@NeverDie I am happy to report that my batteries arrived yesterday!

@NeverDie
I'm going to dissipate the energy through a 25 ohm resistor. It will take about 24 hours to perform one capacity test. Often times I read that the full capacity won't be available until after a few charge-discharge cycles. 2 resistors, 4 batteries, 3 tests each. Assuming that I stay on top of it, it will take at least a week of testing which won't start until I get my 25 ohm resistors. I'll post a link to my full write up.

OK, I did my battery test. @NeverDie @Nca78 @mfalkvidd
You can find it here

The batteries from Newegg and Fullbattery are good ones.

If you going to buy a large quantity and looking for a low price, then you should buy 1 or two and test them as I have done here. You might have to "kiss a lot of toads" before you find a good vendor, though.

OSD

@eiten said in Saving last known good state, but not in EEPROM:

utility meter in home assistant

This is exactly what I am seeking! Thank you!

PS I truly enjoy reverse translating! It teaches me how to better understand my first language and it gives me alternate words to use in searches. So a second thank you!

"Regelmässiges Zurücksetzen" would be best translated to English in this context as "Periodic Reset". In the English version of Home Assistant it is called "Meter reset cycle" (I remember seeing "keep dry" translated as "do not take in shower with you"

@hubertus I'm not getting the description of you setup. Perhaps a sketch would be good?

Wen I need serial communication, with the Arduino, I use SoftwareSerial on two other I/O lines. That way I can debug real time, SoftwareSerial is slower but you're only doing temperature so 9600BAUD would be fin

Also, don't try to do too much at once. Break the task down into small, manageable sections. You have a lot of different things going on, get one thing going at a time.

OSD

@NeverDie I like your suggestion for solar panels, though my application only requires 1x 5W panel. And I like the idea of dismantling the power packs.

I think we differ in our approaches, though. I seem to enjoy living on the "bleeding edge", that is, I'm more of a risk taker. My first house solar system, 2.8kW, was installed in 2004. When I upgraded to 4.2kW, I took the 14 panels and installed them on my hillside, so now I'm a net energy exporter. The 2.8kW portion is still producing at 85% of nameplate, shows little environmental degradation (sealant, too), and has paid for itself. The reward outweighed the risk.

In taking risks, I learn much. Yes, I have a quite a few scars, actually and metaphorically. I have discovered a philosophy: Everything is an experiment. The point of an experiment is to learn something. So every experiment is a successful, just that sometimes the desired results are not realized. Eg. leaving an Arduino outdoors results in a short useful life. Spraying on a sealant extends the outdoor life.

Good discussion. Thanks for the ideas

OSD

@NeverDie

I'm new-ish to MySensors. I came here because I was looking for a gateway from RF24 to MQTT and I'm well on my way to getting the MySensors version to work.

Why isn't MySensors working? I find two things really frustrating. The documentation is spotty at best. It's taking me days to get as far as I have. When I write up my own procedure for my own documentation, I find it's maybe just 20 steps, but each step needs a detailed explanation. For example, through a lot of trial and error, I found that to turn on the relay in the relay with button example I had to publish a message of 1 to the MQTT topic mysensors-in/13/1/V_LIGHT/0/2. Only later did I find the Serial Protocol 2.x. But it does't show a V_LIGHT nor S_LIGHT. Yes, I figured out that example is out of date, but that's part of the point I'm trying to make. And how did my node ID become 13 and stay 13 when I press reset on the Arduino?

You can see more detail on my frustrations in the MQTT gateway discussion

Which segues into my other frustration. about documentation. Many members offering advice do not provide links to their statements. For example, in the MQTT gateway discussion:

gohangohan MOD 3 Sept 2017, 13:15
(at)Richard-van-der-Plas "Just clone the 2.2 dev instead of the stable, the rest is the same
(emphasis mine)

How does one do that? Particularly in a world where case is important and there are three different quote marks, (excuse me, one is sometimes known as a gravé) all with different meanings.

There are many like you @NeverDie who know MySensors in-and-out. I am an experienced hardware and software engineer, retired (one of the engineers that developed ink jet printing and one of the engineers that developed a navigation system for the 747) It's not like I don't have a fundamental understanding of what's going on here. I have yet to find a way to search the forum other than using google search.

Don't get me wrong, the MySensors concept is great and functions pretty well, but if it's not well documented, then it is useless. Then when someone asks a simple questions only to get an answer with no explanation of the how, the newbie and experienced alike don't bother with the forum because the forum offers no help, either.

We had a poster at HP (when it was a great company) "No job is done until the paperwork is complete" (image of person sitting on the toilet)

@NeverDie It is my understanding, though I can't wrap my head around it, that it is the length of the conductor that makes the antenna tuned to a certain frequency. If this is the case, you could run your antenna around the edge of your circular pcb which would make the effective radius only slightly bigger.

I found that timelib.h uses a tremendous amount of memory. You avoid using it by getting time string from the controller.

I have also found that when you're using that amount of memory that bad things happen, as you noted. I use global variables to avoid the transient nature of function variables.

I'll be looking forward to other comments as, I, too, do not know all the tricks;)

OSD

@DenisJ Are you measuring a USB device? Look at something like this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33019457512.html?gps-id=pcDetail404&scm=1007.16891.96945.0&scm_id=1007.16891.96945.0&scm-url=1007.16891.96945.0&pvid=824c24fa-034b-4801-b51d-50b2ad877945&_t=gps-id:pcDetail404,scm-url:1007.16891.96945.0,pvid:824c24fa-034b-4801-b51d-50b2ad877945,tpp_buckets:668%230%23131923%2330_668%230%23131923%2330_668%23888%233325%239_668%23888%233325%239_668%232846%238110%231995_668%232717%237561%23332__668%233374%2315176%2335_668%232846%238110%231995_668%232717%237561%23332_668%233164%239976%23761_668%233374%2315176%2335

(AliExpress: Cheap prices and one could question the quality, but for the most part they work. Shipping takes about a month. rarely faster)

@TheoL Not only did I put in delays, too, but I put in delays that were based upon the ID (which was stored in NVRAM)! This helped.

caveat: This is probably not accurate be helps to explain the challenges with a large network.

My initial experience with Arduino/nRF24 was using the libraries from TMRh20. Those libraries allowed a node to be a repeater, but only for 6 nodes. The primary node 0, master, only allowed 6 nodes to connect to it. The nodes connected to it also allowed 6 nodes. Subsequent nodes had to go through one of these repeating nodes. But the depth was only 4 deep. The master assigned node IDs if the node didn't already have one; similar to a MAC address.

The master also kept track of the addresses (ARP table?). Addresses were 4 octets (base in the form of D/C/B/A. A node connected directly to the master had an address of 0/0/0/a (where 0/0/0/0 was reserved for the master). A node connected through another node had an address of 0/0/b/a, and so forth.

But what happens is that a parent node has to mange the data from all its child nodes and their child nodes and their child nodes. Thus a node would get so bogged down dealing with this traffic that it din't do its sensor task very well.

It is my belief that MySensors either uses TMRh20's libraries or has developed some aspects based on his initial work. I see that that TMRh20 has a version 2 and I have not experimented with it. I did find that MySensors worked better than version 1.

Thus, my curiosity.

I am also duly impressed at the magnitude of hardware. Currently a nano like device from Aliexperss is US$2-3, nRF24 ~ US$1, power supply ~ US$1.50, power cord ?, case?, sensors!? While the hardware cost is daunting, even with a PCB it's a lot of work building those up. So, yeah, I'm impressed!

-OSD

I, too, am duly impressed that you have so many nodes! Please share more.

I run a "test" and "production" gateways, too. I have a compiler directive in the sensor software that allows me to easily switch from test to production.

At one time I was running about 10 Nano nodes and it appeared to me that they were colliding with one another, symptom being slow response times As I remember, that occurred mostly on power up after power loss. Often I'd get two nodes with the same ID. I have since put my ID in NVRAM and that helped.

So I am very interested seeing what you have done.

--OSD

Thanks for the offer @TheoL ! I have moved on to a differenct project. Also, a lesson that I have learned many times, "If it works, don't fix it!"

-OSD

You highlight a problem, @kiesel. Considering that each board is effectively US$2.50, it will cost about US$2 to send one and will take a week, if not two or three, to get to you. Not to mention the time spent on handling.

I am in the same situation as you, I just ended up wire wrapping and judicious use of double stick tape. Not beautiful, but it works.

Best of luck

OSD

@kiesel
The first thing I would try is to plug the Arduino into a serial port and see if there is output. This would have to be on a different port from the one the HA expects. You can use the Arduino IDE to view the out put. It probably will appear to be gibberish, as the BAUD rate must be right. And it will probably be gibberish anyway because it is probably binary. What you will know, though, is that your Arduino isn't bad.

You may have to reprogram your Arduino.

Good Luck

OSD

Do you do gizmos for open heart surgery, too? I love all the valves!

OSD

@HJ_SK said in 2x BME 280 on 2x arduino nano hangs in HomeAssistant:

BME280

I had a similar situation. First you have to delete all the MySensors devices in HA. This is aggravated by HA wanting the devices to be on line before you delete them. You may have to delete the MySensors data in the HA config directory. You may even have to uninstall MySensors from HA. Then shutdown HA. Next, turn off your gateway. Are you using MQTT for messaging? You'll have delete the MySensors data from there, too. (MQTT Explorer is good for doing this)

Then start HA. Did your MySensors devices come back as zombies? That's the problem. Try deleting them again. Are they data still in MQTT?

OK, now start again.

I had documented how to do all this deleting in HA Forum, HA/Discord and here, but I can't find that documentation now. grrrr

OSD

@DIY89

As a matter of fact, I have. But I haven't had a problem. I found that wiring the Uno was a bother, though. Keep your wires between the Uno and radio as short as possible. Try braiding the wires. (sort of like twisted pairs but in this case, "twisted septet". Don't connect IRQ. I solder a male connector on my radios and the twisted septet is soldered to the board and the female connector. This works well when I have to swap radios around. I have even had success with a cat 5 cable, with connector, as long as 30cm.

Did you try putting the same program in the Uno as the one in nano 2?

What controller are you using? I use Home Assistant (HA) and it can be a pain, especially when it comes to the not-well-supported MySensors. Sometimes you have to completely uninstall MySensors (delete all devices first) from HA and then reboot HA. Sometimes, even this doesn't work. (Somewhere I documented how to do this, maybe here or HA forum, but I can't find it now)

Let us know how it goes.

OSD

@fsgraz

I like the work you've done! Making a schematic which can be made into a PCB is a skill that I have yet to acquire.

I appreciate that you have shown me (us) this design, for it gave me serious pause to think. While I point out some areas that would suggest review, I would encourage you fully document what you've done and put it on git.

I checked out the ACS714ELCTR device and, if I understand it correctly, it has to be in series with the heat pump. The wire to the heat pump is 6AWG (50A). So, yes, the current sensor would have to have it's own PCB with suitable trace widths and separation and high current connectors. The resistance of the sensor is negligible (1.2 mΩ) compared to that of the connectors. (20 mΩ); Even 5mΩ @30A is 4.5W and the sensor is cooking away at 1W!

One of the concerns I pointed out was that my design probably would nullify one's homeowner's insurance. An in-line with a 50A circuit, would be a greater concern.

Is the current output the instantaneous current? "5 µs output rise time in response to step input current" Implies that it is, compared to the ~100µs that it takes for the Arduino to read the analog port.

The sensor reports the current as proportional to an positive analog voltage. This means that the output would look like a full wave rectified AC signal. Determining phase angle Φ would involve noting the time of lowest current comparted to the time of lowest voltage as opposed to zero crossing. In this case, one wouldn't know if that was leading a lot or lagging a little (or vice versa), though practical assumptions could be made.

One of the things that the people at Open Energy are troubled with is distortion. The energy AC sign wave is not truly a sign wave, typically there is a flattening at the top. Pumps can cause a very distorted signal! But the concern here is, "How much distortion does your measuring device introduce?" In my device, and this would be true of yours, too. there is the ~100µs between voltage and current readings and an additional ~70µs computational time. But chasing down those problems are not the concern of the low cost meters you and I designed.

Good work!

OSD

@eiten I believe the IP of the gateway is the same as the computer on which the gateway is running. In my case, I am running the gateway on an RPi.

As a side note, that very same program is also a sensor (an array of relays to control my garden irrigation).

When I think about it, I don't know of any other hardware that can usefully run the TCP gateway. Orange Pi?

-osd