Tony is a Geek

Actually, this isn't exactly related to the Solar Powered pond... it's more to do with the collection of DATA and viewing it. Previously, I was using a node-red dashboard to output the current / live status of the data fetched (via modbus) from the MPPT controler.  This worked a treat...however.... it did tend to crash after a day or so.  Digging a bit deeper; whilst I was saving the data to a stats.csv file (gets re-created upon the RPi restart), this was always a temporary solution and the data should be saved into an InFluxDB... turns out the node-red charts are okay for showing data "for a bit"... but not the 1000s od data points I was giving it every second for days on end, something has to give... analysing the webpage content, the dashboard could grow from a 20-ish MB page up to 400+ MB page; just to show live data. Something had to be done about this....and well, a midday overcast Sunday proved to be the solution. Behold GRAFANA presenting data from an InFluxD...

As mentioned in a previous post, I wanted an off-grid smart plug in the UK that did not connect out to the external internet, did not connect up to some AWS service in Germany (and other locations), just for me to be able to turn a switch ON and OFF again.  It still baffles me.  (a bit like the sheeple-mindset of fitting a "smart meter" in your house - there is ABSOLUTELY no need or value for doing this - it is purely for the electricity companies to gain full control of your environment, there is zer0 benefit to you... you don't know or even care what a KwH value means, or whether it costs 30p to boil your kettle over a day, you're not going to stop doing it, you just now have too much information - however, at the flip of a remote switch, your electricity provider has the power to switch your tariff, restrict the input/feed of the amount of power you have, switch you from a monthly payment over to a pay-as-you-go and I'm sure all sorts more - you have sleep-wal...

okay, so it is well known that I am basically a 50yr old child, except I have the mean to buy my own toys.  I still have that childhood curiosity, wondering how things work and how to make things work. What I am about to describe could probably be done by a 10yr old, in fact it probably has been done 1m times already by 10yr olds.  However, it is a reminder for myself on how to set this up and do this, as I'll probably get distracted and forget that I ever did this... then come back to it in 2-5yrs and do it all over again (reminder for another POST later in the week) So, what'ya doin'? Well as posted previously I now have several RPi Pico W devices, I got the soldering iron out and soldered some pin headers in place, I even soldered a Pico Lipo shim onto one of them for this very project.  As mentioned before, my missus wants a cute watering indicator for the huge aloe-vera plant w have in the kitchen.  I have the raw electronic components to hand and I have made th...

Sounds simple enough..  Get a smart plug in the UK that allows you to do the basic thing of switching something ON / OFF and vice-versa. For once, I had a genuine requirement to do this - ah, ha! what is commonly known in the IT trade as a "business requirement"....that could then be technically fulfilled. My requirement was simple: I have a solar panel setup ( as you may have read about ) and whilst I have an ATS (Automated Transfer Switch) in place, all this does it switch from the DC (battery) power over to the mains (240v) power when the battery power hits a low threshold and does the opposite when the battery hits a high threshold.  This will be great in the summer.  However, as it is kinda winter (okay, November, so close enough) we can have days of greyness and a severe lack of sunlight/daylight...and if the solar panels cannot re-charge the batteries, they are on a constant drain until they get below 12v and they are then defunct.  As a novel idea, I want to ...