Any tips on troubleshooting when emonPi does not detect emonTH (or TX ?)

Hardware emonTH
1

I’m a 8 year user of OEM - and have 12 or 14 emonTH’s - with 2 emonPis in two buildings.

I’ve searched the forums etc, but not found a tips / a cribsheet fr troublesheeting.

My specifics: 4 emonTH’s that have been on the shelf for a couple of years - the emonPi does not automatically detect.
I had:

  • installed new firmware
  • proved they work - so far as talking over serial
  • selected unique RF nodeID’s for them
  • checked that emonHub on the Pi has nodes for them.

So maybe they are dead in RF hardware…? or anything?

I looked at emonHub logging - not seeing the expected nodes.

Is there are any extra logging at an RF level I can find on the emonPI. SSH logging in is fine - I’m Ubuntu/linux savvy.

2

What is in the emonHub log? That’s the first place the Pi part of the emonPi sees the data.

Which RFM do the emonTHs have? There have been reports of the “black blob” RFM12B failing after a time as the encapsulation fails. I’d expect a failure of the RFM to prevent the serial output from appearing as it usually locks up completely, so I rate this as less likely.

What r.f. frequency are you using? 868 MHz used to be an option, all modern products are 433 MHz.

3

OK thanks - so there’s nowhere the code sees them prior to emonHub logs.
I’ll dig into those when back at my desk.

I:ll check their RFM’s

The emonTH are all from the OEM shop - variously 3- 6 years old- ish
And did all work in the past.
All 433Mhz.

4

Yes there is, the “emon” part of the emonPi is essentially the same as an emonTx (except the radio receives instead of transmits) - but it’s much harder to get at because, unless you take the emonPi apart and treat the “emon” part as an emonTx, you’re working remotely via the Pi. If you do take it apart, it can’t take its power from the programmer, you need the usual 5 V separate power supply. Then, instead of seeing just the energy output on the serial port, you should see the radio input mixed in with it.

It’s a lot easier to look at the emonhub log first.

5

thx - I’ll start in emonHub !

If I did seperate the ‘emon’ from the Pi - your instructions sound like

  • power the emon with 5V
  • Question - is the Pi powered off / disconnected for this?
  • plug in emon over serial - Question - will the serial adapter FTDI from the OM shop plug into the emon?
6

Separate the two first.

The Pi is disconnected, doing nothing, the ‘emon’ part is effectively an emonTx - but only 2 channels.

Yes - I assume it will have the connector soldered in. Mine has. and the picture shows it - next to the crystal.

7

thanks very much