Repository navigation
My Genmon + PintSize setup (24kW Guardian) #1506
Replies: 4 comments 9 replies
|
Very nice! |
|
Wow, great enclosure! Thanks for the feedback. |
|
@inventor7777 thanks for the feedback. What fan did you use? I frequently get asked about compatible fans, but most of the fans are consumables, which at $2.50 each it's not bad to replace every year, but a better quality fan that would last a few years and maybe even have better airflow would be welcome. (and no apologies needed) |
|
@skipfire Just out of curiosity, have you tested that fan at all? If not, I'll just attribute it to the insane feels like temp of over 115°F we've been seeing here in BR 😂 |
|
I have not, I know those temps though, I'm in St Tammany. But the Pi doesn't even call the fan until at least 140F. What temp are you seeing? |
|
@skipfire inside my generator during the day the CPU sits between 60-65C. The fan honestly turns on way too often just to keep it cool, so I may even set 70C in future, but I'd rather preserve the Pi a little... To be fair, it's mounted on the black metal inside the gen and the Pi itself is inside that black enclosure pictured above. Thankfully, my fan brings temps down by about 1C per second. 
|
|
I think this is probably going to be the way things are until it cools off, with the rain coming this week hopefully it does better. Is that black assembly sun-facing? I see it's opposite the brick wall so I'm guessing it is. Second, that won't have much airflow, so it's just circulating the hot air at the CPU with the slightly less hot air in the tiny enclosure. |
|
It is inside the generator so it never gets direct sun, of course. However, the sun directly hits the generator in the general location of the Pi, yes. |
|
Id like to get the files for your case. I've been printing cases too.. the mod to add the power supply if AWESOME. Good Job! |
|
Hey @Don331! I designed the case in Tinkercad, so there aren't any proper CAD files, unfortunately. Sorry! But if you want to re-create it or whatever, feel totally free! Genmon STLs.zip |
Uh oh!
There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
Uh oh!
There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.
First, I'd like to apologize to @skipfire. When I purchased my V3 HAT right after he released them, I said I'd post a discussion like this one "soon". 9 months later...I finally remembered. I suppose that is a glowing review - the HAT works so well that I kinda forgot it exists...
Our Evo2 Generac 24kW generator is still in warranty, so I wanted something clean and OEM-looking that wouldn't interfere with the techs.
The Pi and HAT are in a custom polycarbonate 3D-printed enclosure. I'm not sure if I want to share the files, as it's a relatively crude design, but it does work well. It has a mount point for a motorcycle 12V -> USB adapter like this one. I swapped the HAT fan for a more powerful R/C grade aluminum fan, and the cooling is automatic and phenomenally effective. So far, the fan control chip on the HAT is working well.
Initially, I had Mobile Link in the usual mount hole in the back of the gen, and the Pi was using its own WiFi chip. That was a mistake as the speeds and reliability were abysmal. So I grabbed a MediaTek WiFi 6E adapter and ended up making an enclosure that holds the WiFi antenna where the Mobile Link used to be.
But after I moved the Mobile Link inside the generator, it also lost connection to Wi-Fi. sigh
So then I started a super low power AP on the Pi's internal WiFi chip and after some fiddling with DHCP, the Mobile Link joined that AP without incident and is now assured it has 100% signal. The AP has also come in handy when the MediaTek locked up, as I am able to join the AP myself and SSH into the Pi directly.
I did experience issues when the generator was running at high power, as it would cause the adapter to start losing USB connection. I added 4 ferrite chokes on the USB extension cable, and this has solved the issue. If the issue comes back, I will use USB2, but for now, the ferrite alone has solved it.
I use both the Genmon web UI and my custom Home Assistant dashboard:
So huge thanks to @jgyates for designing the core software, @MichaelB2018 for the vastly improved UI, @skipfire for the excellent HATs, and to everyone else who's contributed. No thanks to Generac for attempting to charge me a subscription to remote exercise...
All reactions