Hi,
My EmonPi (old version) stopped working and are now in and endless loop. I have tried flashing a new SDCard and still… it boots up, writes it has found a few sensors… then reboots and repeats endlessly.
Is there any fix to this? I can’t seem to find the old EmonPI for sale in the shop.
I have bought (ordered) the new EmonPI2 with a Pi4… but noticed that all my EmonTx won’t work with the new version… am I really In need of replacing everything?
Welcome, Allan, to the OEM forum.
Maybe not. It depends on exactly what you already have, and whether it will be possible (and you will be able) to reconfigure your emonPi2 to work with your old devices.
If you let us know exactly what you have (which versions, the radio operating frequency and maybe when you purchased each will help), somebody should be able to advise you.
If you need photographs of the various items that have been available over the years, this section of the Docs should help you: Resources — OpenEnergyMonitor 0.0.1 documentation
and this page will help you identify the radio modules so that we know the frequency they operate on (we have used two different bands in the past): RFM12B & RFM69CW Wireless Transceiver Modules — OpenEnergyMonitor 0.0.1 documentation
Note: There ate two versions of the emonTx V3 - the V3.2 and the V3.4. Only the latter is mentioned in Resources. Pictures of the emonTH V1.4 & V1.5 are here: emonTH/hardware at master · openenergymonitor/emonTH · GitHub .
I’ve emailed the shop because, if you’ve only just placed your order, they might not have despatched it and if they have not, they might be able to reconfigure it for you.
Unfortunately, I’m told your order has already been posted, so this option has gone.
Do you mean reflashing the old card, or getting a new card?
Next step is to take the Pi out of the case and hook it up to a Monitor and see what the output is on boot.
I took it all apart… so my findings are… with a new SDCard flashes with latest build. The Raspberry Pi boots fine without the EmonPi hat … if the EmonPi hat is on it just boots forever. The display i connected just writes some sort of error with many choices over and over… and there are a number counting up to over 10.000 before i gave up.
So Raspberry Pi 3 works… boots fine without the EmonPi Hat. As soon as i put the Hat back on and try to boot it up it just boots forever.
Ok… well… i will thinker with it when the new one arrived. I believe my EmonTX are the version 2 … i did purchase 4 of them with 4 wifi modules that i haven’t used yet. It seems adding the WiFi module disabled the use of all the sensor port and only allowed for one port… but I will probably just go install the WiFi adapters on them and use them in that way instead. My setup is quite large… I have 7 IoTAwatt hooked up to this EmonPi as well as a lot of NodeRed Modbus IoT Hardware that i use to keep track of alot of stuff in my Solar setup. The EmonTx was/is just a small part of it all. For. Now i have managed to get a Docker container to run on one of my Synology Nas hardware… but as I have made lots of changes to the original php files on the EmonPI hardware … i wish to continue using EmonPI as a host hardwaee (and therefore i bought the EmonPI2) so im guessing the old EmonTX are not totally useless as long as i install the WiFi modules. Looking forward to getting the EmonPI2 … and with the newer Raspberry Pi board i hope to also run NodeRed on the appliance side by side.
Old card is Dead… can’t copy data out … this might be the initial reason for the failing hardware… so I installed a new SDCard that I flashed and that works as long as the EmonPI Hat is not attached.
That doesn’t sound right to me. I think you might mean the emonTx V3.2, because the emonTx V2 was a wire-ended components solder it yourself kit, and didn’t (but I think could-never tried it) use the ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, which is what I presume you are referring to. So do your emonTx’s look like this:
Do you meant the CT input? If you do, it most definitely shouldn’t and doesn’t do that, provided you have the correct options set in the sketch. The serial format to send via Wi-Fi is different to the normal ‘human-readable’ format.
Can you confirm you do have the emonTx V3.2? It doesn’t have the RJ45 connector for pulse and temperature, and inside, the top and bottom silk screens say “V3.2” and it has the processor on a daughter board and the radio module sits on top of that. If by a long shot the radio module is RFM69CW (see the pictures I linked above), you should be able to use the later LPL radio protocol, given a modified sketch for your emonTx’s. Otherwise, you can use them at 433MHz on the ISM band but you’ll need to revert the emonPi2 to using the old ‘JeeLib’ radio protocol.
But if you have the emonTx V3.4, which has a RJ45 connector on the opposite edge to the jack sockets, and it has the RFM69CW radio, then you can use the LPL radio protocol, given a (slightly different) modified sketch.
Yes confirmed… i have the v3.4.3. that is great news then, thanks for this information. I will give it a try when the EmonPI2 arrives.
Are all four the same, and will you be using all of them?
You will need to update the sketch running in your emonTx’s - you’ll need to connect each in turn to the emonPi2 via a programmer (USB to UART) and a USB cable to the emonPi2. This page covers the procedure: Firmware — OpenEnergyMonitor 0.0.1 documentation.
I think you’ll need to reset the unique NodeID on each emonTx - I think it won’t be remembered across the update process, neither will any custom calibration you might have done. You can do this via the emonPi2 while they are still connected, and save to the EEPROM. A guide to this appears a little earlier in Docs: Configuration — OpenEnergyMonitor 0.0.1 documentation
You can of course use a computer and the Arduino IDE instead of the emonPi2 if you prefer.
Thank you so much for all this information, and yes i will change the nodeid on the two of them… I bought 2 of them on NodeID 15 and 2 of them on NodeID 16 and changed the nodeid so all could work together at the same time. Again, thanks for all the information and I will surely give this a try, it’s like Xmas in August getting to mess around with stuff like this. And I’m happy I can use the old EmonTX hardware with the new EmonPI 2.
One thing I’d mentioned earlier but forgot to repeat last time - do your emonTx V3.4s have the RFM69CW radios? Those are essential to use the LPL radio protocol. As far as I know, all production units were shipped with the RFM69CW. However, it’s worth checking.
So the Hat is causing the boot loops?
If you hook the Pi up to a monitor, what do you get as output/error messages?
Actually got it to boot up now, turns out it was a faulty powersupply… it does however write a lot of debug information on the screen (attached to HDMI).
Its been running for a few hours now and seems to be working…
Thanks for all your support / it is greatly appreciated.
Edit - rotated image. Moderator, BT
