EventGhost

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:35 am**

In the meantime, I have built a better receiver based on a standard receiver module from AUREL

http://www.aurelwireless.com/rf-wireles ... o.asp?id=7

I am very impressed by the sensitivity and coverage. The end result together with NetHomeServer is very good.

Here are some pictures. In a later post I will add a hand made schematic with the components I used. It was actually rather simple. I ordered the parts, including the receiver module, from CONRAD

Please do not forget the black/white wire seen in the pictures, it is an artificial ground
plane made with a wire counterbalance

Best regards, Walter

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 11:36 am**

And the final result

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:54 pm**

Dont have time for mutch testing. But tried runing it got a fault. Same on rain as with wind:

Will try more later today.

Best Regards, Jostein

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 3:29 pm**

thanks, new version

__init__.py: (46.77 KiB) Downloaded 302 times

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:22 pm**

hi.

Have tested new version. For the wind everything looks like it is working.
Exept from one thing witch might have been misinturpeted. For the "WindDirectionPrevious" i was hoping for a value displaying the last direction before it changed to the direction it is at now(not the one from the last event). But that is no big thing as it all is weary good at the moment. Here are a text file with some of the events. I have not yet control checed if the avrage values are correct but i will do later on. It looks like it is working

wind events.txt: (5.65 KiB) Downloaded 233 times

The rain sensor on the other hand crashes the whole plugin.

Code: Select all

20:06:19   Exception in thread UPM:
20:06:19   Traceback (most recent call last):
20:06:19     File "threading.pyc", line 525, in __bootstrap_inner
20:06:19     File "C:\Programfiler\EventGhost\plugins\NetHomeServer\__init__.py", line 407, in run
20:06:19   NameError: global name 'rain_Week_levels' is not defined
20:06:19

Btw your reciever looks sweet. Loking forward for more info. Is it bether than your pyramid? I was thinking about replacing the antena of my UPM reciever but now i would pherhaps try your approach. I am not sure if the range for the wind and rain detector will be within reach once i mount it outside and not sure about mounting a antena on it as there is a arrow that is supost to move free.

Once again thanks.

Best regards, Jostein

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:32 pm**

I'm sorry for minor bugs, it will be a small pain until it works. Hopfully not too many

New version

__init__.py: (46.77 KiB) Downloaded 248 times

Regarding my receiver, it is by far much better then the pyramid. I think it is even better then the RFXCOM. I have no problems with UPM sensors anymore. Tomorrow I will place one as far away from the house as possible and see how far I can go. I tested with a nexa remote today and I think it was something like 50 metres (from outside to receiver indoor and I have the whole kitchen with some metal stuff like freezer/refrigerator in between)

I would not modify anything if I could do some simple soldering like I did

The receivers inside those UPM's and Pyramids are not as good as the Aurel modules

Best regards, Walter

Posted: **Mon Jan 11, 2010 10:57 pm**

Error with rain sensor.

Code: Select all

23:38:17   Exception in thread UPM:
23:38:17   Traceback (most recent call last):
23:38:17     File "threading.pyc", line 525, in __bootstrap_inner
23:38:17     File "C:\Programfiler\EventGhost\plugins\NetHomeServer\__init__.py", line 441, in run
23:38:17   TypeError: cannot concatenate 'str' and 'float' objects
23:38:17

Wind is still working like before.

krambriw wrote:I'm sorry for minor bugs, it will be a small pain until it works. Hopfully not too many

No problem i am not expecting any thing else. Thanks again for not giving up, these problems must be harder for you than for me.

krambriw wrote:Regarding my receiver, it is by far much better then the pyramid. I think it is even better then the RFXCOM.

Well then i am hoping that you wouldent mind sharing the recipe and hopfuly where the components where purchased. I have learned that with the UPM reciever i get a static depending on who i run the audio cable. Not next to power cables and sutch. And also when using the same sound card for playing music the reception distance go down by 4 times. It might be that i used a cheap audio cable without shielding Have orderd a smal USB card now hopfuly that will fix it. Do you experience the same findings?

Best regards, Jostein

Posted: **Tue Jan 12, 2010 10:38 am**

New version

__init__.py: (49 KiB) Downloaded 232 times

I have now built an internal software simulator for rain & wind so I'm currently running in that mode to test the functions. So far it is running OK here

I have seen others complaining that UPM sensors are weak in transmission. For testing purpose, I have now put an additional UPM temp/hum sensor in the garden 10 metres away from the home-built receiver. It receives events fine

and I will move it further away out during the day

Best regards, Walter

Edit: Sensor has been outdoor 15 m from the reciever since lunch. Working perfect with my receiver. The weather station has no chance to find the sensor any more at this distance

Posted: **Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:45 pm**

Below is the schematic, not the prettiest but still very functional

The components was ordered from Conrad (http://www.conrad.com where you pick your country)

I also found some stuff from my existing garbage collection like
- small colored wires
- thin shielded microphone and coax cable (I think I took that from cables delivered with a soundcard)
- the switched power supply (recycling of charger from an old mobile)
- the potentiometer (I think it is uncritical, I had 1 M Ohm but anything down to a reasonable load at the receiver output will do)

I ordered the items below from Conrad (took around a week to get them). Notice that I bought two types of antennas. I believe both are very good. The antenna on the picture above is my third type and it is also rather similar to the rest

Code: Select all

Art nbr: 27453
Name                           EUROPAKORT 100 x 160 L├ûDBANERASTER
Art nbr: 183024
Name                           IC78L05100 MA
Art nbr: 190264
Name                           Receiver module 433.92 MHz
Art nbr: 115142
Name                           Receiver antenna 433 MHz
Art nbr: 190073
Name                           433 MHz ground plane antenna
Art nbr: 458139
Name                           MKS 4 polyester capacitor
Art nbr: 523100
Name                           Half shell case
Art nbr: 740764
Name                           BNC-connector

Best regards, Walter

Posted: **Wed Jan 13, 2010 12:52 am**

Hi.

Have tested new version. It atleast dont crash anymore

rain.txt: (40.35 KiB) Downloaded 217 times

As you can see there is no reading at all on the "RainPreviousHour" ever. Witch is strange. And alsow the "RainLastHour" never lets go of the rain. Have note tested the day or week thing as it will take a lot of time.

Have to go away for a few days so wont be able to test before after the weekend.

Also the drawing and the shoping list looks perfect.

Thinking about this antenna 115142 witch you sugjested i have to go trough 2 walls to the outside of the house for the wind and rain sensor. Do you think it is good enough. Or should i go for the "433 MHz ground plane antenna" looks big. The antenna from your photos where did you get that?

After quick overlock i noticed something witch i cant find on your drawing or list, maby im just blind.

: compo.JPG (6.47 KiB) Viewed 6385 times

Also is there any need for the coax cable? Wouldent it be just as good to go straight with ordanary 1 wire cables to the conector or is this something to do with range? Did you consider puting a USB sound card in the box also and go without the audio cable but usb cable instead?

: sound.JPG (8.46 KiB) Viewed 6385 times

Opening and soldering straight to something like this with goes for almost nothing(1,5$ with shiping) on ebay.

Best Regards, Jostein

Posted: **Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:32 am**

Hello Jostein,

Regarding testing of the plugin, I have identified I have some problems/errors in the calculation routines of the collected data. As mentioned, I have a simulation mode so I'm actually running as if I had the rain & wind gauge.

I will deliver a version when I see that it calculates correctly, you do not need to test more for the moment, better wait

Regarding the yellow thing in the picture, it is the polyester capacitor of 0.22 micro F (in my case, recycled from a slaughtered Nexa receiver)

Brilliant idea of integrating the sound card directly, it will be next on my upgrade list. Should be straight away and easy to achieve. Actually, you can maybe also take the power supply +5V for the receiver from the USB as well

I used a short thin coax between the antenna and the board to get the correct total length of the antenna. Otherwise you need to add the length of the wire to the antenna length itself and then it will be longer than 1/4 lambda (maybe not critical but...)

Also used a shielded cable for the microphone input due to that I wanted to keep the receiver far away (10 meters) from my PC and other stuff. But with integrated sound card, this is of course not needed any more

As for the antenna, I see that you now suddenly have another option to put the whole box closer to outside, using a long USB cable. Otherwise the ground plane antenna is not very big, it's rather nice and has a magnetic foot so you could arrange a good ground plane by putting it on steel plate on the outside, the receiver close on the inside and then run a USB cable to the computer.

Kind regards, Walter

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2010 8:29 am**

Hello,

I have now fixed the errors, cleaned up the code and finally simulated rain & wind data the full weekly cycle. In my test it has worked fine.

__init__.py: (45.77 KiB) Downloaded 239 times

My handling/calculation rules for the data that are contained in the events are as follows:

Code: Select all

UPM.RainLastHour|4.2|mm|        #This is the sum during the current hour or since plugin start
UPM.RainPreviousHour|0.0|mm|   #The sum for the previous hour
UPM.RainToday|4.2|mm|             #The sum for today or from plugin start
UPM.RainYesterday|2010-01-13|711.2|mm| #The sum for yesterday
UPM.RainLastWeek|714.0|mm| #The sum for the last week until now
UPM.RainMeter|4.2|mm|' #The current rain meter value

Code: Select all

UPM.WindDirection|SSE|  #Current wind direction
UPM.WindDirectionPrevious|SW| #Previous wind direction before it changed
UPM.WindSpeed|1.0901630235| #Wind speed in m/s or km/h (In this case m/s)
UPM.WindSpeedAverage_15|1.4807295232| #Moving average 15 readings (one per minute) 
UPM.WindSpeedAverage_60|1.4807295232| #Moving average 60 readings (one per minute)

I have now also added a getter action that can be used to retrieve the wind speed average from a script

To enable the rain & wind simulation, you have to toggle the comments on lines 165-166 but you do not need this if you have a wind and rain meter

Best regards, Walter

Edit: I can confirm that the idea of using/integrating a cheap small USB sound card worked very well indeed. I was also able to power supply the whole receiver directly with the 5V that was available. The 78L05 was not needed anymore. Picture will be posted later

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:29 pm**

Here are the pictures of the other receiver that I built using the USB Sound card dongle.

The schematic earlier can be used as basis except that you do not need the power supply regulator 78L05 any more

Besides this, I used a potentiometer with 2,2 kOhm this time and it worked just as fine. I also tried to add, as you might see, some additional capacitors to filter a bit but with no difference

The receiver is a bit "nervous" on the output (due to the high sensitivity I assume) but it doesnt really matter. NetHomeServer filters out and decodes the correct messages anyway. I adjusted the output level with the potentiometer to a minimum while looking at the output level in the analysator. The settings I'm using are as follows (but can be dependent on the USB dongle):

EDIT: After using/testing a while I have changed my settings quite a lot. The above picture shows my new settings

Posted: **Mon Jan 18, 2010 4:37 pm**

Hi.

Glad to here that building in the sound card worked. I will order the parts and try to make one myself.

I Tried your latest relese. I still get the same results as before.

rain.txt: (22.37 KiB) Downloaded 207 times

RainLastHour keeps on counting.
RainPreviousHour newer starts. It should show something after an hour but it dont.

Best Regards, Jostein

Posted: **Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:48 am**

Hi again,

You helped me to find a bug in line 414. Should have been

Code: Select all

        if (self.rain_levels[1] >= self.rain_levels[0]):

I was fooled by my simulator since it was incrementing the rain level all the time but I did not consider that rain sometimes stops

Now it should work (I hope)

Best regards, Walter

__init__.py: (45.77 KiB) Downloaded 305 times

EventGhost

OpenNetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer

Re: Receive events from NetHomeServer