yoh-there

Interesting suggestion and it sure would work. But these lids are smacked hard and it will probably break, with all sorts of nasty impact. But it got me thinking. While the current solutin works fine, maybe something can be done with a low power hall sensor.

Responding "from the hip" :-) That is a pretty neat idea, and could extent battery life by close to a factor 2 in theory. I don't know if the chip still needs a reset pulse if enabling, but that can be checked in the data sheet or through some experimentation. I think even the 0.64 uA can probably be avoided if wired in a way I do the reset now. The only thing to guarantee is that the processor latches on in time.As for the downsides:1) There is a fair chance that winter and moisture by now have a bigger effect on battery life than these minute currents. Not saying it is, but the effect might be minute. This does not change the fact that squeezing power is always fun (by coincidence I just watched that part of "Apollo 13" where they find out they need to drop curren...

Responding "from the hip" :-) That is a pretty neat idea, and could extent battery life by close to a factor 2 in theory. I don't know if the chip still needs a reset pulse if enabling, but that can be checked in the data sheet or through some experimentation. I think even the 0.64 uA can probably be avoided if wired in a way I do the reset now. The only thing to guarantee is that the processor latches on in time.As for the downsides:1) There is a fair chance that winter and moisture by now have a bigger effect on battery life than these minute currents. Not saying it is, but the effect might be minute. This does not change the fact that squeezing power is always fun (by coincidence I just watched that part of "Apollo 13" where they find out they need to drop current from 60 to 12 amps to keep the crew alive).2) At this moment, I use RTC memory to save the last state. This way I can detect later on if an event was missed, i.e. because a WiFi or MQTT session could not be established. I could drop that though as it is not super useful.

BTW, I may be a bit daft but in hex 4E + A7 + 7F + 24 = 198(hex)198 times 2 = 330 (hex)330 + 73 = 3A3I would think the crc byte should be A3?

Glad you could use it, and thank you for pointing out the silly omission. I will fix the spreadsheet.

Agreed. For instant data like current power and energy generated today it's absolutely good enough. For historical graphs it has no functionality (makes sense, it has no database!). For that I use that homebuild dash, and also upload to pvoutput.Good enough, not ideal. Yet.

That dashboard is actually the Omnik portal and is, of course, only displaying inverter data. I have made one or two dashboards myself using Google charts and websockets enabled on the mosquitto broker. It looks good, shows the inverter, consumption, the EV charger, but it's not very robust. I might just decide to be happy with MQTT dash, or build a custom Android app. We'll see. So many ideas.......

Great project! May I suggest to consider using Node-RED on the Pi for further automation? I use a similar setup and let Node-RED subscribe to several messages and act accordingly (i.e. send email to cell phones in case of an alarm)

Cool. I more or less did the same thing, moving mosquitto from a pi to the syn, and running MariaDb on it too. However, I use Node-RED (yes, build on node.js) as automation hub and an extremely easy flow to accomplish exactly what you did:- one node that subscribes to #- one node to transform the message into an SQL INSERT statement- one node to execute the SQL statement on the connected database. I used the mySQL node, which is compatible with MariaDb.Here is the code for the middle nodevar d = new Date();var epoch = d.getTime().toString();var outputs = [];var topic='"'+msg.topic.toString()+'"';var payload='"'+msg.payload.toString().replace(/"/g, "\"\"")+'"';var sql = "INSERT INTO simpleLog(topic,message,timeStamp) " + "VALUE...

Cool. I more or less did the same thing, moving mosquitto from a pi to the syn, and running MariaDb on it too. However, I use Node-RED (yes, build on node.js) as automation hub and an extremely easy flow to accomplish exactly what you did:- one node that subscribes to #- one node to transform the message into an SQL INSERT statement- one node to execute the SQL statement on the connected database. I used the mySQL node, which is compatible with MariaDb.Here is the code for the middle nodevar d = new Date();var epoch = d.getTime().toString();var outputs = [];var topic='"'+msg.topic.toString()+'"';var payload='"'+msg.payload.toString().replace(/"/g, "\"\"")+'"';var sql = "INSERT INTO simpleLog(topic,message,timeStamp) " + "VALUES (" + topic+","+epoch+","+time+")";outputs.push({topic:sql});return [ outputs ];

That's actually a nice device! Can I make one suggestion please? Use github for you code. Not only is it a really professional, free vehicle to share code with all versioning stuff you will ever need, it also won't screw up people's phones opening your link ;-)

I am totally confused. Those three lines are NOT in the ino I posted in this instructable, so there is DEFINITELY something wrong!Also, you need to add Time.h, the DSC3232.h library and Lowpower to your sketchbook/libraries. TimeLib I don't know, so probably it won't work.Changing beeper and LED is fine as long as you change the defines of course :-)

mark,First of all: cool you made it!Second: picture (or video) or it didn't happen ;-)So if it is in normal mode it tracks "something" too (you're looking at a subtle step every minute to two minutes or so), noticable if you keep it in your hand. At least that would exclude a clock problem.I suspect a problem with your EEPROM, so it reverts to the same object. To check that, set an object, then reboot. It should beep the same number of times (and the same for the ocation index).If that doesn't help, please document the changes you made (processor, pin usage, RT clock, sogtware, etc etc), as it is happily sitting next to me doing it's thing very dilligently.

Thanks. I used this library https://github.com/JChristensen/DS3232RTC

I completely understand why you did what you did! In fact, my own home automations works that way. But I will change it to MQTT ;-) Thing is, MQTT is really easy and completely developed for low (or high cost) bandwidth: your problem. It originates in oil pipe monitoring, using very expensive satellite links!MQTT is not WiFi bound at all, that is really a misunderstanding. It uses TCP/IP and that is it. One you have your weather station (doorbell, Solar installation, whatever!) up and running and publishing data, you can have 0, 1 or 10.000 subscribers to that data without having to worry about needless polling or the scalability of your transmitter. And the configurable dashboards provided by most broker platforms are fantastic. There are also a lot of MQTT fed dashboards available as ...

I completely understand why you did what you did! In fact, my own home automations works that way. But I will change it to MQTT ;-) Thing is, MQTT is really easy and completely developed for low (or high cost) bandwidth: your problem. It originates in oil pipe monitoring, using very expensive satellite links!MQTT is not WiFi bound at all, that is really a misunderstanding. It uses TCP/IP and that is it. One you have your weather station (doorbell, Solar installation, whatever!) up and running and publishing data, you can have 0, 1 or 10.000 subscribers to that data without having to worry about needless polling or the scalability of your transmitter. And the configurable dashboards provided by most broker platforms are fantastic. There are also a lot of MQTT fed dashboards available as smartphone Apps (I use android "MQTT Dash").Yes, I know I am bitten by the MQTT virus ;-) It is really cool and perfect for these kinds of projects. Here is a link to a pretty good introduction. http://www.hivemq.com/blog/mqtt-essentials-part-1-introducing-mqttAgain, great project, thanks for sharing!

You're welcome (Auto format)!Yes, two capacitors in series, with vastly different values, behave just like the smallest one. So it doesn't matter WHERE you put that single capacitor (amplifier or DC offset part), but one is enough and it can have the lower value of the two.

Great job!!If I can make a kind suggestion, you might want to have a look at MQTT for your next "remote" project. Good references in i.e. Adafruit and once you have wrapped your head around the concept, you can make customized html / widget based dashboards in absolutely no time. Or even respond to the weather with devices.

Great instructable, andyes, welcome!! If I may suggest some improvements please (very tiny):The 10uF in your DC offset part is useless. The capacitor in the output stage of the amplifier takes care of that.In the Arduino IDE, press auto fomat (ctrl-T) often. It will make your life so much easier!

Thank you! Knowledge, just on the level of "how things work", gravity and all, teaching kids about the size of things and motions. But nothing about i.e. sidereal time, math of elliptic trajectories and all. In all honesty, I borrowed all hard core math from Paul Schlyrer.

Great Instructable. You might want to complement the charger with a controlled discharge to check on the cells and add longevity. See for example my Instructable https://www.instructables.com/id/Li-Ion-Discharger

Thank you. This was a really fun project to do. I (re)learned a ton on vector math and astronomy along the way.

Great minimalistic project! Now (I am just teasing a bit) some deep sleep mode and this project can be "gardenized". I would expect, though not sure, that if it is possible, a thorough reconnect to the Wifi is probably needed.

You're welcome! I posted the project I mentioned. https://www.instructables.com/id/Star-Finder/

Great instructable! I understand you use this to avoid under-voltage while flying. If you also want to watch your battery under a tiny load, you might want to put a lot of emphasis on extreme low power usage and avoid a separate power supply, so actually self-measuring Vcc. Here is an example. Mind you, same idea, but different application.https://www.instructables.com/id/Lithium-Cell-Protection-in-Arduino-Projects/

Indeed! Thank you for your kind comment.

Exactly right. And that is also why I needed that blue switch."On", as in, capacitor to RST connected: use for sketch uploading to the ATtiny85."Off", use for uploading ISP or HV sketch to the Nano.

I made this variant. The top side of the ZIF socket acts as a normal programmer, the bottom sie being this HV programmer. The only thing to o is to reprogram the Nano and off you go. The little switch is to enable the "do not reset" capacitor, needed for normal programming.

May I suggest a few additional power savers?- Consider using an arduino pro mini, as it doesn't have a usb-2-serial chip using power;- Remove all permanent-on LEDs;- Remove the power regulator from the UNO and use a LiPo 3.7 volt cell instead of 9 volts;- Use the LowPower.h library to send the processor in a deep sleep in the Loop() most of the time;- Power down the I2C interface while asleep (I will post a project that used this used shortly)Using all these techniques you can make this thing run for a year on one battery!

I am afraid this instructable is not antirely clear. You have to use the "Embed Video" tab it seems, then it works.Choose the +Add button, then select choose video, then paste the link.

I am afraid this instructable is not antirely clear. You have to use the "Embed Video" tab it seems, then it works.Choose the +Add button, then select choose video, then paste the link.

Nix that please. A 7555 is using much less energy, but requires higher voltage. I recreated this project using a ATtiny85 that's 99.9% of the time in sleep mode and lasts 100 days on a single 3V CR2032 coin cell. 8 year old son of a friend of mine drove the teacher bonkers but kept his mouth shut!