20 JULY 2012
To make it easier to connect the various cables to the new Raspberry Pi ADC board we decided to make a second PCB with header pins to connect to the ADC board and take these to screw terminals. Also we wanted to have a temperature...
14 JULY 2012
The code sample below shows how to read the ADC values from the MCP3428 16-Bit, Multi-Channel Analog-to-Digital Converter with I2C™ Interface and On-Board Reference by Microchip via I2C on the Raspberry Pi using Python.
The...
11 JULY 2012
The original plan for the Analog-to-Digital Converter was to use the Dallas 1-Wire system and use the DS2450 1-Wire Quad A/D Converter which was advertised as being a 16 bit device but after buying two of the chips which...
10 JULY 2012
Currently working on a new I/O board add-on for the Raspberry PI computer. The PCB will have 8 16bit A/D inputs which are connected via buffers to the I2C port on the Raspberry PI GPIO port. There will also be a built...
06 JULY 2012
The plan to use an Android phone and IOIO board to log the solar data has been abandoned after repeated failures of the IOIO boards to run for more than 24 hours without crashing or resetting. It maybe that I have purchased...
26 JUNE 2012
As part of the home solar PV and hot water project we are now using an IOIO board with an android tablet to process the sensor data and upload to our online reporting website. The code below is used to get the sensor data...
26 JUNE 2012
As part of the home solar PV and hot water project we are now using an IOIO board with an android tablet to process the sensor data and upload to our online reporting website.
The code below is used to get the sensor data...
25 JUNE 2012
My project blog has been featured as Site of the Day on the EEWeb Electrical Engineering Community website.
www.eeweb.com
11 JUNE 2012
The planned Arduino based Solar PV and Hot water monitoring and logging system was found to be very unstable and despite repeated attempts and several code rewrites we had to give up on the Arduino based solar logging system...
31 MAY 2012
After several problems with slate suppliers, the builder who is replacing the front roof was able to get nearly all the slates installed by yesterday and we then fitted the solar hot water panel frame and pipework onto the...
26 MAY 2012
Following from Arduino based Solar PV and Hot water monitoring and logging posts the various hardware and parts of the software have been installed into the PV control cupboard and the new logging hardware and software is...
13 MAY 2012
Following from Arduino based Solar PV and Hot water monitoring and logging post the various hardware and parts of the software have been installed, built and written.
After two busy weekends working on the project the...
13 MAY 2012
As part of the solar hot water system (view other blog posts) we have been installing onto our home we wanted to be able to keep track of the time the solar water pump is running. To monitor the pump we decided to use...
13 MAY 2012
As part of the solar hot water system (view other blog posts) we have been installing onto our home we wanted to be able to keep track of the mains electric being used by the house. Based on the open source OpenEnergyMontor...
13 MAY 2012
Next stage of the solar hot water install, fitting a new dual coil hot water cylinder.
The new cylinder was 150mm taller and 70mm wider than the old hot water cylinder which was installed before which required all the...
03 MAY 2012
Following on from my post Arduino based Solar PV and Hot water monitoring and logging we have designed and created the new PCB (printed circuit boards) for the MCP9801 temperature sensors and also a PCB to hold a mains relay...
02 MAY 2012
Following on from my post about the Arduino based Solar PV and Hot water monitoring the solar hot water kit has arrived from Navitron.
The photos below show the initial plumbing stages for installing the system. We are...
29 APRIL 2012
We are upgrading our DIY PV off grid system with extra panels and also a solar hot water system using a kit from http://navitron.org.uk/ with a 20 tube 58mm double wall evacuated tube solar collector on the roof and a new...
18 MARCH 2012
Since my emails to and from Hotmail in the past 2 weeks regarding the block on my company's main email server, I have since found that it is being blocked by a DNSBL called ivmSIP/24 who seem to operate on a basis that if...
05 MARCH 2012
After one of the people who we host a website for had a virus infection in December 2011 which resulted in several thousand emails being sent via our main mail server, we have had problems sending emails to hotmail.com and...
07 FEBRUARY 2012
BlackMagic Intensity Pro HDMI capture of Galaxy Nexus and iPad 2
While working on a new project we needed to be able to send video of the mobile apps under development to the clients online. This is to save us all having...