HeaterMeter v4.0 for RaspberyPi / Standalone


 
Bryan, I really appreciate your help; I'm sure it's not the most fun to try and remotely troubleshoot problems caused by other people's fat fingers.

The capacitors are all installed correctly (per the instructions in the wiki), and the capacitor nearest to the blower jack reads about 880 Ohms resistance with the red meter lead on the positive pin of the capacitor.

The only other thing I've noticed, poking around on the board with my meter, is that there is no resistance across the resistor that I've circled in yellow in the pic below:
HM-resist-crop.jpg
 
Been a while since I checked in. Thought I would let people know that the Edimax Wifi Adapters are $10 w/ a $5 rebate on Newegg (limit 2). I was thinking of picking up a couple more for my other pi's.

***Edit*** To clarify, that is $10 before rebate or a cost of $5 after rebate.

Also, I couldn't find this answer anywhere. If I've already got the short Maverick probes, is there a cable extender that I can buy/make to make the probes longer? The extension won't be exposed to heat, but I didn't know if increased cable = increased resistance = messed up readings.

***EDIT*** Perhaps something like this.
 
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Juston, you should be OK extending the cables. We're reading on the order of 100k ohms so 10 feet of copper isn't going to make a significant difference in reading.

Adam, all the resistors that are in a row there are all tied to the same "bus", so it would be odd that you can't get a reading there. Even if it were a straight short you'd only get it when you pressed the button in the direction that resistor controls, and still it would go through another resistor that severely limits the current it will pull. I'm sort of out of ideas unfortunately. There's clearly something shorting when the MOSFET is conducting but I can't really figure out what it could be. Everything you've checked seems right.

Maybe you can go back over your board with the soldering iron and touch up all your connections. I'll be blunt, a lot of them don't look like they're making very good connection. You want to put a little solder on the iron, heat the junction until you see the existing solder turn liquid and sort of sag, then add enough solder to basically fill the pad. Unless you leave the iron on the component for 30+ seconds you should't have to worry about overheating a component. I'm sorry it's such a long shot but apart from something being installed wrong that's the best I can offer.

If you get the same behavior, maybe post a good photo of the component side of the board and we can take a look at it.
 
Bryan,

Thanks again for brainstorming with me. I was trying to avoid going through and retouching all of my solder joints, but as there's nothing obviously wrong with my build (other than sloppy soldering), that'll be my next step. I'll report back if that fixes the problem.

-Adam
 
Does anyone have a simple step by step instruction for setting up the wireless network? My HM hardware seems to be working fine, I can access the interface via the ethernet port but no go for wireless...

Thanks

Dave
 
Here's the step-by-step guide.

Note that this is from a default configuration. If you've modified your LAN configuration to be "on your network" then this (debatably*) will not work. Your LAN must be 192.168.200.1!

*Ralph has gotten them both working at the same time, however for the majority of users myself included, putting the LAN port on your network prevents the wireless from being accessible at all
 
Thanks Brian :)

Now a follow-up question... my config is really messed up from hours of messing with files trying to get the wireless working (pretty stupid I know...) I'm trying to reimage the SD card for a fresh install/start - but it seems to be picking up the old config from somewhere - what am I missing?

Dave
 
Doesn't that take like 10+ minutes though? Eject the card, stick it back in, click the file, add 10 characters, save. Done. Takes like 10 seconds max.
 
A quick Thanks you to Brian and Rob!

My networking issues are resolved! Now on to my HW issue - my button doesn't seem to work at all :( Any quick hints or threads I should look at?

Thanks

Dave
 
Is it installed backward? That's all I can think of. There middle pins are slightly offset to one side.

Another thing to check is that the up/down/left doesn't do anything if there are no probes plugged in. Only the right, which enters the menu system. It might just be the right direction isn't working.
 
Button was installed upside-down :mad: very subtle markings on the button...

everything seems to work now - now off to find an enclosure

D

Bryan Mayland said:
Is it installed backward? That's all I can think of. There middle pins are slightly offset to one side.

Another thing to check is that the up/down/left doesn't do anything if there are no probes plugged in. Only the right, which enters the menu system. It might just be the right direction isn't working.
Click to expand...
 
Haha oops! Yeah if you try to insert the button the wrong way and seat it all the way, it is immediately obvious that it isn't fitting right because the pins start getting bent in strange directions. Because most HeaterMeters install them sort of floating above the board it is a lot easier to put it in the wrong way.
 
While testing out my rPi + HM4 yesterday I ran into a weird problem where the display was cycling through all of the options really fast, as if the button was stuck in the right position. I didn't see anything obvious when I visually inspected the HM board and it still exhibited the same behaviour when not mounted in the case. I ended up blasting the HM board (with power disconnected) with some electronics cleaner and a toothbrush and things have been working fine since.

The strange thing is that it didn't start doing this until the unit was plugged in for about 3 hours. It's been on for about 24 hours since then and no probs.

Other than that, I'm pleased as punch with it. Now to get the coefficient data for the iGrill probes so I can actually use it for a cook.
 
Bryan,

I am asking you because you know this project better than you know the back of your hand I bet. I am looking for ~100mA of 3.3V or 5V power. Seeing other peoples concerns about overheating I want to add a fan to my enclosure.

I think there is that much available but wanted your input before pulling the trigger.

Thanks

Ryan
 
Yeah the 5V regulator is good up to 1.5A and the rated current draw for the Pi+Wifi is 1.2A (much less than that in reality), figure 50mA for all the HeaterMeter parts. The 3.3V I'm not sure how much draw there is on it, 45mA + whatever the Pi needs, but 100mA more might be pushing it. If you have a choice, I'd use the 5V line because it has the most headroom and best efficiency.
 
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