Posting Data to Link Meter..?


 
S

SteveSmith

New member
Guys,

Been following these threads for a month or so now.....and had planned to build a HeaterMeter.....but my plans changed. I found I didn't quite have all the parts I needed, but I already had a LOT of other parts built up from other projects. So whats a hack to do when funds are low....he uses everything and anything he has on hand.! I had several Huzzah Feathers and some SPI Thermocouple boards and K Thermocouples....misc fans, servos....etc. So I have pulled together an Huzzah ESP8266 with 4 K-TC probes, an OLED display and I 3D printed a MicroDamper, as I had a fan that fit and several cheap servos. So the net net....is that I have it working, and am putting it all in a plastic case next weekend. I am using a Local BLYNK Server on a Raspberry PI 3 to control on my android tablet, and while it is a really nice control app, I don't really care for the graph on the Blynk page.

So here is my question.....Is it possible to run the LinkMeter portion of software by itself on the Raspberry Pi 3 and "inject/Post" my temperature readings/Output from my ESP8266 or Blynk Server into the Meterlink database, as I absolutely LOVE the graph that Bryan created? I am not sure if this is even possible to run the graphing/database portion without a HeaterMeter Arduino connected to it.

I went through all the webpages on the HM/LM....and I see where data can be extracted....but not sure how it might be inserted. If it can't be done, then I will have move on, but if it can, then it would make for a slick setup for sure.

Let me know your thoughts.
Regards,
Steve
 
Do you have the heatermeter arduino code on the huzzah? The Raspi only needs a serial connection to/from the arduino to monitor and control it.
 
Steve_M said:
Do you have the heatermeter arduino code on the huzzah? The Raspi only needs a serial connection to/from the arduino to monitor and control it.
Click to expand...

No.....as Bryan said in a few other posts......he is really pushing the limits of what an 8 bit 328P can do...!! He is using a lot of direct hardware calls for timers and such, and so it would not compile under the arduino setup of the Huzzah. So I did a lot of research on each piece of hardware and assembled my own code for the TC's, OLED, Servo and Fan. So I have all the code necessary to run the control of the smoker, and I have access to the data on the Blynk server...via CSV export. The Huzzah will be out by the smoker and the MicroDamper, and the Raspi will be inside running the blynk server.....I didn't think that the ESP8266 Huzzah could run both the Blynk Server and the Arduino code....but maybe the ESP32 will be able to handle that as well...in a future build.

I am a EE with a lot of programming using the Arduino Platform....but I am not so much of a Linux/Database guy. I was hoping maybe to figure out a way to run the Linkmeter on the Raspi with the Blynk Server and Poke my data into from either the Huzzah directly inot the Linkmeter...or by transferring it out of the Blynk Server to the Linkmeter portion in the Raspi. There doesn't seem to be a lot of written information(that I have found) about how the Raspi works in extracting the HM data via that serial port.

And maybe there is a way to just run the database and graphing engine on the Raspi without all the other stuff....I am not sure. If I could get a better understanding of how the LM worked under the hood....I might be able to figure out how to insert my data in the correct format for it to show on the graphs. I figured between you, Bryan and the other gurus on here....that you could point me in the correct direction to a solution or to move on to something else.

My plan is to post all my code, drawings and sketches when complete to anyone who might want to use it.

Appreciate all you guys do for this forum.

Regards,
Steve
 
There's no API for pushing data into the system, it all has to come in through the linkmeterd. It expects a serial device but you can probably create a UNIX domain socket and just publish the data to that, and set the linkmeterd serial port to the name of the socket file to read from. I think you could also just write some script to use lmclient and publish $HMSU sentences which would simulate receiving data from a HeaterMeter.
 
Thanks Bryan and Steve.!! I didn't think I saw where that was exposed. Appreciate your feedback. I believe I will just have to move on with that idea. I would hate to back door into the database, and then have something change and break my link.

Keep up the great work...what you have done on the 328P is amazing..!! You are an incredible coder....and a selfless person to offer all of this for free.

Steve
 
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