LinkMeter v7 Release


 
Bryan Mayland

Bryan Mayland

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New in LinkMeter v7 with bundled HeaterMeter 20130423B

Major Features
  • WARNING In HeaterMeter 20130423 the PID "lookback" time (the amount of time taken into account when determining the temperature derivative) has been increased from 39 seconds to 60 seconds. If you've got your D constant perfectly tuned, you'll need to re-evaluate it based on the new period and slope of your temperature gradient.
  • Automatic openwrt configuration save / restore. When the Pi successfully boots, it now backs up its configuration to a special area on the SD card. When a fresh image is written to the SD card using Win32DiskImager, this area is preserved and the settings are restored on first boot. The first boot process takes about a minute and then the Pi will reboot with your old settings.
  • wifi-client setup script for quick wifi client setup even with no adapter inserted. Usage: wifi-client SSID [encryption] [password]. Encryption is: none, wep, psk (WPA), or psk2 (WPA2) and psk2 is the default. Use this if installing on a Model A to configure your wifi before booting with it.
    Code: 
    OpenWrt:~# wifi-client capnbry24 notmyrealpassword
  • PID Internals display (with HeaterMeter 20140423 firmware or above)

    This display shows what portions of the PID are contributing to the output value. To view this, you must be logged in and press 'P' to turn on the display (not supported in Internet Explorer).
  • Servo Support. A servo can be used instead of a blower fan. Dave Peart was awesome enough to send me one of these and I repaid him by not doing anything with it for like 2 months. A test burn worked great, although it took over any hour to get the pit up to temperature lighting it my normal way of just hitting it with a blowtorch for 20 seconds.

There's also been a bunch of smaller changes:
  • Fix RF receiver reporting 32F when disconnected
  • Fix some web server (lucid) crashes on startup when bad data is received
  • Fix fan not working when alarm is ringing
  • Autoselect the value on the home screen editor text boxes
  • Stop possible configuration loss caused by 'defaults' script running on ever boot
  • Fix multiple "toasts" not properly overwriting each other on the HeaterMeter display
  • Update to Arduino 1.0.3

Existing users who don't want to wait until the next next update to preserve their configuration might be able to update thusly:
-- Go to System -> Software
-- Install this parted package
-- Install this linkmeter-7 package
-- Reboot.
-- Go to System -> Startup and "enable" the config_restore service.
-- Reboot. If the configuration backup is working, you should see a file /mnt/mmcblk0p4/backup.tar.gz appear around 30 seconds into the boot process.

You'll also need to update the HeaterMeter firmware using LinkMeter -> AVR Firmware -> Bundled -> hm.hex
 
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Sweet, thanks Bryan! Is there a way to verify that the backup is happening w/o having it hooked up to a display? I upgraded those packages and the firmware w/o issue, but I don't normally have this thing hooked up to a display.
 
Updated to V7 and could immediately see the servo change, but couldn't get the PID parms to show on the main page. Then it dawned on me that it needs a pit probe plugged in to do any calculations. That is very cool.

Just trying to save anyone else from the same mistake.

Thanks Bryan
 
Kyle Christensen said:
Sweet, thanks Bryan! Is there a way to verify that the backup is happening w/o having it hooked up to a display? I upgraded those packages and the firmware w/o issue, but I don't normally have this thing hooked up to a display.
Click to expand...
Yeah you can ssh into it and look to see if the backup file is there under /mnt/mmcblk0p4/backup.tar.gz

I've also made a bit of a FAQ in the wiki that explains what it does which may answer some questions.
 
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Ben Crocker said:
Updated to V7 and could immediately see the servo change, but couldn't get the PID parms to show on the main page. Then it dawned on me that it needs a pit probe plugged in to do any calculations. That is very cool.
Click to expand...
I've done that myself too. I tried to decide how it should work if there was no pit probe and not displaying anything came up like 10 bytes smaller on the HeaterMeter firmware so I went with that over displaying possibly incorrect data (whatever it was when the probe was removed).

The other thing to remember is that you've gotta be logged in, because it changes a setting to turn it on.

Glad to hear the update worked! Seems like the past 2 updates I had a release followed by an immediate release with a bugfix.

I'm also going to make a wiki page about using a servo, because you can't just plug it into the 12V jack, for obvious reasons.
 
That is great to hear that the servo worked for you. It is amazing how long it takes to get up to temp when you are used to a fan stoking the fire :)

Will this work using the lmremote to drive the servo, or do we need to hook it up to the heatermeter? Sorry couldn't wait for the wiki :)

dave
 
This update just gets the servo working on the HeaterMeter itself. The lmremote code isn't done, but the transmit protocol is still the same, so the version you had been testing with should still work. The heatermeter transmits the new fan speed every 5 seconds.

Yeah I am so used to just hitting some of the lump charcoal with a blowtorch for about 20 seconds and coming back 15-20 minutes later and having everything good to go. Not a big deal, I can just open the bottom slide all the way until the temperature starts to get up there. What I really like about it was I can leave the star vent on the top of my egg open all the way and I get a much nicer thin stream of smoke coming out instead of puffy clouds of billowing smoke ever time the fan kicks in. I need to make or buy an extension cable for the servo but I think I'm going to use this instead of my fan from now on. The temperature stayed within +/- 1.5 degrees and the oscillations were about every 20 minutes rather than every 5.
 
Dennis C said:
Side note- did you ever make use of the micro adapter I sent for the pie awhile back?
Click to expand...
I did! I've got it in one of my Model As. Works great and I don't have to worry about it having the card sticking out and catching on things, which I've done before. :/
 
I thought I wrote something up on how to make one of these, but I can't find it. I'll write something up again and post it in the damper thread.

dave

Dale Ward said:
Dave,

Any detailed plans o how to build the servo dampner? I want to try it on my big steel keg.

Dale
Click to expand...
 
Bryan Mayland said:
I've done that myself too. I tried to decide how it should work if there was no pit probe and not displaying anything came up like 10 bytes smaller on the HeaterMeter firmware so I went with that over displaying possibly incorrect data (whatever it was when the probe was removed).

The other thing to remember is that you've gotta be logged in, because it changes a setting to turn it on.

Glad to hear the update worked! Seems like the past 2 updates I had a release followed by an immediate release with a bugfix.

I'm also going to make a wiki page about using a servo, because you can't just plug it into the 12V jack, for obvious reasons.
Click to expand...

Have you made wiki page on the servo yet?
How did you mount the Servo pipe to your egg? Maybe the same mounting could be used for my BS keg
 
Dale Ward said:
Have you made wiki page on the servo yet?
How did you mount the Servo pipe to your egg? Maybe the same mounting could be used for my BS keg
Click to expand...
Nooooo it take a while to type things in! And have pictures.

I just cut a rectangle of corrugated cardboard from an Amazon.com box and then cut a circle in it. I'm not sure how the best way to attach it would be, maybe a plate of metal with a flappy piece of high temperature gasket on one end to let it fold enough to slide into the channel?

Dale Ward said:
what are "toasts" ?
Click to expand...
Toasts the messages that come up on the HeaterMeter display. Currently there's just the one that says "Network Address:" but LinkMeter / lmclient can send anything to the display using the /set?tt=Line1,Line2 url (or lmclient LMST,tt,Line1,Line2)
 
Bryan Mayland said:
Yeah you can ssh into it and look to see if the backup file is there under /mnt/mmcblk0p3/backup.tar.gz

I've also made a bit of a FAQ in the wiki that explains what it does which may answer some questions.
Click to expand...

Hm. I figured as much so I logged in before I posted last night and I've got no subdirs in /mnt (and subsequently nothing mounted). When I used opkg to install parted I did see it complain about not being able to rm something in /tmp as it was a directory and not a file, but other than that it went ok.

Edit: It was actually the linkmeter package that complained: "rm: /tmp/luci-modulecache: is a directory"
 
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Well that's not how that's supposed to work. Oh now I see, I made it so the config_restore only enables on new installs. Go intooooo.... dang I don't have a web interface in front of me. It is like System -> Startup maybe? Where it lists all the services and if they're enabled or not. Set the "config_restore" service to enabled then start it. See if you get the file then.

I'll fix that luci-modulecache error too. Thanks!
 
I'm have problems getting the "PID Internals display" to toggle on with IE10. It does work with Chrome and Firefox. Does this work for IE10 for anybody else?
 
It only works if the browser supports server-sent events, which IE still doesn't support. The fallback polling interface doesn't send the data because they only come in the realtime stream.
 
OK. Thanks. I was thinking that maybe it was the way my IE was configured. I have Chrome and Firefox already on my PC so I can use them when needed.
 
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