I was able to assemble my HeaterMeter kit yesterday with all the info provided here and the wiki so I want to say thanks to Bryan and everyone else that's share info and experience. My case and blower from Auber should be here later this week so I hope to be able to take it for a maiden voyage this weekend.
I had a lot of fun putting it together so I figured one of the best ways I could contribute at this point was to provide a little feedback from the perspective of someone very new to the project. I really hope this comes across as constructive, like I intend, and not complaining. I think I spent at least 9 hours in total yesterday afternoon but looking back I think I could have completed it much quicker if the instructions included a few more details. I also think it would have helped me if all the assembly and software instructions were organized a bit more linearly. I spent a lot of time searching the wiki and forum when different questions came up and it would have speed things up if the info was just in the hardware assembly or software instructions.
It may be just how my mind works but a few things took me a while to figure out. Looking back I think I understand how just about everything works but had there been some more basic explanations written in the style of "HeaterMeter for Dummies" I would have picked it up much quicker. From my own experience I understand it's difficult writing instructions as an expert on a subject because the most basic and important concepts and details that an expert takes for granted are often overlooked.
A shot of the empty board in the wiki would have been nice to reference once I had parts installed. I ended up pulling up a picture from the store product page to reference.
Every step in the instructions had a table of the parts that were being installed but I didn't understand what the "parts" column was or where to reference those numbers.
The pictures of the resistors in the instructions threw me off since the stripes in the pics didn't match the resistors I had. Had it said to just reference the print on the board and the included parts sheet and ignore the pictures I would have saved some time trying to figure out the discrepancy and making sure I'm using the right resistors in the right place.
I have a nice Hakko soldering iron with a few different tip from my RC racing hobby and I think that went a long way towards making things easy. It would have taken longer and been more sloppy with a big tip on a cheap iron.
In step 8, had I know where to look up what part R18 was, or had the picture just been highlighted with an arrow and said "don't install this one for thermocouple", I would have saved time confirming which resistor to leave out. To expand on that, I think if each picture in the instructions had arrows pointing out each component being installed that would have helped.
I felt like there was a lot of instruction explaining the preparation of the screen connector pins and how long they had to be. To me, looking back, it would have been simpler and less confusing to just explain the orientation of how to insert the pins in the screen board, which side to solder them on and how and why to solder the end pins first to save yourself some headache.
A picture pointing out the RCA jack on the RaspberryPi would have helped. I was 99 percent sure which one I needed to clip off but I wanted to be sure so I had to look it up.
On to the software...
I don't have a Windows pc at home so I had to search the forum for how to load the software on the SD card using a Mac. A link to download the ApplePi Baker app would have been helpful. (http://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/raspberry-pi/macosx-apple-pi-baker/) I also didn't initially understand what the Win32 Disk Imager was so a quick explanation would have helped me understand what I was about to do.
The configuration steps jump straight to using your browser to go to heatermeter.com/devices to find your HM. What seems to be missing is a real basic explanation about how the computer with the browser you're using and the HM need to be on the same network either by connecting to the heatermeter wifi network or, I assume, connecting the HM to your computer by a network cable. Looking back this seems obvious now but at the time it confused me that my that my HM didn't just show up when I went to heatermeter.com/devices. I could still be missing something here though as I'm still trying to get the HM to connect to my wireless network.
That's about it I suppose. Thanks again to Bryan and everyone else.
I had a lot of fun putting it together so I figured one of the best ways I could contribute at this point was to provide a little feedback from the perspective of someone very new to the project. I really hope this comes across as constructive, like I intend, and not complaining. I think I spent at least 9 hours in total yesterday afternoon but looking back I think I could have completed it much quicker if the instructions included a few more details. I also think it would have helped me if all the assembly and software instructions were organized a bit more linearly. I spent a lot of time searching the wiki and forum when different questions came up and it would have speed things up if the info was just in the hardware assembly or software instructions.
It may be just how my mind works but a few things took me a while to figure out. Looking back I think I understand how just about everything works but had there been some more basic explanations written in the style of "HeaterMeter for Dummies" I would have picked it up much quicker. From my own experience I understand it's difficult writing instructions as an expert on a subject because the most basic and important concepts and details that an expert takes for granted are often overlooked.
A shot of the empty board in the wiki would have been nice to reference once I had parts installed. I ended up pulling up a picture from the store product page to reference.
Every step in the instructions had a table of the parts that were being installed but I didn't understand what the "parts" column was or where to reference those numbers.
The pictures of the resistors in the instructions threw me off since the stripes in the pics didn't match the resistors I had. Had it said to just reference the print on the board and the included parts sheet and ignore the pictures I would have saved some time trying to figure out the discrepancy and making sure I'm using the right resistors in the right place.
I have a nice Hakko soldering iron with a few different tip from my RC racing hobby and I think that went a long way towards making things easy. It would have taken longer and been more sloppy with a big tip on a cheap iron.
In step 8, had I know where to look up what part R18 was, or had the picture just been highlighted with an arrow and said "don't install this one for thermocouple", I would have saved time confirming which resistor to leave out. To expand on that, I think if each picture in the instructions had arrows pointing out each component being installed that would have helped.
I felt like there was a lot of instruction explaining the preparation of the screen connector pins and how long they had to be. To me, looking back, it would have been simpler and less confusing to just explain the orientation of how to insert the pins in the screen board, which side to solder them on and how and why to solder the end pins first to save yourself some headache.
A picture pointing out the RCA jack on the RaspberryPi would have helped. I was 99 percent sure which one I needed to clip off but I wanted to be sure so I had to look it up.
On to the software...
I don't have a Windows pc at home so I had to search the forum for how to load the software on the SD card using a Mac. A link to download the ApplePi Baker app would have been helpful. (http://www.tweaking4all.com/hardware/raspberry-pi/macosx-apple-pi-baker/) I also didn't initially understand what the Win32 Disk Imager was so a quick explanation would have helped me understand what I was about to do.
The configuration steps jump straight to using your browser to go to heatermeter.com/devices to find your HM. What seems to be missing is a real basic explanation about how the computer with the browser you're using and the HM need to be on the same network either by connecting to the heatermeter wifi network or, I assume, connecting the HM to your computer by a network cable. Looking back this seems obvious now but at the time it confused me that my that my HM didn't just show up when I went to heatermeter.com/devices. I could still be missing something here though as I'm still trying to get the HM to connect to my wireless network.
That's about it I suppose. Thanks again to Bryan and everyone else.