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Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 9:56 pm
by lnevo
Ok, so the solution for the WaterLevel was to adjust the gain. As the Cloud Hub does not use the libraries per se, the gain adjustment is right in the default code :) Made it very easy. Roberto also fixed an issue with the calibration. I haven't yet been able to try it, but I can see that it at least works again. Once I have room in my mixing bins, I'll have to empty one into the other and calibrate it by registering empty and then filling it back up. Literally rinse and repeat :)

So that's out of the way now and I have a somewhat measurement that changes for my waterlevels, we're definitely making progress. Trying to decipher some network code tonight to see what I can do for the alerts... very slow going.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 11:16 pm
by lnevo
So made some progress and some setbacks in getting the alerts to work. I have the alerts working, but it seems the PortalConnection is made in a non-blocking fashion and so if I just call it once, it happens while there is no active connection. So a connection is started and I've already sent the alert. Need to figure out how to properly add this to the queue or whatever so that it can stay non-blocking. In the meantime I'm trying to test it out with a blocking call to connect...

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Thu Jul 27, 2017 11:46 pm
by lnevo
Ok test with connect versus noblockconnect is working... what are the cons? If it locks up the controller trying to connect I would imagine the watchdog would reset? Will the timeout (being called after the connect...) do anything, is there a default timeout, can I run the timeout function before the connect? At least I have alerts now :)

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2017 6:52 am
by lnevo
My pegboard order was cancelled :( I re-ordered from another vendor on eBay this time and it should arrive sooner than the other one. I may need to wait for the end of the month before I swap out though. We'll see. I'm going on vacation and will be away from the tank for like 12 days. Don't need any surprises while I'm gone. This will be a major change. Decisions...

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 1:39 am
by saf1
Are there any threads/links/pictures or anything else related to the product? I've been pretty happy with the Reef Angel has a whole but I dislike having to remove the wireless and plug in the cable to make changes. I know I can resolve that issue with another add on but I don't really want to have to do that either. I also prefer hardwire compared to WiFi. So these two things sort of got me looking at other products (sticker shock) that meet the traditional network jack requirement.

I was scanning the forums today just to see what is going on when I saw this. Peaked my interest.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 12:37 pm
by binder
saf1 wrote:Are there any threads/links/pictures or anything else related to the product? I've been pretty happy with the Reef Angel has a whole but I dislike having to remove the wireless and plug in the cable to make changes. I know I can resolve that issue with another add on but I don't really want to have to do that either. I also prefer hardwire compared to WiFi. So these two things sort of got me looking at other products (sticker shock) that meet the traditional network jack requirement.

I was scanning the forums today just to see what is going on when I saw this. Peaked my interest.
The RA Star has not officially been released yet. It is very close from what I understand. These are the first pictures and major discussions about it. I'm sure Roberto will have full details posted once it is officially released.


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Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 4:28 pm
by Spotted
Any idea on pricing? I think I gotta start squirreling away some cash. Funds hidden from wifeing eyes. All in anticipation of RA Star's imminent release.

(Sorry, Wifey is listing to It on audio book.)

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 7:39 pm
by lnevo
I'm sure we'll know when Roberto announces it. He said next week I believe. Anyway, let's get this thread back on track. So far alerts this weekend were working great. Everything upgraded today to point to the new cloud server. My peg board is on track and supposed to arrive early on Wednesday... should I upgrade before I leave or after? What would you do? :)

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2017 9:13 pm
by binder
lnevo wrote:I'm sure we'll know when Roberto announces it. He said next week I believe. Anyway, let's get this thread back on track. So far alerts this weekend were working great. Everything upgraded today to point to the new cloud server. My peg board is on track and supposed to arrive early on Wednesday... should I upgrade before I leave or after? What would you do? :)
probably after.

never fails when i decide to do something or change something and it is supposed to be straightforward and simple, something goes wrong and it takes me a long time to figure it out. it could be because i overlooked or forgot something but regardless.
besides, doing after will give you a chance to rethink and double check all of your steps of the upgrade process.


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Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:33 am
by lnevo
It's the same code as my current RA, nothing really changed, but it's a revamp of where my relay boxes and modules are. It will be tough to wait, but I need to put my patience hat on. It's kind of stopping me from doing a lot of things to the tank that I need to. Anyway, I think I'm going to use the Star right now to start debugging the WaterLevel ATO timeout issue. Currently since I don't have the WL module plugged in, it tries to kick in every time and since it's not attached I can play with it...

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:44 am
by saf1
Sorry all. I did not mean to derail the thread.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 12:58 am
by lnevo
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

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 1:14 am
by binder
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 :)
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.

ok... resume normal thread. :lol:

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Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 4:47 am
by rimai
Sneak Peak :)
I already have them, but the manual is not ready.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:35 pm
by GermanDude
That`s just wrong.
Love the looks of it.
Now I have to start saving money.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 11:59 am
by lnevo
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

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 7:54 am
by lnevo
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 :)

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 8:07 am
by lnevo
Cool. Got minicom installed. It will be great to have a remote serial monitor as well now!
minicom.jpg
minicom.jpg (57.71 KiB) Viewed 9853 times

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 8:57 pm
by lnevo
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 :)

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:19 pm
by lnevo
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.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 1:26 pm
by lnevo
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.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2017 6:10 pm
by binder
good luck!


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Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 9:14 pm
by lnevo3
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

Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 10:16 pm
by lnevo
Image ImageImageImageImage 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. Image 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

Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2017 10:16 pm
by lnevo
The best part is just the head unit on my door.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2017 6:56 am
by binder
nice. crazy setup and wire mess initially. :smile:
you'll get things figured out once you get some rest.


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Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2017 7:46 am
by lnevo3
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 :)

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 5:17 pm
by lnevo
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.

Re: Lee's Next Project

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:18 pm
by lnevo3
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

Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 9:39 pm
by lnevo3
Ok, found the issue with my 3rd water level sensor:

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);
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.