declaration signed by TE's global Crompton product manager states that the TL1, DL1 and SL1 multi-load meters meet the metering requirements of Green Star and the NABERS rules for collecting and using data, which is what building owners there need for energy ratings.

Marine and North American work rests on approvals. TE's certified product list records UL and CSA files for Integra meters, transducers and Protector relays, Lloyd's Register type approvals for Eurodin panel meters to 2023, and earlier American Bureau of Shipping and Bureau Veritas approvals, several of them now expired. In Europe the MID approved Integra 1232, 0230 and DRR meters serve billing-grade submetering in commercial and light industrial buildings.

Company

Crompton Instruments has no separate legal entity in operation today. The products are made by Tyco Electronics UK Ltd, a TE Connectivity company incorporated in 1955 as AMP of Great Britain and registered in Swindon, which trades at Freebournes Road, Witham, Essex. The contact page gives that address as the head office, and BSI's ISO 9001:2015 certificate FM 21540 for the Witham site covers the design, manufacture and procurement of measuring instruments, transducers, protection devices, shunts and CTs, first registered in September 1992. The site also holds ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, according to the compliance page.

A company called Crompton Instruments Limited still exists on the UK register. It was incorporated on 1 November 1965 as Crompton Parkinson Instruments Limited, took its present name in January 1989, and is now dormant, with its registered office at a Schneider Electric address in Telford. It is not the TE business: Crompton Parkinson passed to Hawker Siddeley in 1968 and later came under the BTR group, according to Grace's Guide, while the instruments operation joined Tyco Electronics, now TE Connectivity, in January 2002. TE's 2019 catalogue states that Crompton Instruments is a trademark of the TE Connectivity family of companies.

The parent is TE Connectivity plc, which has its principal executive office in Galway, Ireland, and about 93,000 people, according to its fiscal 2025 annual report. Crompton sits in the energy market of TE's Industrial Solutions segment, and TE does not report it separately or publish its headcount. Nigel Johnson signs as global Crompton product manager on TE's 2025 declaration. The certified product list shows that some lines are bought in and sold under the brand, with Rishabh named as the maker of Eurodin meters and some CTs and Iskra for moving-iron meters, while Integra meters are described as UK made.