Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Day 118, 119 - Home Assistant

Tuesday (118) - Yesterday evening, I noticed that there was an update available for Home Assistant, the home automation software that I'm running on an old Raspberry Pi 2. This wasn't the first update over the last couple of weeks and all of the prior ones installed without a hitch. Of course, I hadn't bothered to back up any of my configuration files. So I went to the website and downloaded the newest hassos image file and copy it to the micro-SD card. After booting the Pi up on the micro-SD card, it downloads any updates and starts up. I then installed the EPSHome extension and the system recognized the deployed microcontrollers with their sensors and switches. It doesn't have any of the configurations as they get compiled and just the new firmware gets downloaded to the microcontrollers. So today, I get to dig out each board and rebuild the configuration. That should be pretty straightforward.

It's now 4:20pm and I think I have all of the configuration files recreated. And, I really do need to convert the two hobby board versions to breadboards. The hobby board versions are fragile and anytime I moved them around, wires would get disconnected. The is the one in one of the storage bays with a temperature sensor for outdoor and a temp/humidity sensor inside of the bay.

Wednesday (119) - Today, I went back in behind the fiberglass panel in the wet bay to change the ground used by the SeeLevel II tank sensors. The directions said to make sure that the sensor ground was the same as the display ground. I was using the ground wire from the original sensors so I really had no idea where it tied in. I am now using what originally was the black tank sensor wire and have it connected to the ground at the display. I cut what I was using for ground just to make sure that no current would be passing through the sensor wiring. I was originally planning on tapping into 12 VDC wiring while I was at it to install my D1 Mini and two temperature sensors but given the difficulty in removing the panel, I decided that mounting the box on the panel would be preferable. Especially since I plan to add more capability in the future. That little project ended up taking over three hours. But that included talking to the neighbors who moved out today. They bought a small house here in Pendleton.

The “chore of the day” was washing the car. It was incredibly dirty from the last couple of rainfalls. There must’ve been a lot of dust in the air. Maybe it was pollen.
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2 comments:

  1. david RJune 3, 2020 at 9:28 PM

    The coffee group is back to meeting at Sun Sprout Cafe on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It is good to see them again, all are doing well. If you're tracking the numbers, Fairbanks/North Pole hasn't had any new cases since early May. Our church is meeting in-person first time next Sunday. Will still record it and post later. I'm working on getting better internet speeds for eventual live. ACS DSL is pathetic. Now that many more organizations are pushing data out, it is time for ISP's to stop the huge disparity between download and upload bandwidth throttling.

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    1. RichardMJune 4, 2020 at 12:27 PM

      Thank you for the update. It's nice to hear that things are getting back to normal. Our church will be recording the first service to post on YouTube and live streaming the second service. This sunday is the first time they are trying the live stream. They have some sort of rsvp system set up so people choose which service they plan to attend.

      It's sad that cellular Internet speeds far exceed some traditoinal terrestrial options.

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