Lee's Next Project
Re: Lee's Next Project
Sorry all. I did not mean to derail the thread.
Re: Lee's Next Project
No worries. New gear is exciting I get it. I wish I had the answers to give you, you'll have to live vicariously through me for now
Re: Lee's Next Project
I'll have my star sometime this week. I will post some pictures and feedback too. I'm also going to be getting it (cloud wifi) to work with my android app.lnevo wrote:No worries. New gear is exciting I get it. I wish I had the answers to give you, you'll have to live vicariously through me for now
ok... resume normal thread.
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Re: Lee's Next Project
Sneak Peak
I already have them, but the manual is not ready.
I already have them, but the manual is not ready.
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Roberto.
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- Posts: 87
- Joined: Tue Dec 27, 2016 6:26 am
- Location: Jacksonville,FL
Re: Lee's Next Project
That`s just wrong.
Love the looks of it.
Now I have to start saving money.
Love the looks of it.
Now I have to start saving money.
-James-
Re: Lee's Next Project
So the wifi by my mixing station has always been a problem, even when I had the prototype Star connected to my little access point bridge. Now with the Cloud hub, it's become more annoying. At least with the standalone controller it would do its thing, with or without wifi. Anyway, I'm going to work on a script to reboot it with IFTT that I had working previously with the Dlink power plug I have attached to it. At the same time, I've ordered the Netgear Orbi AC5000. So hopefully some improved wifi signal will help.
Re: Lee's Next Project
Pegboard is here and Roberto gave me some test code for non-blocking connection to the portal.
Now to integrate that into the WiFIAlert class...
Also, I've been playing with an OpenWRT access point. Before we had the remote upload feature in the Bootloader, the plan was to use one of these to download from the portal and burn the firmware. As I sometimes need to test library code, I think I'm going to hook this up permanently with the new controller so I have the ability to do that without ripping out the controller to hook up to my computer. I think I'm going to get another one for the cloud hub too.
Basically it just becomes a little Linux box in order to run avrdude or maybe I'll use it for a Serial Monitor if I need to debug things too
Now to integrate that into the WiFIAlert class...
Also, I've been playing with an OpenWRT access point. Before we had the remote upload feature in the Bootloader, the plan was to use one of these to download from the portal and burn the firmware. As I sometimes need to test library code, I think I'm going to hook this up permanently with the new controller so I have the ability to do that without ripping out the controller to hook up to my computer. I think I'm going to get another one for the cloud hub too.
Basically it just becomes a little Linux box in order to run avrdude or maybe I'll use it for a Serial Monitor if I need to debug things too
Re: Lee's Next Project
Cool. Got minicom installed. It will be great to have a remote serial monitor as well now!
Re: Lee's Next Project
Well having a serial monitor and a way to test the libraries and being able to do it when this box is upstairs is great. The OpenWRT device is definitely nice addition. I ordered one for the cloud hub as well.
I integrated the code Roberto gave to me into the WiFiAlert class. It now can do both Serial or Ethernet. If you have an RA Start it should go to the Ethernet and if you have the RA+ the Serial.println is still active (and acts like a debug if you have the Star).
If you are using the WiFiAlerts (probably not too many of you..), it will behave the same as the Serial sends automatically whereas if you are using the Ethernet, you will need to add a alert.send(); call in persistence or at least for a little while after you call an alert.
So if an alert is stateless and for a one time event, you will have to continue calling Send while the alert object processes the message. If you have an alert for something with state then, you won't need to do that unless it's something that flaps a lot. Anyway, if you make sure Send(). It won't process anything once it's been sent until another Send call with a message (ie. alert.Send("Test"); If you want to send right away regardless of delay, pass true as the second argument).
So a push request is forthcoming after a bit of testing, but so far very good. I just have one issue with a sticky relay switch that I'm chasing. It's just the relay I'm using to trigger a test event. Overall good progress today
I integrated the code Roberto gave to me into the WiFiAlert class. It now can do both Serial or Ethernet. If you have an RA Start it should go to the Ethernet and if you have the RA+ the Serial.println is still active (and acts like a debug if you have the Star).
If you are using the WiFiAlerts (probably not too many of you..), it will behave the same as the Serial sends automatically whereas if you are using the Ethernet, you will need to add a alert.send(); call in persistence or at least for a little while after you call an alert.
So if an alert is stateless and for a one time event, you will have to continue calling Send while the alert object processes the message. If you have an alert for something with state then, you won't need to do that unless it's something that flaps a lot. Anyway, if you make sure Send(). It won't process anything once it's been sent until another Send call with a message (ie. alert.Send("Test"); If you want to send right away regardless of delay, pass true as the second argument).
So a push request is forthcoming after a bit of testing, but so far very good. I just have one issue with a sticky relay switch that I'm chasing. It's just the relay I'm using to trigger a test event. Overall good progress today
Re: Lee's Next Project
Alright, all the issues with the WiFiAlerts are now resolved. It's working great now and the star has been running very well running the same program I'm running on the RA+. I was very tempted to swap out last night. I feel like I'm missing a few more things before I can start the build. There will be pictures (I hope)
Waiting for a few power strips and some elastic cord. I guess I'm going to have to wait till I'm back. Still a few more days, so let's see. I happened across a nice shelf made for a locker that I think will work perfectly to hold up my ATO reservoir (after some reinforcement) and give me a ton of space underneath for storage.
Waiting for a few power strips and some elastic cord. I guess I'm going to have to wait till I'm back. Still a few more days, so let's see. I happened across a nice shelf made for a locker that I think will work perfectly to hold up my ATO reservoir (after some reinforcement) and give me a ton of space underneath for storage.
Re: Lee's Next Project
So another vacation, 12 day's of leaving my tank completely unattended and automated with my RA.
Time to get ready for the big switchover. If all goes as expected, I will be starting tomorrow afternoon.
I will be mounting the RA*, my MP40 drivers, and the RF adapter to the door of my stand (currently pretty much everything is on that door). I will be mounting the relay expansion, relay bars, dimming, salinity, water level, power strips, and a few other devices to a pegboard. I will be using a combination of zip ties, elastic cording and pegboard hooks to make it all work. I've no idea how it will turn out. I'm still up in the air how the peg board will be situated at the back of the tank, and seriously considering how I could also mount the RA* and the MP40 drivers somewhere in the back as well. I'm hoping the stand that I got to hold the ATO reservoir will be strong enough or can be modified with some minor reinforcement. All the unknowns... always the fun part
Anyway, wish me luck.
Time to get ready for the big switchover. If all goes as expected, I will be starting tomorrow afternoon.
I will be mounting the RA*, my MP40 drivers, and the RF adapter to the door of my stand (currently pretty much everything is on that door). I will be mounting the relay expansion, relay bars, dimming, salinity, water level, power strips, and a few other devices to a pegboard. I will be using a combination of zip ties, elastic cording and pegboard hooks to make it all work. I've no idea how it will turn out. I'm still up in the air how the peg board will be situated at the back of the tank, and seriously considering how I could also mount the RA* and the MP40 drivers somewhere in the back as well. I'm hoping the stand that I got to hold the ATO reservoir will be strong enough or can be modified with some minor reinforcement. All the unknowns... always the fun part
Anyway, wish me luck.
Re: Lee's Next Project
Well, I started typing out a response last night as I was quickly crashing ~5am. Anyway, even though I didn't post it, I did catch my second wind. It was grueling. I kept the tank running until around 9am on just the return pump. Everything is back together now. I've been making code changes through the web wizard all day, getting things tweaked as they should be. I'm pooped though. A few things, I would hope have improved but have not... always had some stray voltage affecting pH. It seems it's a bit worse now. Also, was hoping the salinity probe would have improved, but seeing the same behavior with a new probe and now with everything re-installed. Water level downstairs is being wonky, but I'm sure I'll get that straightened up soon. Still a bit of tweaks to be done. I'll post some pictures soon.
Re: Lee's Next Project
I had to fabricate that because I didnt have enough room with the mp40 drivers. Thats just a pvc plastic sheet cut to fit the profile of the gap between the wall and stand. i should have mounted it a little lower. Everything tucked neatly behind the stand. Its a pain to get to and if I need to take any modules off it will be a pain putting it back on. But nothing like the pain I had before if I needed to get at an outlet.
Re: Lee's Next Project
nice. crazy setup and wire mess initially.
you'll get things figured out once you get some rest.
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you'll get things figured out once you get some rest.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Re: Lee's Next Project
Some really cool features I have now. D-link smart plug attached to the GL-MT300N. The GL-MT300N is a wireless router running OpenWRT (basically a tiny linux box). I can ssh to this device, run minicom to watch the serial port and see what the RA is spitting out. I can also avrdude a binary if I want to update the firmware without the web wizard. I've got a cron job on the unit that looks in a folder for new firmwares and a shell script on my mac when I'm done compiling with Arduino to upload the file. It's a pretty smooth process
Did I mention how cool it looks with just this on the door
Did I mention how cool it looks with just this on the door
Re: Lee's Next Project
So, things have been running smoothly for the past few days. I had an issue with my lights because I put the labels on them backward and swapped the plugs without changing the code when I should have just changed the labels. The pH seems to be tied to a bad float switch. It dropped to 1.0 after pulling the ato high out the water leaving atolow in. If I took both out it was fine. i guess I have to change the low one. The other good news is I think the salinity has seemed to be impacted so we will see soon. There does seem to be an issue, maybe with the temp conversion, but as soon as I calibrate, the value is at 33 instead of 35.
Also, the water level seems to have stabilized as well for my channels 1&2, but I still have an issue with channel 3 (RO 5gl bucket). I'm monitoring the serial and the values being read by the module seem good. Something is happening in the conversion so I'll be trying to see what is breaking there.
A lot of the confusion I was having with switches btw was caused by a bug. The star has a 3rd input and the function I use to switch the behavior of the relays in software was applied to the 3rd input (AlarmInput) in addition to LowATO. That drove me insane for half a night.
Anyway close to closing all the gaps. Nothing's dead yet so it's definitely a success.
Also, the water level seems to have stabilized as well for my channels 1&2, but I still have an issue with channel 3 (RO 5gl bucket). I'm monitoring the serial and the values being read by the module seem good. Something is happening in the conversion so I'll be trying to see what is breaking there.
A lot of the confusion I was having with switches btw was caused by a bug. The star has a 3rd input and the function I use to switch the behavior of the relays in software was applied to the 3rd input (AlarmInput) in addition to LowATO. That drove me insane for half a night.
Anyway close to closing all the gaps. Nothing's dead yet so it's definitely a success.
Re: Lee's Next Project
Ok, salinity calibration seems to be skipping setting the temperature. When I checked the memory location it was set to 750 which is 75 degrees. I set it to 80.6 which is what it was at when I calibrated and now the value is 34.7. I'll open an issue for that, but won't be focusing on that at the moment
Re: Lee's Next Project
Ok, found the issue with my 3rd water level sensor:
See if you can spot the issue
For some reason to be determined, the star is not updating the calibration values over to the cloud hub. So in the meantime, I'm setting it manually based on the values I recorded.
See if you can spot the issue
Code: Select all
memory_write_int(Mem_I_WaterLevel1Min,387);
memory_write_int(Mem_I_WaterLevel2Min,387);
memory_write_int(Mem_I_WaterLevel3Min,621);
memory_write_int(Mem_I_WaterLevel1Max,2200);
memory_write_int(Mem_I_WaterLevel2Max,2325);
memory_write_int(Mem_I_WaterLevel2Max,1923);
Re: Lee's Next Project
For the PH, I've tried changing each switch with a fresh one and I have the same issues. I'm leaving the switches out of the tank for now and want to see how we track for a few days. There is some evidence that the ph probe may have started dying, but it's not enough data as if it did, it looks like the ph was dropping from 7.89 on Wednesday afternoon when we got home, never came up as it would during it's normal cycle during the day. It dropped to 7.22 by Thursday morning, and only reached a peak of 7.6 on Thursday off from a usual ~8.4 at the top of the cycle. The other odd thing is that while we were away, ph usually goes up when no one is home expelling CO2. While the PH rose initially when we left, by the time we got home it seems like it had dropped a few points during the week. Anyway, I've hacked the calibration to give me a good number. Let's see how it behaves without the switches in. If it continues to drop, I'll get a new one.
Re: Lee's Next Project
Where was this code?
Is it something you added to the hub firmware or something existing on the libraries?
Are you seeing WLC3:xxx on the cloud out channel?
If you are, are you seeing "WL calibration" on the serial log dump of the cloud hub?
Is it something you added to the hub firmware or something existing on the libraries?
Are you seeing WLC3:xxx on the cloud out channel?
If you are, are you seeing "WL calibration" on the serial log dump of the cloud hub?
Roberto.
Re: Lee's Next Project
Oh it was my code added because its not recording on the cloud hub. Will need to do some more tests, its hard now with the controller upstairs and the sensor in the basement
Re: Lee's Next Project
Everything to be monitored can be done on your laptop, can't you?
Start calibration on RA*.
Then on your laptop, launch mosquitto to monitor cloud traffic and minicom for hub serial, right?
Start calibration on RA*.
Then on your laptop, launch mosquitto to monitor cloud traffic and minicom for hub serial, right?
Roberto.