emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

I have assembled my emonTX shield and attached it to my Arduino Uno. I have searched and searched on the forum, web site and wiki to determine what to do next but I have to admit I am totally stumped.

In various places it talks of uploading sketches but no where does it say upload to which device... the shield or the Arduino Uno or how to do that.

I have programmed my Arduino and uploaded sketches before so I know how to do that with the Arduino IDE but now I am confused.

I wish there was a single step-by-step guide to the shield and how to get it up and running. The various instructions try to mix the pre-assembled emonTX V3 and the shield and all it has done is confuse the issue.

If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it as I am now at a complete halt.

SnaxMuppet's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

Right... seem to be making a bit of progress...

Installed various libraries (emonlib etc) from git.

Uploaded Shield_C1234, it seems not to be initialising the shield as there is no led on the shield and the serial output is not getting past rf12_initialize.

 

SnaxMuppet's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

More progress...

Dry solder joint to RFM69CW and boards are now talking... 

emonBase using RPI and a RFM69Pi is getting data but now I cannoot find out how to configure emonHub for the emonTX Shield.

Any help on how to configure emonHub would be great (the silence is deafening!)

As this is my first ever electronics project and my first serious project with the Arduino and RPi I am beginning to feel I have bitten off more than I can chew... 

 

pb66's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

Can you tell us a bit more about how you want it configured? Have you used a pre-configured SD card image? if so which one?

If you are using the default sketch and emonHub it doesn't need any configuring for the emonTx shield unless you choose to, it will "just work" (if the RFM69Pi is 433MHz) .

It is a bit of a steep learning curve but that is part of the fun :-)

It may have been a bit quiet right now, but there is help on hand, give it a couple of months and you'll be taking it all in your stride

Paul

SnaxMuppet's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

I have got it kinda working but if anyone has any documentation on how to set up a emonTX shield on emonHub I'd really appreciate it as I am pretty sure I don't have the right settings.

It is a pity there is not much documentation to help beginners. 

SnaxMuppet's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

pb66... thank you so much for replying :)

I am afraid that is doesn't just work out of the box as you suggest. Through a lot of hard work this afternoon I have discovered about setting nodes and feeds in emonHub so that it sends the data to emonCMS.org. There is simply no documentation anywhere that I can find on how to set up emonHub for the shield. There are settings already there for emonTX but not the shield.

For example... the default nodeid in the default sketch is 6. There is no emonHub entry for nodeid 6 and as there is no documentation on how to set up the hub conf file I have just had to guess using the other nodeids as a guide... but I have no idea what I am doing as there is no documentation.

I have emonHub sending data to emoncms.org and the values look sensible but I would really like to know what I should have as entries for the shield.

A couple of months!!! I was hoping to get this all set up TODAY!

Thanks for your reply though... I am gobsmacked at the lack of user orientated info. Loads of techie info but it isn't much good to a beginner like me.

pb66's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

The documentation is a long standing "discussion" which I won't go into here. 

You have slipped into a sort of "hole" in the current range of OEM products, had you used a emonPi with the "emonPi" SDcard you have it would of been fairly straight forward, likewise if you were using the earlier (pre emonPi) SDcard image it would of "just worked" as I described above.

emonHub is designed to not need in-depth configuration, it is powerful enough to do other things IF you choose but otherwise just add an api-key and you're done.

The decision to force users to define every node was made to with the "emon-pi" variant to provide specific features on the local emoncms, usually a emonPi, they offer no advantage with a emoncms.org account.

Show me what you have for the "shield" node in the [nodes] section of emonhub.conf and I will help you.

There 

SnaxMuppet's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

Thank you :)

I have the following:

[[6]]
    nodename = emonTX Shield 1
    [[[rx]]]
        names = power1,power2
        units = W,W

I have two CTs... one for home and one for solar.

I have then set up feeds for each as house_power, House kWh, solar_power, Solar kWh.

One thing I am not sure about is what the values from the emonTX shield are... in the log it shows:

2015-08-10 21:15:14,057 DEBUG RFM2Pi 4737 Values : [577, 10, 0, 0, 23917]

The first value is house power, 2nd is solar power (strangely showing a value even tho it is now dark!), then there is that number at the end... 23917?

 

 

pb66's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

This line in the Shield_CT1234 sketch defines what is transmitted over the RFM network to the RFM69Pi

typedef struct { int power1, power2, power3, power4, nothing;} PayloadTX;

(It looks like it has been edited since the "emon-pi" image was released to have a uniform "shield" size 5 value payload, However, looking closer you have a value so I suspect you are actually using the Shield_CT1234_voltage sketch so the line is actually

typedef struct { int power1, power2, power3, power4, Vrms;} PayloadTX;

So .....

[[6]]
    nodename = emonTX Shield 1
    [[[rx]]]
        names = power1,power2,power3,power4,Vrms
        units = W,W,W,W.V
        datacodes = h,h,h,h,h
        scales = 1,1,1,1,0.01

should work for you.

The 10w you see is a common sight most inverters (all?) will show this and if it bothers you it can be removed in emoncms quite easily, when you create your processlists

Paul

SnaxMuppet's picture

Re: emonTX Shield - how do I set it up?

Thanks for that Paul :)

How could I have found that out for myself then? I hate having to rely on the help of good folk like yourself. Give me a manual and I could resolve these issues myself.

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