HeaterMeter Snapshot for RPi3 Available


 
Bryan Mayland

Bryan Mayland

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I've been working on getting OpenWrt trunk support, primarily on getting Raspberry Pi 3s fully working. I've gotten to the point where I think it is usable and stable although not yet complete.



The new image is available in the HeaterMeter Snapshots directory, look for the openwrt-rpi3 files. This image will run on both the RPi 2 Model B and RPi 3 Model B, however the only supported wireless is the builtin RPi 3 wifi (not even an Edimax dongle on the 2 works yet). If you do try it out, be sure to reset your configuration if you're using an old sdcard, as upgrading a Pi 1 configuration to a new Pi 3 configuration is not fully complete but starting from defaults should work.
 
I love tiny monitor. I had an 24" display and it took up almost the whole desk area so I bought one of those 7" LCDs for $26. I was disappointed that none of the 7" LCD mounts I found on Thingiverse had the right dimensions to fit this monitor so I just made a quick bezel and drilled and screwed together some old misprint parts to hold it up and called it done. It is one of those projects I could easily have lost a day or two designing a fancy mount but I somehow managed to keep myself from getting distracted. It is amazingly helpful for working on HeaterMeter development especially when the networking wasn't up yet or debugging the startup process.
 
My RPI3 arrived just today, what a coincidence!

And its up and running, just having some wifi configuration issues and for some reason my trusty old 4GB SD card doesn't work while my new 64GB card just works fine.

Anyway, great work Bryan!
 
The old 4GB SD card works OK now. It just needed to be fully wiped clean, only deleting previous partitions before writing the image just isn't enough.

The wifi setup still needs some work, it works but it is somewhat difficult to set up. Also no fallback IPadress for the LAN port.

So far no stability issues. :)

217.121.196.106:9090
 
Yeah the initial network configuration system has been completely redone it looks like so I spent a couple hours today learning about how it does its thing to see how to get the networking back the way we had it (one dhcp address, one static fallback on the LAN port by default). The ethernet currently is only static 192.168.1.1 which is not how we expect it to work but it will get there!

The configuration will still be found by the config restore even if the partitions are wiped, it is just that good! It needs to be blanked out, which is what the sysupgrade does if you deselect "Keep configuration". Did you have problems with the config.txt wifi configuration, or through the webui?

Today's image adds:
-- Ability to select different webui themes. Some are going to require some minor tweaks to the LinkMeter css to render correctly. Configuration must be wiped again for the new themes to be available
-- Returned update from URL to the Backup / Flash Firmware page, saves you a step in upgrading
-- Returned MSMTP email and configuration webui
-- Fixed some bugs in config_restore on firstboot not rebooting after a restore to apply the changes, as well as remove some nonfatal errors
-- Serial port can now be "auto" to let linkmeterd try to determine what port to use, which allows the same config/image to be used on RPi2 and 3 which have different names
-- Certificates added for support of ssl chain verification (allows curl and msmtp to use SSL) and openssl included (still need to cut this down a bit because it includes ALL openssl)
-- Fix a couple of possible rare boot issues
 
Did a 5 hr cook today with the RPI3 heatermeter (Aug 31 snapshot) and it worked fine.

The only issue so far is that to be able to setup the wifi as a static client I need to completely disable ETH0 (switch to unmanaged mode) before I can access the web interface. I don't know if this is a firewall or routing setting in openwrt or just a bug. Running the wifi in the default access point mode or as a DHCP client worked fine with ETH0 enabled.

Bryan Mayland said:
Did you have problems with the config.txt wifi configuration, or through the webui?
Click to expand...
Through the web interface.


Bryan Mayland said:
Today's image adds:
-- Ability to select different webui themes. Some are going to require some minor tweaks to the LinkMeter css to render correctly. Configuration must be wiped again for the new themes to be available
Click to expand...

How does this work? I actually quite liked the clean look of the interface of the previous build.
 
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I'll have to give that static wifi setting a chance once I get the ethernet config the way I want it. Your home network isn't 192.168.1.x is it?

If you're on the latest snapshot and you run these commands in a shell script you'll options under System -> System -> Language and Style. They'll also just show up if you flash the latest firmware and don't keep your configuration. It might take a page refresh or two before it changes themes. I hate bootstrap because, while it looks nice, everything has a tooooon of empty space around it so it really shouldn't be used for anything that is information dense. Everybody uses it too, regardless of if it fits their needs. The material theme isn't bad looking but it messes up the HeaterMeter config page.
Code: 
uci set luci.themes.Material='/luci-static/material'
uci set luci.themes.OpenWrt='/luci-static/openwrt.org'
uci commit luci
 
I haven't had a chance to work through your issue yet, Peter, or post a new image. I am done for today though and I am pleased to say that I now have trunk working on the Pi 2 with an rtl8192 (Edimax) wifi adapter. I still have more cleanup to do, as well as regression test it on the RPi3.

The bad news is that the adapter fails to initialize if you try to open it in in AP mode then won't switch back to client mode. Ah good times, but I am done for today. I was excited to be able to ping something from the Pi2 only to have my happiness dashed by AP mode being a complete fail. That's why they pay me the big bucks though!
 
Hey, I built up my 4.3.3 and ran it last night with a RPi3. I had to change the static IP of the wired connection through the console to something on my network to get first access, but after that worked like a charm! I couldn't get the wifi settings in the config.txt to work, but through the webui was able to get it to work correctly.
 
Just trying the openwrt image on my pi3 tonight. I can connect to it via AP mode, but no matter what I do, I can't connect to it in client mode. On my router, I see it negotiate a DHCP session, but I'm unable to ping it or do anything else. Next step is to connect via wired ethernet and see if I can make it work.
 
I have to change the ethernet port from static to unmanaged mode to be able to use the wifi in client mode. This disables the lan port.
 
Interesting that you mention that. I switched the static IP on the ethernet interface from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.200.1 and I was able to get wifi working.

Seeing as my home network is on 192.168.1.0/24, as the wired interface and now the wireless interface, it seems like packets are coming into the wirless interface on the pi3, but aren't leaving on the wireless interface, which means they're probably trying to leave on the wired interface, since it's on the same subnet and could be flagged as the high priority or preferred interface.

I've got it online at https://bbq.converged.ca/ I used some jumper wires to connect 5V,GND,TX and RX to the HM 4.2 board. I've got it in the opposite corner of the house, as far away from the router as possible. First impressions are the the webui seems a lot snappier and the onboard wifi in the pi3 is pretty decent.
 
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Steve_M said:
Interesting that you mention that. I switched the static IP on the ethernet interface from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.200.1 and I was able to get wifi working.
Click to expand...

Good to know, I haven't tried that yet but it would bring back the fallback IP address. Seems like a better option than to disable eth0.
 
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I might have found a small bug.

Just finished building 6 SMD heatermeters. All 6 programmed just fine on a RPI3, but when the backlight switches on the dispays only show the 16 black squares.
All 6 work normal after a power cycle.
 
Yup! I have fixed this in the next snapshot coming today or tomorrow, thanks for reporting. It is the SPI lines being stuck after any hmdude flashing operation.
 
New snapshot posted today for Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi 2 (still no wifi on the 2):

  • Sync with trunk Openwrt
  • Fix SPI lines remaining locked after avr flashing (was breaking LCD and LEDs)
  • Fix default networking config. Now eth0 is 192.168.200.1 and DHCP at the same time just like the previous versions of the openwrt firmware. Wifi when in AP mode is 192.168.201.1. Both ethernet and wifi client mode can be on DHCP at the same time, with two different addresses.
  • Fix not specifying a hostname when requesting a DHCP address so you should be able to access the device by name again now
  • Updated Steinhart coefficients for Thermoworks ProSeries
  • New supported probe Maverick Industries ET-735
  • Fix trying to give out DHCP addresses on wifi links when configured as a client
  • Updated bundled heatermeter firmware to 20160910
  • Added 'Reset Settings' to System -> Backup / Flash firmware webui to reset all OpenWrt settings. Still the best way to ensure a fresh config is to reflash the firmware with the 'Keep settings' box unchecked because that wipes the whole filesystem instead of just clearing the settings.
  • The green LED on the Pi will now blink to tell you what stage of boot it is in, fast (5Hz)=kernel boot / preinit, slow(2.5Hz)=services starting, steady=booted
  • config.txt wifi configuration should be working

I am pretty sure this is now fully functional as far as the RPi 3 goes. Please test and let me know if there is anything not working as well as it was on the old Attitude Adjustment firmware as I am turning my attention to Pi 2 wifi and Pi 1 support now.
 
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