STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

With the launch of the emonPi, we have updated pre-built SD card image included wih the emonPi and emonBase. As of 17th Jun 2015, both units use the same SD card software stack. See below for technical details of the new image: 

emonSD-17Jun2015.img.zip
(960Mb, unzips to 3.8GB to fit on 4GB SD card)

Available from the USA Mirror:
emonSD-17Jun2015.img.zip
 

It will be the same image that will soon be is shipping (as of 17th June 15) with the emonBase RFM69Pi SD cards.

The user guide for this image can be found here, along with screencasts that show it in action!

The following is a brief technical summary of the image contents:

  • The 2015-05-05 version of Raspbian running on a read-only partition with option to toggle to/from read/write mode via terminal commands. (rpi-rw and rpi-ro.)
  • An ext2 data partition with 800mb of free space and block size of 1024 bytes used for the phpfina, phptimeseries feed data stores, the mysql database and configuration files
  • /var/log and /tmp are mounted as tmpfs filesystems to minimize SD card writing

Installed on this base is

One of the big differences between the new emonpi image, and the last rfmpi raspberrypi image, is the local emoncms is enabled by default, and is used for configuration, even if data is not logged locally. There is also a reduced need to access the RaspberryPi via SSH, as the new, very basic, emoncms config module provides an in-browser editor for emonhub.conf, as well as an in-browser log viewer for emonhub.log and emoncms.log. It's also possible to do a full emonPi software update from the Admin menu inside emoncms (including emonPi firmware!)

MQTT, emonhub and the new emoncms nodes module
The emonhub installed on the emonPi is a special variant adapted from Paul Burnell's experimental branch. (which may, in time, be superseded by another version of emonhub Paul is working on). It sends node data to the local emoncms via MQTT rather than HTTP requests. It can also receive node data via MQTT to be sent out over the RF network for control applications.

The new nodes module in the latest low-write emoncms branch was designed around the emonhub configuration format. It has the ability to define both a decoding format for data received from a wireless node, and a format for data sent targeting a particular node ID - a development by Paul Burnell. This improves on packetgen functionality considerably, allowing for many more control packet types than the single control packet type used with packetgen.

This screencast by Glyn shows the nodes module in action (receiving vice sending, data).

Apps module
The image has a the new apps module installed by default that includes: My Electric, a solar PV vs consumption dashboard, a heat pump dashboard and a solar + UK wind dashboard. See this        screencast for a demonstration.

Further development

There are many things in this image we would like to improve on, but had to leave for the next release, in order to release this version on time. The main items on the to-do list for the next release are:

  • Show process list in the nodes interface
  • Make it possible to edit names in the nodes interface
  • Show node RSSI in nodes interface
  • Show running services, plus options to start, stop and restart services.
  • Continuous sampling in emonPi firmware
  • Setting names via HTTP API currently conflicts with names coming from emonhub, but requires an integrated emonhub/emoncms solution. Settings names from the HTTP API is currently disabled.
  • move from emonhub.conf in-browser editor, to a full GUI configuration editor.
  • Authentication with emoncms.org by entering username and password.
  • Improve WIFI module experience, auto status refresh etc.

There will be development updates on the new features as work progresses.

The emonPi user guide, including all the screencasts, can be found here:

We hope you enjoy the new additions!

Eric_AMANN's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Hi,

Great job !

Will these new features be also available for people using a Raspberry Pi as an Emonbase ?

If yes, which one ?

Eric

Paul Reed's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

sheppy's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

I've just put this image on a new SD Card and booted my EMONBASE from it. I'm happy to report that "allow positive" now works HOWEVER adding or subtracting inputs together from my EMONTX doesn't work. The values show up when the inputs are added but they don't effect the feed values below them.

As an example:

emonTx_1/rx/power1 config

First item "+ Input"     emonTx_1/tx/power4 gives the input value of 1472 to the right of it

Second item Log to Feed Grid (feed value 2057) which is the value of the input emonTx_1/rx/power1 config,

​adding the "+ Input" didn't change the feed value

I also tried this on the unused emonpi node and the values of all inputs added together from EMONTX added up to zero.

Curiously enough I select as an input to add "emonTx_1/rx/power4" and get "emonTx_1/tx/power4" in the Arg box, is "rx" changing into "tx" the problem?

Steve's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

I confirm the same problem on my emonPi, delivered last week.  Both "+ input" and "- input" have no effect.

However they work fine at emoncms.org.

Steve

TrystanLea's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Thanks for posting, found and fixed the issue and the update is ready for pulling in (easiest way is via the admin tab> update emonpi tool),

it was missing one small line: https://github.com/emoncms/nodes/commit/ff67396c4d58431304644887dae7b8cb...

sheppy's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Thanks Tristan,

that fixed it - the new update facility is an excellent addition and I'm now working on the new image on my pi2 EMONBASE.

Is it possible for the add / minus feed to appear in the nodes tab?

Are there any possibilities to get other inputs on the nodes tab from other devices to provide input into EMONCMS? I have 3 current cost IAM's that I'd like to include and I have the following lines showing up in the logs

Discarding RX frame 'unreliable content'? 170 177 19 175 15 101 251 60 47 157 132 163 252 194 247 193 223 146 211 94 103 (-91) 2015-06-08 22:15:05,809 DEBUG RFM2Pi Discarding RX frame 'unreliable content'? 168 100 15 248 145 255 111 88 49 232 240 0 246 132 140 91 123 123 5 216 133 (-90) 2015-06-08 22:15:07,456 DEBUG RFM2Pi Discarding RX frame 'unreliable content'? 2 113 32 133 177 188 5 22 117 146 250 194 86 217 58 82 203 137 198 48 244
 

Please move this bit into another thread if you want to keep the image file one on topic!

glyn.hudson's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

I've just updated the post above to link to the latest image. As of now (17th June 15) both the emonBase and the emonPi will use the same pre-build SD card and share the same software. The image has been renamed to emonSD-17Jun15.img to reflect this. The opportunity was also taken to pull in latest github commits to Emoncms and emonPi. These are minor updates to the 28th May emonPi image. 

sheppy's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Is there an easy way of finding the free space in tmpfs and maybe expanding it by lowering the display buffers for headless use? I've just installed OpenHAB and it seems reluctant to work in read only mode, so I need to play around with junctions to try and persuade it to behave without compromising EmonCMS

So far this has been a very stable image with few bugs

EDIT: I solved this by reinstalling openhab in /home/pi/data which has rw access and it seems happy. 

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Hi,

Quick question/suggestion.

I followed the link to the user guide which is great and very comprehensive, however, given that there aren't many emonpi's out there and a lot of installations on pi's with rfm12 it would be great if there could be very specific instructions for everyone out there who wants to upgrade to the latest software.

So this would include, how to make sure that historical data isn't lost, anything specific about the rfm12, instructions for 866 instead of 433 etc.

Another part of these instructions should be how to get everything running on an HDD. I can't be alone in having a setup that uses an HDD to get round the SD card issues.

I'm on 8.1.2 on Pi B with rfm12b and an HDD and very happy with everything except I need to upgrade to enable MQTT for a new part of the system. I'm also not very clever at Linux so need things spelling out... !!

Simon

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Further to the above, if I follow the Modules | emonpi emonbase menu on the main page, then follow the  emonbase  raspi link to here -> http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/emonbase/raspberrypi I would expect the link to the software to take me to the new page explaining the latest SD image. Instead I get a 404!!!!

Can someone with the requisite permissions please fix this - Thx.

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

PS to to the last note, it might be worth searching and replacing the link that gives the 404 through the whole forums and wiki to make sure that it !inks to the new SD image page.

kenpi2b's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Great Work!!!

 

I am going to try this Image on a New Raspbery Pi 2 B.

 

I am Excited to see Everything already in this Imageso I do not need to Recreate it from scratch, especially since i am New to Linux/Debian and Raspberry Pi.

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Trystan, the 404 page not found is still there for the software link for emonbase as per my previous reply to this post. Can you make the link point to the new combined page referenced above please.

Simon

PS also wouldn't mind an answer to the question/suggestion I submitted above.....

Robert Wall's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

What is the link that is giving the 404, what do you think it should link to, and on which page or pages does it appear? Exact URLs please.

Saviq's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Could this image include ntpdate and a on-boot call out to a ntp server to set the clock on boot? Otherwise all my nodes/inputs are permanently "inactive". It took me a while to find out, not the greatest first-time user experience ;)

 

On another note, my default gateway isn't set from DHCP over eth0, is that expected?

pb66's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

@Saviq - The raspbian OS does try to check with an NTP server at boot but if there is no network at that time it falls back to the last saved time, since the image is read only that could be some time ago and the data could be ignored when arriving at lowwrite emoncms as you can only append data, not overwrite.

This was fixed prior to the release of the previous (pre-emonpi) image but for some reason appears to be omitted from the latest (post emonpi) image. See Read-only image time issues for details, the bottom line being IMO it's recommend you install ntp-backup which can be done using (use rpi-rw 1st if in read-only mode)

git clone https://github.com/emonhub/ntp-backup.git ~/ntp-backup && ~/ntp-backup/install

Paul

 

Saviq's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

OK so the real reason for my issues must be that my gateway isn't set from DHCP. No other device at home has such a problem.

[...]

Apparently the existence of:

dhcp-option=121,...

Makes dhcpcd ignore the default gateway... Had to add the default gateway to the stanza above to get it to work. But now it does!

pb66's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

I would imagine most of your other devices have a rtc or an unmodified alternative. Since the has no RTC the stock Raspbian OS regularly backs up the current time in case it can't get a current ntp time at boot, it falls back to the last backup time which will be at minimum the time of the last controlled shut down or a maximum of 1 hour plus any down time as it is backed up every hour and at stutdown.

However the Raspbian OS has been modded to be read only in this image and is totally dependent on an ntp update at boot since the time cannot be regularly backed up. so the official no-rtc work around is partially disabled.

So in certain circumstances (one of which you may be experiencing?) such as a momentary power outage, if the Pi boots faster than the router can boot and connect then the saved time will be used ie we the image was written or the last time you happened to have it in rw mode as the hourly save cron ran or when you did a controlled shutdown while in rw mode.

Regardless of the outside influence the Pi should ideally cope and not depend on things always happening correctly, a RTC is an ideal solution if this is a common issue but for an occasional catch, reinstating the original "upto 1hour+downtime max error" seems sufficient bearing in mind the saved time is only used until the network connects when working normally, this should only be a few seconds or so.

I'm not familiar with dchp enough to comment on your findings but I'm glad it's working (and I still recommend ntp-backup if running read-only raspbian)

Paul

Saviq's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Yeah, by "no other devices..." I meant the DHCP issue alone, I totally understand why the Pi can't hold time.

Thanks a lot for your help, ntp-backup is installed and running.

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Robert, just seen your response. I'm away with limited interweb bandwidth. If you follow the link I have in my post and then the text you'll find the link easily. If you can't I will give exact detail when I get back.

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Robert, back to civilisation...

Follow this link as I mentioned above -> http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/emonbase/raspberrypi

​At the bottom of the page the link I have highlighted in the attached image results in a 404 error from github, so someone must have moved something.

Also you'll see by the number of reads the large community out there with emonhub style implementations. I do understand the desire to profile emonpi but the community needs documentation to cover their needs. Emonpi is not the answer for everyone.

Simon

 

Eric_AMANN's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Hello All,

Also you'll see by the number of reads the large community out there with emonhub style implementations. I do understand the desire to profile emonpi but the community needs documentation to cover their needs. Emonpi is not the answer for everyone.

+1,  I tried to use the latest ready-to-go image (17th Jun 2015) to setup an Emonbase and I got several problems. I finally go back to previous image that works fine (emonSD-13-03-15).

Eric

 

Bramco's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

And that has now been confused by the post from Chaviero on 8.5.2.........

smitt1979's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Hi is there any news on an updated image for the emonpi that includes v9 of emoncms or is there a installation guide for updating from 8.5v to 9v

Thanks Steve

amgican's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Is there any chance that the http://openenergymonitor.org/files/emonSD-17Jun2015.img.zip file could be hosted on GitHub too? I've tried several times to download the SD image zip file without success. It seems hosting it on an alternative server with tons of bandwidth would make the process much less painful for those of us with bandwidth and connectivity issues.

Also, the link to http://oem.aluminumalloyboats.com/oem/emonSD-17Jun2015.img.zip ends up in a 404 not found page.

Robert Wall's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

"Also, the link to http://oem.aluminumalloyboats.com/oem/emonSD-17Jun2015.img.zip ends up in a 404 not found page." Only the last two images (18th & 22nd December) are there.

The 17Jun2015 image of emoncms is available via the alternate download site as of 0400Z 29Dec15 - BT

amgican's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

It seems the link magically works now, after 1.5 months of it not working... How about linking to the folder and letting the user pick which one? (http://oem.aluminumalloyboats.com/oem/) Didn't know that was an option. Thanks Robert, I'll try the download of the newest one now...

Bill Thomson's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Correct. If you use: http://oem.aluminumalloyboats.com/oem/ you will be taken to the folder, and can choose the file you want to download

raymop's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

This is certainly a silly question, and I'm not a noob.

I have a Rasp Pi and downloaded several of the above images, but in each case, I am not able to login via SSH, or login directly via keyboard to the raspi.

I tried:  root/root, pi/raspberry, raspi/raspberry.

I have tried many other fixes, but I need help.  Thanks,

pb66's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

I'm sure I read somewhere that the default password for the Dec 2015 > images had been changed to improve security as not all users were changing it from "raspberry". I've just tried finding it with no joy, but from memory it was something like "emonpi", "emonPi", "emonbase", "emonSD" etc a generic OEM password for user pi, but not as easy to guess as raspberry. Sorry for the vagueness.

Paul

pb66's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Found it !

I was starting to think I was imagining it, but no it's " emonpi2016 " you can find it on the "NEW (BETA): emonPi / emonBase (Raspberry Pi + RFM69Pi) Emoncms v9 pre-built ready-to-go SD card image - updated 22nd Dec" thread, under the "ssh" section. 

Paul

raymop's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Oh man! Thank you!

I thought i was losing my mind.

I understand the need for security, but the posting of the change to the password is not well documented. 

Something like that, "I might" suggest that this be made a little more known.  Though that is contrary to improving security.

 

jon@hattonb.com's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Hi,

I've been using openenergymonitor for a couple of years now and its been great! However my emonBase stopped working recently. I'm assuming its because I wore out the SD card. I've now got a new one and downloaded this version of emonPi. However it is not booting. I have an original Pi B. Do you think this could be the issue? If so, which image should I be using?

Thanks,

Jonny.

glyn.hudson's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Yes this image should work on the Model B, this is the standard image we ship via the shop. However we are about to switch to the latest image (currently Release Candidate). I would recommend you try the new image. It should work on Model B although it's only currently been tested with the Pi2. https://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/12212

promy's picture

Re: STABLE: emonPi and RFM69Pi emonbase ready-to-go SD card image (emonSD-17Jun15)

Is there any way to change the port for the emonPi from ttyAMA0 to ttUSB0 . I would like to use my own arduino setup which is connected to that port?

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