Weather sensor software

This respository contains all the software you need to run the hardware described in the accompanying hardware repository.

It is designed to run on a Raspberry Pi A+, but will also work on a Raspberry Pi 2, 3 and presumably a Zero (not tested).

Operating system download

First, we need to download the OS and flash this onto the SD card that the RPi unit uses. We use Jessie-lite because it only includes the basic components - for example we don't need the desktop. And the A+ can run into stability issues when too many processes are running.

• Step 1: Download Jessie-lite: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
• Step 2: Install Jessie-lite, as described here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/mac.md

OS X steps only:

Note: steps for other operating systems are provided in the Raspberry Pi links above

• Unmount the SD card via disk utility

  • Take note of the disk number - you'll need that for the command in the next step

• In terminal, run the following command (using the actual file name, and replacing YOURNAME with the path to your downloads directory)

  • Also, replace 'disk3' with the disk number from the previous step

  sudo dd bs=1m if=/Users/YOURNAME/Downloads/2016-03-18-raspbian-jessie-lite.img of=/dev/rdisk3

Operating system setup

You'll need to have a monitor connected to the RPi for this step, but afterwards you can use a network connection.

By default, the username will be 'pi' and the password is 'raspberry'

• Step 3: Run raspsi-config and set a machine name and auto-login and password

  sudo raspi-config

  • User password is located in option 2
  • Machine name is located in Advanced settings -> A2 Hostname
  • Enable SSH: Go to 'Interfacing Options' -> P2 SSH -> Yes
  • While you're there, set the timezone to NZDT (or your local timezone): Internationalisation options -> I2 Change Timezone

You can now access this via the network via ssh pi@MACHINE_NAME (where MACHINE NAME is what you just set up)

• Step 4: Update the operating system

  sudo apt-get update

• Step 5: Upgrade any components

  sudo apt-get upgrade

• Step 6: Install CouchDB. This isn't the latest version, but it's guaranteed to work with Jessie, and it's enough for what we need.

  sudo aptitude install couchdb

• Step 7: Update the CouchDB ini settings to use the generic address. This allows us to access it remotely.

  sudo pico /etc/couchdb/local.ini

  change bind address to bind_address = 0.0.0.0

  then restart the service (just to make sure it's all working):

  sudo /etc/init.d/couchdb restart

• Step 8: Set up basic Python and I2C bits.

  sudo apt-get install python-smbus
  sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
  sudo raspi-config

  Go to 'Interfacing Options' -> P5 I2C -> Yes -> Ok

  Exit raspi-config and now reboot:

  sudo reboot

• Step 9: Disable the HDMI port. This will save ~20mA when idling, and we don't need the monitor connection anymore.

  sudo pico /etc/rc.local

  Add these lines:

  # WxOutside: turn off the HDMI port:
  /opt/vc/bin/tvservice -o
  

  If you ever want to connect a monitor again, remove this line and reboot

Sensor support

• Step 9: Install pip:

  sudo apt-get install python-pip
  sudo apt-get install python3-pip
  sudo pip3 install RPi.GPIO 
  sudo pip install python-dateutil

• Step 9: Set up support for the am2315 sensor - this will take a long time, the download is very slow for some reason.

  sudo pip3 install --process-dependency-links aosong

• Step 10: Set up support for the aquflex sensor. The script will support both Python 3.x and 2.x, but we'll settle for version 2.

  sudo apt-get install python-serial

• Step 11: 3G dongle support. Steps taken from here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18996 This will work for the e3131, any other dongle will need the equivalent file contents.

  sudo apt-get install sg3-utils

  create a new file "/etc/udev/rules.d/10-HuaweiFlashCard.rules" with the following content:

  SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{modalias}=="usb:v12D1p1F01*", SYMLINK+="hwcdrom", RUN+="/usr/bin/sg_raw /dev/hwcdrom 11 06 20 00 00 00 00 00 01 00"
  

  Now configure the network interfaces to support this:

  sudo pico /etc/network/interfaces

  edit eth0 to say this:

  allow-hotplug eth0
  iface eth0 inet dhcp

  And now reboot:

  sudo reboot

Code support

• Step 12: Create a directory called 'telemetry' in the pi user location:

  cd ~/
  mkdir telemetry

  Copy over all the sensor code from the latest release here: https://github.com/WxOutside/software/releases

• Step 13: Set up weatherPiArduino

  cd ~/telemetry/sensors/weatherPiArduino
  chmod u+x weatherPiArduino_agent.py

Database support

In a browser, go to http://MACHINE_NAME.local:5984/_utils, where MACHINE_NAME is what you set in step 3.

• Step 14: create database called “telemetry”

  • Create a design document called 'records', with a view name called 'unsent', with the following map function:

  function(doc) {
    if(!doc.ignore && !doc.email_sent){
      emit(doc._rev, doc)
    }
  }

• Step 15: create a database called 'hardware' with a design document titled with your machine name (MACHINE_NAME)

  • this can be left empty, it will be automatically populated

Crontab entries

• Step 16: create entries in the crontab so telemetry readings will be taken and transmitted out:

  crontab -e

  Then added these lines:

Run sensors:

1 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/telemetry/sensors/am2315.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/am2315.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1 1 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/sensors/aquaflex.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/aquaflex.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1 2 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/sensors/weatherPiArduino/weatherPiArduino_controller.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/weatherPiArduino.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1

minute 10 reserved for hardware stats

30 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/telemetry/sensors/am2315.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/am2315.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1 31 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/sensors/weatherPiArduino/weatherPiArduino_controller.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/weatherPiArduino.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1

Notifications:

51 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/cron/sendHardwareStats.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/sendHardwareStats.log 2>&1 55 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/cron/sendTelemetry.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/sendTelemetry.log 2>&1 50 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/cron/checkEmail.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/checkEmail.log 2>&1

System hygiene scripts:

5 2 * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/cron/updateCode.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/updateCode.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1 10 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/cron/hardwareStats.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/hardwareStats.log 2>&1 10 * * * * /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/cron/logger.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/logger.log 2>&1 30 3 * * * bash /home/pi/telemetry/cron/compaction.sh int > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/compaction.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1

@reboot /usr/bin/python /home/pi/telemetry/autorun/rebootLogger.py > /home/pi/telemetry/logs/rebootLogger.date +\%Y\%m\%d\%H\%M\%S.log 2>&1

Credits
=======

The weatherPiArduino hardware uses a slightly modified version of the weatherPiArduino libraries, provided by SwitchDoc Labs
https://github.com/switchdoclabs/RaspberryPi-WeatherPiArduino

AM2315 sensor class comes from Sopwith http://sopwith.ismellsmoke.net/?p=104

Aquaflex code written with assistance from Streats Instruments http://www.streatsahead.com