Home Automation - Smartkit

[xrapidx]

Easy, get Smartkit to sell you a bunch of Efergy stuff
Although, I'm not impressed by their products - their is a ridiculous limit of 5 devices per hub, and that's ok - but if you buy another hub it gets added to another account on Efergy and you can't view all your usage in one place.

Yeh - no thanks - I have the Efergy engage - and will be selling it soon, just waiting for a Wemos D1 to do a custom solution.

The calculation is easy though, the Gen8 has a 200w PSU, just need to check the NAS

EDIT: Found it - earlier the link wasn't working:
https://www.buffalo-technology.com/productview/TS4800D

So 200w + 110w = 330w max = 330w/220 = 1.5aH, or am I completely off track?

 

[SAguy]

Yeh - no thanks - I have the Efergy engage - and will be selling it soon, just waiting for a Wemos D1 to do a custom solution.

The calculation is easy though, the Gen8 has a 200w PSU, just need to check the NAS

EDIT: Found it - earlier the link wasn't working:
https://www.buffalo-technology.com/productview/TS4800D

So 200w + 110w = 330w max = 330w/220 = 1.5aH, or am I completely off track?

Your battery would in all likelihood be a 12v battery though, so you want to know the ah in terms of the battery.

Which gives you 27.5ah. Considering that you don't want to fully discharge the battery and other losses, I think a 100ah battery would last you under 2 hours.

 

[ebendl]

I don't know - the load shedding caused havoc with my automation at home Made the wife quite grumpy when stuff that usually worked by itself no longer worked at all

I had quite a bit of trouble as well. Ended up buying a Sherlotronics PSU with backup battery (2x7AH 12v batteries) and a DC-DC stepdown buck converter for the Raspberry Pi. So I now run my HomeAssistant on the Pi, my Wifi, my Mirkotik router and my fibre ONT on batteries/PSU all the time and it seems much better.

 

[xrapidx]

I had quite a bit of trouble as well. Ended up buying a Sherlotronics PSU with backup battery (2x7AH 12v batteries) and a DC-DC stepdown buck converter for the Raspberry Pi. So I now run my HomeAssistant on the Pi, my Wifi, my Mirkotik router and my fibre ONT on batteries/PSU all the time and it seems much better.

I had HA running on a Pi - it just couldn't handle the load after awhile.

Your battery would in all likelihood be a 12v battery though, so you want to know the ah in terms of the battery.

Which gives you 27.5ah. Considering that you don't want to fully discharge the battery and other losses, I think a 100ah battery would last you under 2 hours.

These electricity calcs really give me a headache. I probably need to spend more time understanding them once and for-all.

 

[Sparkz0629]

Hey Guys,
Does someone have a CC2531 Debugger cable and the CC2531 Downloader cable that i can borrow/rent?

I want to bring in a CC2531 to be used as a ZigBee sniffer, but don't see the point of bringing in the other cables for one time use.

Linky

 

[SAguy]

I had HA running on a Pi - it just couldn't handle the load after awhile.



These electricity calcs really give me a headache. I probably need to spend more time understanding them once and for-all.

I don't know too much myself, as geeks we all have the aptitude to figure out it after a couple of hours on the web... enough to at least get some basics together.

 

[xrapidx]

I don't know too much myself, as geeks we all have the aptitude to figure out it after a couple of hours on the web... enough to at least get some basics together.

Yeah, the figuring out part is part of the fun:
I spent a about an hour trying to figure out how much it'd cost, and what I'd need, to get my pool pump and well point pump to run off the same solar system, without batteries - but at different times. (so only needing 1000w to share)

When I had all the information - I was quite proud of myself until I realized the well point pump only runs after dark..

 

[ebendl]

I had HA running on a Pi - it just couldn't handle the load after awhile.

Yeah, I get that idea too. Both the fact that with too much going on the CPU gets bogged down, and the SD cards do not last if you have history writing to it. Which is a pity, it feels like a perfect size and type of device to run something like this.

I've seen people move over to a Docker on the Pi and then mapping the history output to an external drive, I might try that some time. Then I've also heard about people splitting their HA over two pi's - the first one controls important essential home aspects, basically lights, other devices and primary sensors. The second is used to do extra things -- like connect to weather services and other cloud services.

 

[Slip]

Hey Guys,
Does someone have a CC2531 Debugger cable and the CC2531 Downloader cable that i can borrow/rent?

I want to bring in a CC2531 to be used as a ZigBee sniffer, but don't see the point of bringing in the other cables for one time use.

Linky

I have one you can borrow. PM me

 

[xrapidx]

If you can connect to it then you can do just that.

Go to http://IP/up? and feed it the minimal image. Then do it again with the full image.

Does your WiFi key have some weird stuff in? There was recently a change to latest versions to accommodate that.

So this worked - wish that URL was made clearer somewhere.

BUT - ended up stuffing up my slampher - decided to upgrade the firmware while I was busy configuring the basic MQTT settings (copy and paste from slamper).

Now the slampher is off the network... and apparently not as easy as using the button

 

[Tinuva]

I had HA running on a Pi - it just couldn't handle the load after awhile.

Got myself the dual-core version of this: MinnowBoard Turbot
Added a 256GB SSD (had a wd-green lying around) as the drive instead of sd-card, running openhab+influxdb+traefik+teamspeak3+mqttwarn+nodered+mosquitto on it, all in docker containers. Working perfect. I was worried that influxdb+openhab+nodered would kill it, but they all seem very happy. (I do make use of cpu and memory limits in docker)

CONTAINER ID        NAME                CPU %               MEM USAGE / LIMIT   MEM %               NET I/O             BLOCK I/O           PIDS
484da6bacfda        influxdb            0.46%               476.8MiB / 640MiB   74.50%              206MB / 4.29MB      717MB / 856MB       11
ae15038371d7        openhab             7.20%               412.2MiB / 750MiB   54.96%              0B / 0B             437MB / 409MB       176
78345b9d71e2        mqttwarn            0.04%               11.97MiB / 50MiB    23.94%              1.79MB / 1.58MB     75.3MB / 0B         3
4fac615ef7ce        teamspeak           0.84%               9.547MiB / 50MiB    19.09%              1.52GB / 2.23GB     74.1MB / 8.19kB     28
c4ca7d7e8ef6        nodered             1.10%               61.75MiB / 100MiB   61.75%              287MB / 14.9MB      174MB / 104MB       20
84f518f6159e        watchtower          0.00%               4.879MiB / 50MiB    9.76%               618kB / 9.47kB      67.9MB / 0B         9
5546160e816b        mosquitto           0.11%               956KiB / 50MiB      1.87%               22.3MB / 14.2MB     7.86MB / 1.93MB     1
10949772cd04        traefik             0.65%               42.78MiB / 250MiB   17.11%              1.83GB / 1.85GB     47.5GB / 3.87GB     16

Those few things pretty much max out the memory on it. So Grafana, sabnzbd, sonarr ect all run on my fileserver. If those go down during loadshedding I am not worried, but the home automation stuff needs to keep going.

 

[SAguy]

@phaktza Just received my Sonoff L1, haven't powered it on yet - but is there a specific way the strip plugs into the controller? There are 4 pins and it looks like you could plug them in either way.

It says arrow to arrow but no idea what that means, I only see a little red arrow on the controller - nothing on the strop itself.

Edit:

So like this:


Or this:


This is the side of the controller:


Am I missing something obvious?

 

[SmartKit]

@phaktza Just received my Sonoff L1, haven't powered it on yet - but is there a specific way the strip plugs into the controller? There are 4 pins and it looks like you could plug them in either way.

It says arrow to arrow but no idea what that means, I only see a little red arrow on the controller - nothing on the strop itself.

Edit:

So like this:
View attachment 638718

Or this:
View attachment 638722

This is the side of the controller:
View attachment 638724

Am I missing something obvious?

I must admit I haven't used the strip yet - and I can't find anything online.

Anyone else install one of these?

 

[rorz0r]

@phaktza Just received my Sonoff L1, haven't powered it on yet - but is there a specific way the strip plugs into the controller? There are 4 pins and it looks like you could plug them in either way.

It says arrow to arrow but no idea what that means, I only see a little red arrow on the controller - nothing on the strop itself.

Edit:

So like this:
View attachment 638718

Or this:
View attachment 638722

This is the side of the controller:
View attachment 638724

Am I missing something obvious?

Try both ways and see what happens. I would guess the first way is right.

 

[rorz0r]

Got myself the dual-core version of this: MinnowBoard Turbot
Added a 256GB SSD (had a wd-green lying around) as the drive instead of sd-card, running openhab+influxdb+traefik+teamspeak3+mqttwarn+nodered+mosquitto on it, all in docker containers. Working perfect. I was worried that influxdb+openhab+nodered would kill it, but they all seem very happy. (I do make use of cpu and memory limits in docker)

CONTAINER ID NAME CPU % MEM USAGE / LIMIT MEM % NET I/O BLOCK I/O PIDS
484da6bacfda influxdb 0.46% 476.8MiB / 640MiB 74.50% 206MB / 4.29MB 717MB / 856MB 11
ae15038371d7 openhab 7.20% 412.2MiB / 750MiB 54.96% 0B / 0B 437MB / 409MB 176
78345b9d71e2 mqttwarn 0.04% 11.97MiB / 50MiB 23.94% 1.79MB / 1.58MB 75.3MB / 0B 3
4fac615ef7ce teamspeak 0.84% 9.547MiB / 50MiB 19.09% 1.52GB / 2.23GB 74.1MB / 8.19kB 28
c4ca7d7e8ef6 nodered 1.10% 61.75MiB / 100MiB 61.75% 287MB / 14.9MB 174MB / 104MB 20
84f518f6159e watchtower 0.00% 4.879MiB / 50MiB 9.76% 618kB / 9.47kB 67.9MB / 0B 9
5546160e816b mosquitto 0.11% 956KiB / 50MiB 1.87% 22.3MB / 14.2MB 7.86MB / 1.93MB 1
10949772cd04 traefik 0.65% 42.78MiB / 250MiB 17.11% 1.83GB / 1.85GB 47.5GB / 3.87GB 16

Those few things pretty much max out the memory on it. So Grafana, sabnzbd, sonarr ect all run on my fileserver. If those go down during loadshedding I am not worried, but the home automation stuff needs to keep going.

I'm curious, I assume you have enough backup power for lighting, WiFi, and the minnowboard only? Or what is going to be running that needs automation?

 

[Tinuva]

I'm curious, I assume you have enough backup power for lighting, WiFi, and the minnowboard only? Or what is going to be running that needs automation?

Alarm system on its own power (battery)
Garage doors on their own power (battery)
Some lights, not all.
Wifi yes.
Router+internet yes.
Planning on moving the gateway for the Xiaomi sensors over too, while I dont need that, I do want to know how much the temperature rises in the fridge next time during loadshedding.

Next plan in the future is to see if I can redo the DB board to have some circuits on inverter to make life easier.

 

[D4N_CPT]

@phaktza Just received my Sonoff L1, haven't powered it on yet - but is there a specific way the strip plugs into the controller? There are 4 pins and it looks like you could plug them in either way.

It says arrow to arrow but no idea what that means, I only see a little red arrow on the controller - nothing on the strop itself.

Edit:

So like this:
View attachment 638718

Or this:
View attachment 638722

This is the side of the controller:
View attachment 638724

Am I missing something obvious?

Arrow to Arrow, so maybe Arrow to 12V. Or better yet get out your multi meter and see which one is the 12V Line.

 

[SAguy]

Arrow to Arrow, so maybe Arrow to 12V. Or better yet get out your multi meter and see which one is the 12V Line.

Good idea with the meter.
How will I know if I'm on the 12v? If I get a 12v reading by testing two points on the controller, then one of them is the 12v - If I get no reading then neither of them is 12v. So process of elimination then?

 

[SAguy]

Try both ways and see what happens. I would guess the first way is right.

Not sure I want to just try, I may just damage something.

 

[D4N_CPT]

Good idea with the meter.
How will I know if I'm on the 12v? If I get a 12v reading by testing two points on the controller, then one of them is the 12v - If I get no reading then neither of them is 12v. So process of elimination then?

Yes, and if it is negative 12V, the leads are in reverse. But I will start with the arrow pin on the right...