pimatic-mysensors controller plugin

[Panos]

Hello,

Very nice plugin.

Is there any chance in the future to support the ethernet gateway?

It would be great if we could connected simultaneously to a serial and ethernet gateway from the same pimatic server.
so we could cover remote places..!!!!

[Dheeraj]

New version of plugin available. 0.8.21.

and a video to showcase its capability..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZXAKitvAdA

[Oitzu]

@Dheeraj
Nice! One question: Could you maybe disconnect your repository from pimatic-plugin-template?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16052477/delete-fork-dependency-of-a-github-repository

With the fork connected its hard to fork. ;)

[Dheeraj]

@Oitzu sure will do it need some time..

[karl261]

Hi, I am using the mysensors-pimatic system and it works great. Now, I am using an optocoupler to simulate some buttons being pressend, and at the moment I am using the relay sketch for that. That works great, but it gives me on/off switches in pimatic. However, I only press the button momentarily. So I would need more a momentary button in pimatic. Something that does not switch but I still can press. So three questions:

1. Is there a way to have an "ordinary" button in pimatic (not on/off)? Something I press only? This on/off switch works (everytime I switch on or off it simulates on button pressed on my optocoupler), but it is not really what I am looking for.
2. Is there some code for a momentary button in mysensors? The relay code I am using works great. I adapted in a way that it swtiches the optocoupler on and 50ms later automatically off. Works great, but I was wondering if there was a more elegant way to do it.
3. If there is no code for a momentary button for pimatic, where would I start looking if I'd want to contribute code?

Cheers!

[Oitzu]

Hey karl261,

1.) Yes there is a ordinary button in pimatic. The base-class is called "ButtonsDevice" if i remember correctly.
2.) The MySensors Plugin also seems to implement this.
See: https://github.com/DheerajKhajuria/pimatic-mysensors
Search for: Binary Button
3.) Depends at which point you want to contribute code.
For the mysensors plugin: https://github.com/DheerajKhajuria/pimatic-mysensors
For the Pimatic framework: https://github.com/pimatic/pimatic
Make also sure to read the howto @ www.pimatic.org and visit the forum forum.pimatic.org.

[Dheeraj]

@karl261 using ButtonsDevice as mentioned by Oitzu, you can achieve the point no. 1 . non off/on switch..

{
      "id": "mode",
      "name": "TV Mode",
      "class": "ButtonsDevice",
      "buttons": [
        {
          "id": "PVR",
         "text": "PVR"
        },
        {
          "id": "HTPC",
          "text": "HTPC"
        },
        {
          "id": "Chromecast",
          "text": "Chromecast"
        },
        {
          "id": "testing",
          "text": "RainBowCycle"
        },
      ]
    },

for point no. 2 you can use pimatic IFTTT rules to control (*hidden * relay switch button) moreover you can switch off optocoupler after 50 ms using rules.

3. if you have some special requirement you are welcome to contribute..

[karl261]

Hi guys. Thanks for the replies. This seems to work. I created a button and made a rule "if button XY pressed then toggle AB". So I suppose I leave the relay device as is, just remove it from my pimatic page (out of sight) and move in the button instead. IS that right?

Very cool indeed!

[karl261]

Hi there, I have problem that appears recently. I hope somebody can point me in the right direction.

I had my setup running for the past two weeks without any problems. No changes in hardware. Now the following happened:

Suddenly out of nowhere pimatic stop transmitting/receiving. Just like this. No error message. Pimatic frontend working finde. But no data going out to or coming in from the serial gateway.

I checked all logs: Nothing. I re-started pimatic: No success. All logs normal. I restarted the pi2: Nothing. All logs normal. I unplugged/replugged the arduino nano: Nothing. No success.

Then I shutdown the pi2, I pulled the power cable, I put it back in and voila: Everything worked normally. Still nothing in any logs. Unfortunately, now about 24h later, the same issue.

What is happening there? How can I debug that? I also tried resetting the usb:

echo 0 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.5/authorized
echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1.5/authorized
Nothing.

What can I do? Why was it running perfectly for two weeks?

I changed back to a super simple pimatic config with just one device, but still the same issues.

What to do? Please advice!

[Oitzu]

@karl261 said:

I checked all logs: Nothing. I re-started pimatic: No success. All logs normal. I restarted the pi2: Nothing. All logs normal. I unplugged/replugged the arduino nano: Nothing. No success.

What can I do? Why was it running perfectly for two weeks?

What to do? Please advice!

Hi there! Spontaneously i have no idea what could be going wrong, only chance is to narrow down the problem.
Based on your writing i assume you are using the serial gateway to interface with the mysensors network?
Did you try to enable the debug output in pimatic?
You could try to stop pimatic, detach usb, attach usb and look directly with screen on the serial device what the gateway is doing.

screen <device>

[karl261]

This is the only thing I see in the screen

0;0;3;0;9;gateway started, id=0, parent=0, distance=0
0;0;3;0;14;Gateway startup complete.

Then nothing else. No signal recieved, even if I now my sensors are sending, but also, when I am sending something via pimatic, no send message.

[Oitzu]

@karl261 maybe a defect nrf24 module? The serial connection to the nano seems to work and should normaly show received messages.
Do you have any spare modules laying arround?

[karl261]

@Oitzu that is possible. And also weird. It was working for three weeks without problem. Is there no way to get an error message from the nrf24? Why does it work after unplugging the pi? Why does it not help to reset the sub bus, which should power cycle the nano and the radio module?
I have some nrf24 around, but the installation is in a remote place which I can only access from time to time. That's why I installed mysensors and piratical in the first place. To remote control some things. So three weeks before I can try another radio. I hoped I could reset the system somehow to be able to use my system in the meantime...

[Oitzu]

@karl261 said:

@Oitzu that is possible. And also weird. It was working for three weeks without problem. Is there no way to get an error message from the nrf24? Why does it work after unplugging the pi? Why does it not help to reset the sub bus, which should power cycle the nano and the radio module?
I have some nrf24 around, but the installation is in a remote place which I can only access from time to time. That's why I installed mysensors and piratical in the first place. To remote control some things. So three weeks before I can

Well i can only guess whats the problem or whats the reason to it.
A faulty device can fail at the first day or just after 3 weeks.
The mysensors libs will check at start time the communication with the nrf24 module. If the communication don't work it will give out a "check wires" instead of the "Gateway startup complete.".

Maybe the difference between the full power cycle and the nano power cycle is the duration of the power cycle?
I can guess that the full power cycle left the nrf24 module for a longer time without power?
A longer power down of the nano would result in more time for the caps to discharge?

[karl261]

@Oitzu thanks a lot for your help. I appreciate it.

Some more observations:

• If I reboot the pi, I get

0;0;3;0;9;gateway started, id=0, parent=0, distance=0
0;0;3;0;14;Gateway startup complete.

in the screen session.

• However, if I do

echo '1-1.5' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
echo '1-1.5' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind

which should power cycle the usb device I do not see anything in the screen session. Which means that the arduino nano was not power cycled.

However I do see that something happened in the log file:

Nov 12 17:31:40 raspberrypi kernel: [  300.831131] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
Nov 12 17:31:40 raspberrypi kernel: [  300.839881] ftdi_sio 1-1.5:1.0: device disconnected
Nov 12 17:31:46 raspberrypi kernel: [  306.271337] ftdi_sio 1-1.5:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
Nov 12 17:31:46 raspberrypi kernel: [  306.278553] usb 1-1.5: Detected FT232RL
Nov 12 17:31:46 raspberrypi kernel: [  306.283631] usb 1-1.5: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

So, what does it mean? I don't understand. Maybe there is something wrong with the pi's USB hub? Which is only reset when I pull the plug? But then the wifi should also not work, because it is sitting on the same USB hub.

/:  Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=dwc_otg/1p, 480M
    |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/5p, 480M
        |__ Port 1: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=smsc95xx, 480M
        |__ Port 4: Dev 4, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=rtl8192cu, 480M
        |__ Port 5: Dev 5, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=ftdi_sio, 12M

I really don't like that there is no error message nowhere...

Is there any other place I could ask for help?

[karl261]

Ok, so I found a way to reset the usb bus using hub-ctrl.c. There is interesting information here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=93463
https://github.com/codazoda/hub-ctrl.c
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=71044&p=513908
http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/27903/usb-power-cycling-problem
So, in my case I can issue the command

./hub-ctrl -h 0 -P 5 -p 0 ; sleep 3; ./hub-ctrl  -h 0 -P 5 -p 1

and it does indeed reset the right port, because if I open now the screen sessoin I get the usual

0;0;3;0;9;gateway started, id=0, parent=0, distance=0
0;0;3;0;14;Gateway startup complete.

BUT: Still the thing is not sending receiving anything. WHY?

[Oitzu]

Tried to extend the sleep between power down and up?

[karl261]

Yes, I also tried with 30 seconds. Longer?

[Oitzu]

Well.. i think you can't lose anything. :D
Will be hard to debug after that without access to the actual hardware.

[karl261]

So, I made some modifications to the Serial Gateway sketch so it includes

radio.printDetails();

I see that it is looping though the loop function, but I actually see NO ouput from this function. What does this mean? That there is actually no radio connected? Wouldn't it say something like "no radio" or so?