Avoiding wireless connections - EmonTX serial RPiZero solution

[borpin (Brian Orpin)]

@haffle

(hmmm, despite three ``` top & bottom this next section doesn’t get abbreviated. Sorry!) …

No looks fine.

@haffle

Not knowingly (didn’t know I ought to have, and don’t know how to anyway.

You often don’t need to, but it does ensure everything is fresh.

sudo systemctl restart emonhub.service

@haffle

If you press the reset button on the TX, you will get the initial config info as well. Please post that.

Sorry, I missed this bit. Having restarted the PiZero, I pressed the Tx reset button, and this is the last bits of the emonHub log.

No you need to do it with miniterm running.

@haffle

You also need to turn RF Off especially if you have not attached an antenna.

Where would I do that? I can’t see anything RF related in the emonHub.conf

I’ll show you - you will see a config menu when you press the reset while miniterm is running.

@Robert.Wall

It looks as if you might have some “human readable” output from the emonTx

emonhub is not very discerning in this regard (there is an issue open), part of the reason I suggested a JSON output directly from emonTX. It does pick up odd bits of text, usually at startup that appear as inputs. The repeated restarts due to the exceptions isn’t helping.

@Robert.Wall

Another thought - is the “Tx” line (actually a wrongly labelled Rx input) on the emonTx connected from your Pi Zero?

Wiring looks correct to me (ref EmonTX to Rpi - Direct Serial Connection - #61 by borpin)

I do wonder if there is a poor connection though.

@haffle

2020-10-12 14:12:34,868 WARNING  SerialTx   Exception caught in SerialTx thread. Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/serial/serialposix.py", line 501, in read
    'device reports readiness to read but returned no data '
serial.serialutil.SerialException: device reports readiness to read but returned no data (device disconnected or multiple access on port?)

Clearly there is a serial comms problem.

The other thing to run is

tail -f /var/log/emonhub/emonhub.log | grep "NEW FRAME"

However there is clearly something wrong with the serial comms (hence all the exceptions).

suggestion

• stop emonhub
• open miniterm
• wiggle connection and see if the data becomes corrupted
• try pre made breadboard jumper wires instead of connector
• check header soldering
• Remove the [[RFM2Pi]] Interfacer - it isn’t needed as the Pi does not have an RFM board.