I have ordered a power supply from you and will purchase the RFM69Pi if that doesn’t work.
In the meantime I thought it might be useful to share some stats from last nights log. Looking at the RMF2PI NEW FRAME OK… lines I see that the average time between inputs is 23 seconds and that the maximum time is 2 minutes exactly. SO it did seem to be behaving much better than it had been before I had:
a) changed the 4 way adapter (i had suspicions about the old one)
b) change the power supply to a ‘phone adapter’ power supply
c) tried pushing in the RFM69Pi to ensure it was sitting on the pins
Thanks again.
Yes I can move the base very close to the EmonTx but only if I connect the emonBase using wifi as it is too far to run an ethernet cable. Is that what you are suggesting?
Yes I have a lot of other stuff transmitting near to my router where the emonBase is currently. I have a Home Assistant running on a Pi as well as a Velux window and Somfy controllers as well as a TP link for my V2G car charger! So quite a lot I guess.
I think Brian meant transmitting on the 433 MHz ISM band, but anything that radiates r.f. could be a problem if it spills into the band we use. But please note, there’s usually a good reason when we ask for specific data. If you don’t supply the answers, there’s a limit to the amount of help we can give.
Hi Robert, sorry I am not very technical and don’t know what frequency any devices transmit on. I am also sorry if I haven’t provided an answer to something which I have been asked. Could you please let me know which question / specific data you are still needing from me and I will try to do my best to answer?
Many Thanks for your time in helping to resolve this.
RSSI is Received Signal Strength Indicator, and it is an indication of the signal strength seen by the RFM69Pi receiver. It’s not the be all and end all of radio problems, but it does give a good indication of whether there should be enough signal to receive without errors.
All transmitters should carry a label, sometimes it’s in the battery compartment or somewhere like that, indicating the frequency. It should also be in the instructions. For example, on the back of my weather station receiver is printed FREQ: 868.3MHz.
The easy one first: is the Somfy old or new - i.e. did you have it while everything was running without a problem?
Or if not that, it could be something a near neighbour has acquired recently that uses the same band…
RSSI:
It’s on the Inputs page of your emonCMS. Look down the list of inputs from your emonTx, it’s at the bottom. Click the spanner icon and then, under ‘Add to process’, click on ‘Log to feed’. All the defaults should be correct, click ‘Add’. You can check it’s appeared on the Feeds page. A while later, go to the Graphs page, look for your emonTx and expand the entry, you should find ‘rssi’ listed. Tick one of the boxes next to it and a graph should appear. You will see some values after a few minutes, but you’ll need to leave it for some time for enough to be meaningful to be collected.
Here’s what I see. The emonPi isn’t fixed - it’s in the garage on the opposite side to the emonTx. I’d temporarily moved it so it was hiding behind the car, then I moved it a foot higher to be clear of the car. The yellow is the RSSI, the blue is mains voltage, and I had “Show missing data” on. You can see the gaps while the signal is around -80 dB, as soon as it gets just a bit above, there are almost no gaps.
If “Show missing data” is off, it joins the points either side of the gap, so if it’s just one or two messages dropped, you won’t notice.
The Somfy is new. However, I can’t guarantee that everything was perfect with the feeds (data every 10s) before that as I never really looked into everything in such detail. I’m more interested in the detail now as I may want to control my V2G/H charger myself in the future so will benefit if I am getting all the data every 10 seconds.
I already had all inputs from the Tx logged to feeds so here is the RSSI from the last 24 hours:
That could be your problem - not enough signal. It’s marginal. If you tick “Show missing data” and expand the graph, can you see gaps? It will expand up to the point where you can see every message - hover your mouse over the line for the details (the number in brackets is Unix time). Depending on the logging interval (PHPFINA feed), you should see points that interval apart. If you can’t remember, go back to the Feeds page, hover your mouse over the name, and the details pop up.
I tried connecting the emonBase using just Wifi. First I connected via ethernet and then setup a wifi connection as per 1. Connect - Guide | OpenEnergyMonitor Option 3. I then closed down the emonBase and relocated near to the Tx. On power up I can’t now connect to the device. I can see on Fing that it is recognising the raspberry Pi as Offline. What am I doing wrong please?
I’d have checked the Wi-Fi was working before moving it so I could plug the ethernet cable back in if it didn’t.
My next step would be to connect a monitor and keyboard (on my desk) and see what was happening, then Google for solutions. Once I have a working WiFi, I’d move the Pi.
That will be the old connection. The Wi-Fi connection will have a different IP address.
Thanks
Well, I did move the Pi outside of the cupboard where it had been so now it is further away from the other devices and very slightly nearer to the Tx. It is now working fine. Thank you for all your help.
I tried following the instructions for copying over the feed data from my old sd card (3. Restoring your system). I got as far as step 4 and ran the Import process. However, now when I try to log back in I get the error “Database error, you may need to run the database update”. I have seen your solution to this back in 2018. Is that still relevant? And if so I can find the emoncmsdbupdate.php file in /opt/openenergymonitor/emonpi/update/ but the am I supposed to copy this to /home and run it from there please? If so, I am getting an error saying permission denied.
Sorry that I havent picked this up sooner, it looks like you have all tried everything! I’m inclined to think there’s some issue with the RFM69Pi board, antennaes or antennae connections. Happy to send out another RFM69Pi replacement or/and perhaps an ESP8266 WiFi board that you could use with the emonTx in place of the radio link to see if that sorts it.
Could you email our support email on [email protected] and we will get that sorted for you.
@TrystanLea I think there is a misunderstanding. My original problem has been resolved. I now have an issue when trying to copy over the feed definitions from my old sd card. It is this query that I need help with please:
“I tried following the instructions for copying over the feed data from my old sd card (3. Restoring your system). I got as far as step 4 and ran the Import process. However, now when I try to log back in I get the error “Database error, you may need to run the database update”. I have seen your solution to this back in 2018. Is that still relevant? And if so I can find the emoncmsdbupdate.php file in /opt/openenergymonitor/emonpi/update/ but the am I supposed to copy this to /home and run it from there please? If so, I am getting an error saying permission denied.”
