EmonTX3 not working

Hardware
1

I have a EmonTX setup and working for over a year. At about 4am yesterday morning it stopped working. The red LED is blinking every 10 seconds or so, to me it look the same as it always has.

I have restarted both the EmonTX and the EmonPI it is connected to, by removing power and pressing the reset button (reset button on TX only). I have also run a full update to the EmonPI without success. (it did not need any updates)

I have looked at a number of topics here and I can not find anything other then look at the emonhub log in debug mode. (extract below) I can see a warning but am unsure what to do next.

At presant the feeds and inputs are red and feeds not updated for 29 hours

2022-01-27 09:20:19,323 INFO     MainThread Logging level set to DEBUG
2022-01-27 09:20:19,323 INFO     MainThread Creating EmonHubJeeInterfacer 'RFM2Pi'
2022-01-27 09:20:19,326 DEBUG    MainThread Opening serial port: /dev/ttyAMA0 @ 38400 bits/s
2022-01-27 09:20:21,330 WARNING  MainThread Device communication error - check settings
2022-01-27 09:20:21,331 INFO     MainThread Setting RFM2Pi baseid: 5 (5i)
2022-01-27 09:20:22,334 INFO     MainThread Setting RFM2Pi frequency: 433 (4b)
2022-01-27 09:20:23,336 INFO     MainThread Setting RFM2Pi group: 210 (210g)
2022-01-27 09:20:24,338 INFO     MainThread Setting RFM2Pi quiet: 1 (1q)
2022-01-27 09:20:25,341 INFO     MainThread Setting RFM2Pi calibration: 230V (1p)
2022-01-27 09:20:26,343 DEBUG    MainThread Setting RFM2Pi pubchannels: ['ToEmonCMS']
2022-01-27 09:20:26,344 DEBUG    MainThread Setting RFM2Pi subchannels: ['ToRFM12']
2022-01-27 09:20:26,346 INFO     MainThread Creating EmonHubMqttInterfacer 'MQTT'
2022-01-27 09:20:26,352 DEBUG    MainThread Setting MQTT pubchannels: ['ToRFM12']
2022-01-27 09:20:26,353 DEBUG    MainThread Setting MQTT subchannels: ['ToEmonCMS']
2022-01-27 09:20:26,354 INFO     MainThread Setting MQTT node_format_enable: 1
2022-01-27 09:20:26,355 INFO     MainThread Setting MQTT nodevar_format_enable: 1
2022-01-27 09:20:26,356 INFO     MainThread Setting MQTT nodevar_format_basetopic: emon/
2022-01-27 09:20:26,357 INFO     MainThread Creating EmonHubEmoncmsHTTPInterfacer 'emoncmsorg'
2022-01-27 09:20:26,360 DEBUG    MainThread Setting emoncmsorg pubchannels: ['ToRFM12']
2022-01-27 09:20:26,361 DEBUG    MainThread Setting emoncmsorg subchannels: ['ToEmonCMS']
2022-01-27 09:20:26,362 WARNING  MainThread Setting emoncmsorg apikey: obscured

Tom

[edit by Mod]
For future reference, when posting code or bash output, please put in 3 ‘backticks’ (found at the top left of the keyboard normally) on a line on their own, then the code, then 3 more backticks on a line following the code.

    ```
    code
    ```

If it is something like php you can add a language identifier that after the first 3 backticks so ```php

2

Welcome to the forum, @tom8635

I’m sorry to hear that it’s stopped working for you. Although it sounds as if the emonTx is actually still working (I think in most cases, the red LED will not flash if there’s a fault) the problem could still be in the emonTx, or in the emonPi. Does anything else appear in the emonHub log after the part you copied above?

Are the emonTx and emonPi the only OEM items you have?

Do you have a programmer?

If you look in Admin on your emonPi, are all the Services running?

3

emonhub log.txt (1.3 MB)

Hello, I have uploaded the full log (I hope that this is ok to do)

I can see that 2022-01-26 05:00:26 was the last update from the EmonTX and at at 2022-01-26 21:13:29 is when I start to reset things.

Yes the emonTx and emonPi are all I have and I have not modified the firmware. I am mostly using the feeds in Python & Rednode to control / feed in to other things.

I do not have a programmer

All services are running and other feeds via API are updating as expected

4

You’re not using the “emon” part of the emonPi at all, by the look of things?

The log shows nothing came in from the “emon” part of the Pi (the emon Shield with the radio and the Atmel ATMega 328P) after 2022-01-26 05:00:26

2022-01-26 05:00:50,217 DEBUG emoncmsorg Buffer size: 3
tells me that emonHub was still working 24 s later, but it had only 3 chunks of data to send instead of the usual 9. Had the emon Shield still been working, you’d have had the zero values from this to send - but those stopped too.

I think your emon Shield part of the emonPi has failed, because it’s that which receives and processes the radio data and merges it with its own, before passing it on to the Raspberry Pi and emonCMS.

Email “The Shop”, refer to this topic and see what they say.

5

I am for the dashboard and as a hub for api feeds but this reading the feeds data from Python. not sure if this is what you mean

I have emailed the shop support email address and will update here if and when I get a response

Thanks for your help

6

No that’s not what I meant. That is all done inside the Raspberry Pi part. The “emon Shield” is the part that measures the voltage & current using an a.c. adapter and c.t’s plugged into the emonPi itself.

For what you’re using it for at present, an “emonBase” (this is a Raspberry Pi with the RFM69Pi adapter) would suffice. But that doesn’t come with the aluminium case.

7

“emon Shield” in this setup, and going on your description is not being used so i am not sure how that can be at fault, unless this is blocking communication with the EmonTX as they may be on the same serial bus ?

I think when I ordered it I was unsure so went with the EmonPi as this had everything included.

FYI - my hardware setup is the EmonTX by the consumer unit downstairs with 4 CT (Grid, Consumer unit(House Load), EV Charger, Hydrogen fuel cell and RMS sensor. the the EmonPI in loft with Solar inverter connected via USB to RS485 to read output and control battery charge / discharge.

I am not worried about the case.

Would like to know if the issue is with the EmonTX, EmonPI or the image on the SD Card, I am happy to replace any of it (EmonPI with EmonBase) if we know where the issue is and can not be resolved via software. although it’s always nice to know exactly the issue.

8

That’s more or less correct.

The emonPi Shield has a voltage and two c.t., pulse and temperature inputs which feed into the ATMega 328P. It also has the radio receiver (from the emonTx). The “front end sketch” – as I call it –
handles all these inputs and sends them to the Pi via its serial port.

One thing I forgot to mention: when you restarted the emonPi, did you reboot the Pi, or did you power down (using the shutdown menu) and then power up again? If not, try that, because it’s only a power-down that restarts the front end sketch - a reboot leaves it running.

9

I have been restarting it via the GUI.

I have just gone the unit and it had the date or the 26th Jan (Yesterday) and “Serial number:” but no serial number. when pressing the button on the front it did not respond. Holding the small power button on the side for about 5s did switch off the unit including the LCD display. I then removed the power for a min or so.

After reconnecting the power the LCD is lit up (Blue) but no text, I am able to access the GUI & SSH and all services are running according to the GUI.

10

That ties in nicely with the front end having failed. The very first text to appear comes from there (because it starts up a lot faster than the Pi), then the Pi takes over.

11

Ok, So would the recommendation be to replace the Pi with a Base, backup and restore config or just transfer the SD card ?

The shop as not come back to me and it has been over a year so I guess no warrantee

12

Let’s see what they say first.

Comparing the prices, buying just the RFM69Pi isn’t sensible, for an extra £3.54 you can replace the Shield (£23.82 (inc VAT) vs £20.28 (inc VAT) - but you’ll have to wait ~3 weeks for it.

If you’re desperate to get going, I think just removing everything from the case, and putting the RRFM69Pi onto the Pi will be all you need to do, but you’ll need a micro-USB cable to power the Pi directly.

13

Hi Tom,

Minimum warranty period is 2 years, but if longer we would still consider it. Everything that is well looked after should be expected to last a reasonable amount of time.

We can arrange to send you an ‘emonbase’, if you prefer?

14

Hello Gwil,

If we are confident what the issue is, the unit is less then two years old then I am happy to swap it with an base or what gets me operation again in the shortest time scale.

Thanks

15

Hello @tom8635 I wonder if you could try updating the emonPi firmware using the update utility on the emonPi itself. This is available from the admin page:

Seelect under ‘Update Firmware Only’

hardware: emonPi
Radio format: JeeLib
Firmware: emonPi discreet sampling firmware …

Then click Update Firmware

image
image1285×709 87.6 KB

16

Hello @TrystanLea

update.doc (5.1 KB)

I have completed the steps and the unit including the feeds have come back to life :slight_smile:

Thankyou.

Do you have any idea what went wrong here, I am happy to know if it is something I have done, but I was asleep when it stopped working! :laughing:

17

More to the point, how is it that nothing was coming in to emonHub (like Node 5) for the last 25 s or so before the big gap in the log? That’s principally what made me think the '328P had stopped.

18

Im not sure, but doing an update like that does often seem to work in the rare occasion that this sort of thing happens. It does guarantee that the atmega goes through a full restart.