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    Topics created by zboblamont

    • zboblamont

      Node update on value from Domoticz
      Domoticz • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @zboblamont OK, so experiments concluded that the return data from the latest version of Domoticz is a String whether it be V_VARx or V_TEXT. I tried the dual declaration using the same CHILD_ID as intended and as VAR_X (using an RF24 - not sure of the relevance) and the actual value sent but failed to make any sense of abstracting the Ulong conversion or the string. Only by presenting a fresh CHILD_ID and duplicating the send of data (water meter) as a V_VAR1 could I recover the last sent reading as a V_VAR1 from that fresh CHILD_ID, thence eventually arriving at 'strtoul' as a solution to restoring the last known value. For clarity my Gateway and Controller run on a UPS, and I hope shortly to add the spare router to that UPS so I'm not left in the dark on what is happening in the dark on a battery powered laptop... Hope this helps others trying to keep track of meters between relentless power cuts and reboots...
    • zboblamont

      JSN-SR04T-3.0 Ultrasonic - Please note
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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    • zboblamont

      Feather M0 RFM69 433MHz
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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    • zboblamont

      Water level measurement - Ultrasonics V Pressure
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @CrankyCoder A third the volume I'm looking at, but in your case no pump issues. Perhaps you might have a look at some of the less industrial sensors for what you want - a little differential sensor from Digikey on the end of a some poly pipe to a bib connex on the water line might give you all the info you need, ready compensated against atmosphere...
    • zboblamont

      Generic pressure sensors -SOLVED
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      As a postscript to my own question should someone be looking at similar later, in practice the sensors were found to work perfectly well at 3v3. Described as 5v working, 0.5-4.5v signal range, the effect is pro-rata at 3v3 in terms of voltage but the ADC output is identical for VCC scaling - viz, ZERO pressure is 10% of 1024 the range is 80%
    • zboblamont

      Temperature sensor housing DS18B20
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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    • zboblamont

      Dallas sensors puzzle - sensors.begin()
      Troubleshooting • ds18b20 dallas • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @scalz That may well help even if I'll struggle to understand it. At least your setup combines similar basic principles to my objective. Since the OP, have nailed "sensors.begin()" which causes problems as a Dallas library call, and as your sketch does not employ that library, perhaps a glimmer of a solution.... Many thanks for that. Cheers...
    • zboblamont

      Graphing of time measured events - Solved
      Domoticz • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @anand There was vastly more time wasted trying to get the original concept to work, than it look to learn basics of Domoticz scripting after finding a solution used by others. The sketch complexity and size is dramarically reduced for the Node, it still responds to changes in boiler or PSU condition within a second, and reports temperatures and power condition regularly. Domoticz reconciles everything to default 5 minute time slots, this method provides boiler run times to an accuracy of a minute which is quite adequate.
    • zboblamont

      Pressure vessel monitoring
      Domoticz • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @nca78 Nope, you didn't misunderstand at all, my experience using Domoticz is limited to basics thus far... Will look into that.. Before this PV problem arose, had been looking at recording daily pump run times for both the domestic-supply and borehole pumps, easy enough for the borehole circuit, but the domestic runs LevControl->Contactor->PressureSwitch->Pump, so the auxiliary no-volts on the Contactor is permanently closed, hence a potential solution using a vibration sensor. Thinking about this overnight it may be possible to rewire LevControl->PressureSwitch->Contactor to solve the on/off indication from the auxilary on the main Contactor. If the number of starts per 10 minutes/hour exceed a threshold , a separate alarm flag could be signalled by your suggested method. Many thanks...
    • zboblamont

      Domoticz upgrade clues? - SOLVED
      Domoticz • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      After some faffing around and zero Linux confidence, tried fsck to recover the old setup and drive but still could not get the usual domoticz 8080 screen showing. Some scrolling through the Wiki troubleshooting guide later, stopped the service, chown-ed the file permissions, manual test start and the old system was back. Stopped that then started the service properly and it is all back up and running again, so once it has updated all the nodes properly will do a complete backup in preparation for a UPS powered changeover.
    • zboblamont

      Raspberry Pi3 alternative?
      Controllers • • zboblamont  

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      alowhum

      I just buy them in brick and mortar store. Always genuine.
    • zboblamont

      Power leakage puzzle - Solved embarassingly
      Troubleshooting • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      Long story short, problem found to be the US running for 19 days continuously but couldn't tell as had detached the board's LED in an earlier itteration where power indication was from the booster. Fault was a detached Dupont connection for the latching relay reset, only discovered when probing found the relay was not off, and went to reset it by removing the Arduino pin connection to power it direct, ending up with the entire wire in my hand. Reconnected relay board and it felt tight, reset the relay then reconnected to the Arduino pin before the next due 12 hourly battery check, 1.76v recovered to 1.87 in 30 minutes and rising. Can only presume I disturbed the connection somehow, but kicking myself about removing the LED, and not thinking to listen for clicks from the relay as a check on Set/Reset. Ho-hum, next a fresh pair of AA to start over again, well over a year is back in the frame again.
    • zboblamont

      5v PSU - Booster Noise?
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @scalz @skywatch Thanks both for thoughts, but managed to solve the original problem when I stumbled across why the JSN-SR04-2.0 would not work at 3.3v. The standard pulse of 10 microseconds changed to 15 had it working perfectly rather than intermittently. All that pain over two years for the sake of 5 microseconds. Will try playing with a high psrr LDO post booster for potential future needs, as the interaction completely threw me. The error only showed up when the ultrasonic range extended (tank emptied), blissfully unaware until then. I don't have the skills to design a booster, and components on the commercial ones are difficult if not impossible to identify, so post treatment it will have to be.
    • zboblamont

      UPS battery charging
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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      gohan

      It could also be the article is not very new and lately battery technology allows for a bit higher standby voltage... who knows I don't think 0.1/0.2V would make a huge difference in UPS runtime while on battery
    • zboblamont

      Reliable 5v buck converter recommendations?
      General Discussion • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @gohan Didn't think about the hw reset, may incorporate that yet as a belt and braces solution irrespective of the UPS. The problem with the Node controlling heating lay with human interface to vary conditions, Home/Away, Top floor occupied/Not, ignore that room as the window is removed as my most hated relative is staying in it... The possibility for later remote secure external access made the Controller the logical choice with the greatest flexibility.
    • zboblamont

      Central Heating modernisation..
      General Discussion • • zboblamont  

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      kimot

      I made heating as simply as possible - with good house insulation ( 20cm foam PVC for walls and 40 cm for roof ). I am using el. floor heating ( cables ) on both floors + fireplace like backup for unpredicable situations and for fun. I know, that heating cost me 2 or 3 times more than with heatpump, but consuption is low and investition was really very low too. ( cca 600 euros all heating cables and I made all work myself ) Regulation in this time ( and last winter ) by cheap Wemos with relay board and ESPeasy firmware on it in each room. It can regulate room or floor temperature ( I am using floor temperature regulation ) . Mode of operation and temperature setting are made from Domoticz, but regulation is made by Wemos itself - not running Domoticz needed. Temperatures and energy consumption are reported back to Domoticz. It was very funny two weekends project. One weekend familiarization with ESPeasy and next weekend regulator and Domoticz integration making. But it is not final stage, because ESP is very energy "hungry" and 4 lines of my UTP cable is not enough for cca 7 Wemos with relays on each part of bus. And I do not want wi-fi using for my sensors. But I need quick solution and it was.
    • zboblamont

      An ultrasonic measurement saga finally over...
      My Project • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @boots33 Sure... It's not finished in that want to reverse some of the mods made in desperate attempts to isolate the problem, before realising the illogic of the range checking. It's no different to any other pulse timer in function, and doubtless could be made more efficient by more knowledgeable people than I, but it is working flawlessly now which was the objective. The original idea was that the Slave would sleep as per Gammon's I2C example, constantly available to be remote commanded, but as the switched off ADC stayed off after sleep I lost the battery reading which divider was running continually. Inserting a latching relay, it ended up remote powered up with the readings taken during setup, otherwise it is completely off. It's a straight 5v promini chinese clone with only the power led removed, powered by 4x2AA cells via a latching signal relay, as it is only fired up every hour by the sleeping Master, it should hopefully last a while... Might extend the cycles to 3 or 4 hours, but for now it is feeding back accurate information on groundwater intrusion which has proven a bit of a surprise... // Adapted from Nick Gammon tutorials from 18th February 2011 //ADC disabling prior to sleep failed to restart originally and written out #include <Wire.h> #include <avr/sleep.h> const byte MY_ADDRESS = 61; const byte AWAKE_LED = 13; #define echoPin 5 #define trigPin 6 #define USon 4 #define BatteryIn A3 long duration; int distance,test,test2; const unsigned long WAIT_TIME = 500; volatile unsigned long counter; volatile int ultradepth, batterypower; // various commands we might get enum { CMD_READ_TANK = 2, CMD_READ_BATTERY = 3 }; char command; void setup() { command = 0; pinMode(USon, OUTPUT); pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT); pinMode(echoPin, INPUT); analogReference(INTERNAL); digitalWrite(USon,LOW); digitalWrite(USon, HIGH); delay(100); digitalWrite(trigPin,HIGH); delay (100); digitalWrite(trigPin,LOW); delay(100);/// Allow decay of pulse READULTRASONIC(); READPOWER(); Wire.begin (MY_ADDRESS); Wire.onReceive (receiveEvent); // interrupt handler for incoming messages Wire.onRequest (requestEvent); // interrupt handler for when data is wanted delay(150); } // end of setup void receiveEvent (int howMany) { command = Wire.read (); // remember command for when we get request } // end of receiveEvent void loop (){ if (++counter >= WAIT_TIME) { flasher();//1 flash signals going to sleep set_sleep_mode (SLEEP_MODE_PWR_DOWN); sleep_enable(); digitalWrite (AWAKE_LED, LOW); sleep_cpu (); sleep_disable(); // release TWI bus TWCR = bit(TWEN) | bit(TWIE) | bit(TWEA) | bit(TWINT); for (byte i = 0; i < 3; i++) {//3 flashes wakened up flasher(); }; // turn it back on again Wire.begin (MY_ADDRESS); } } void READULTRASONIC(){//JSN-SR04-2.0 digitalWrite(USon,HIGH); delay(100); duration=0; distance=0; test=1; test2=3; while ((test!=test2)&&((distance<300)||(distance>1860))){// Get two consecutive readings in specified range digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); delayMicroseconds(100); digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH); delayMicroseconds(150); digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH); distance = duration/5.82;//This is in mm if (test!=distance){ test=distance; distance=0; } else{ test2=distance; } delay(100);///// 500 originally but why??????? } digitalWrite(USon,LOW); ultradepth=distance; } void READTANK (){ byte buf [2]; buf [0] = ultradepth >> 8; buf [1] = ultradepth & 0xFF; Wire.write (buf, 2); }/// end of READTANK void READPOWER(){//Still needs cap on resistive divider int val, read1, read2; read1=1; read2=2; ///Get two consecutive identical readings while(read1!=read2){ val= analogRead(BatteryIn); if(read1!=val){ read1=val; } else{ read2=val; } } batterypower=val; } void READBATTERY () {// Battery reading send now byte buf [2]; buf [0] = batterypower >> 8; buf [1] = batterypower & 0xFF; Wire.write (buf, 2); } // end of READBATTERY void requestEvent () {// Original which parameter removed switch (command) { case CMD_READ_TANK: READTANK (); break; // send Tank Depth Reading case CMD_READ_BATTERY: READBATTERY (); break; // send Drone battery reading } // end of switch } // end of requestEvent void flasher(){ digitalWrite (AWAKE_LED, HIGH); delay (20); digitalWrite (AWAKE_LED, LOW); delay (50); } EDIT - With playing around with so many variations, I had copied the wrong sketch version here, now resolved. One of the more frustrating aspects I found in this setup was instability, presumably due to Wire interrupts or a dodgy connection somewhere. The Slave would in isolation get a valid figure to forward, yet somehow the Master would pass completely different figures to the Gateway or everything would lock up. One curiosity noted was the delay between the Master powering up the Slave and requesting results over Wire, it worked fine with sleep(5000), but 1000 would introduce instability.
    • zboblamont

      RTClibExtended query
      General Discussion • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @gohan Nope, hourly measurement is quite sufficient. I had bought two of these with onboard RTC to pass time control to the DS3231M and let the Nodes sleep, at the time it was purportedly energy advantageous. I'm aware I could have used a non-RTC version and a sleep time, although have yet to succesfully make sleep for an hour for some reason, yet 30 minutes is no problem. Just puzzled how it should be deployed, hence the query..
    • zboblamont

      I2C Communications between 5v and 3v Arduinos....
      General Discussion • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @zboblamont After a lot of headscratching I solved part of this puzzle and feeling a little stupid. Nothing to do with Library conflicts, both Wire and softwareSerial work as they are supposed to, the level converter works perfectly, it was a combination of sketch issues and the manner in which sleep was invoked on both Master and Slave, as well as a problem ultrasonic board. 1 - The DYP-ME007Y I could only ever get to read on a Russian developed sketch using softwareSerial. Although I got the reading once, the Slave was locked in an endless loop in the background, never going to sleep or giving the battery reading. By doing the ADC battery measurement first at least I got both readings, but with the Slave running endlessly even with the ultrasonic board shut down, it was killing the batteries. So I gave up on that one and switched to the second tank which uses time of flight calculation, readily incorporated as a function. This time I incorporated LED flashes so I could see what WAS and was NOT happening. 2 - The JSN-SR04T-2.0 Slave went to almost immediately per Gammon's sleeping Slave routine, would waken when prodded, but would not return a battery reading. The problem lay in Gammon's preparations prior to sleeping the Slave, where he turns off the ADC, but it remained off when awake. Commenting out the ADC shutdown at least solved that issue for now, at least the Slave gave the required readings and went to sleep, but... it never started again. 3 - The Master was going to sleep but never wakened on the onboard RTC alarm set to Int1. Switching to a straight Sleep period did not work either, until it finally it dawned that the Wire service may be interfering. Only when Wire was shut down and re-invoked after wakeup did both Master and Slave sleep and awaken as intended. Left it running overnight, and it has been consistently reporting every 30 minutes, so will look again today at getting the DS3231M to work properly on the Master and read how to restart the ADC on the Slave. Frustrating as a relative amateur, but lessons learned. If there is no function to interrogate the DYP ultrasonic, may just order another device from China and hope it proves simpler, cheap enough even if it takes a month...
    • zboblamont

      Arduino Interrupts and I2C
      Troubleshooting • • zboblamont  

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      Yveaux

      @zboblamont avr-libc is the 'base library' which allows c-coding on atmega's. It describes how to use the twi interface and includes some example code to juggle the twi registers of the atmega. Possibly you can find some arduino library abstracting these details for you, but this is how it works/should be done.
    • zboblamont

      Email notifications with planet sized bell
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      zboblamont

      @mfalkvidd If what I saw as email notification this morning is the result, call me totally impressed by the speed this was dealt with. 7 hours or less and fixed... Bravo...
    • zboblamont

      Spam postings
      Troubleshooting • • zboblamont  

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      hek

      Looks like we finally have the tools to keep spam out of the forum after upgrade. This means a little more wait time for new users to get their posts accepted. But I think it's worth it to keep the evil spammers out.
    • zboblamont

      [SOLVED] Puzzle over water meter .sensor
      Troubleshooting • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @kimot Ironic then is it not that the same "random event" I was chasing occurred whether using the Whisper, a 3v8MHz or a 5v16MHz Pro-mini? I thought that rather narrowed causes to program or sensor, but hey, I'm no expert. As you might note above I had also excluded EMI effects through experiment
    • zboblamont

      Data integrity
      Domoticz • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @mfalkvidd Thank you for that synopsis. I had already looked at most of these threads, but did not focus on them too much as have no experience using node-red, even though familiar with it's history. Node-red is pre-installed on the Pi3, so guess I should try getting to grips with it. @gohan I had already considered using a dedicated Pi3/HDD to handle and locally store time based utility consumption (water, power, gas), as this would avoid interfering with the existing arrangement or performance until switching over and reprogramming the utility nodes. That way, an entirely separate control system/methodology could be deployed, again, node-red seems the recommendation. I had not thought on direct attaching the radio as have an unused Sensebender Gateway (yet to identify why the RFM69 isn't playing nice), but I guess it makes sense and I have both the W and CW chips sitting idle... Cheers, time to do some re-reading...
    • zboblamont

      MYScontroller
      Troubleshooting • • zboblamont  

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      zboblamont

      @gohan I appreciate your interest, but as I said previously I am more comfortable with migrating the OS and storage to a traditional/?device which can withstand the abuse. I may just have been unlucky in this instance with the micro-SD, but having spent a day trying to get a working system, however frugal, up and running again, I would rather have reliability. I can backup data to the router drive, I can copy a spare micro-SD for the Pi3, that seems to me a safe system...
    • zboblamont

      DH22 Sensor puzzle
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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      dbemowsk

      @zboblamont It may be a board that they use for a few different sensors. They make these as boards with the necessary pull-up resistors and things to minimize the need for extra components when breadboarding a circuit for testing or other purposes. You could potentially unsolder the DHT22/AM2302 from the board if it didn't fit your design. You would just then have to remember to include the pull-up in your design.
    • zboblamont

      Elster sensors
      Hardware • • zboblamont  

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