Meet Eden!

[Bitcraze]

Hi, Gene

Payment has been made via PayPal. "Add special instructions to recipient" = "Donation for HomeGenie/Eden Sensor Board"


Would you pick up my delivery address from PayPal? That is the correct one.

[Gene]

Yes Bitcraze that is the address that will be used for shipping.

Cheers,
g.

[mvdarend]

Got the board (Thanks again Gene!) and all the parts except for the TMP36GT9Z, that was surprisingly hard to find in the Netherlands. I've ordered one from the UK, I hope to be able to test it all by the end of the week.

[Gene]

Hi mvdarend,

I would have sent you one (I got a couple few days ago).
I'm testing the TMP36 with eden, but I'm not totally happy with it as it is floating by +/-0.5 celsius and not giving a stable value (see attacched pic).
Anyway I think this can be fixed by improving the MCP3008 app so to make the value stable by sampling and averaging during a given period (eg. 1 minute or even more).
Let me know whenever you're ready to test and your impressions about it.
The main advantage of using a TMP36 is that it's very cheap.
Anyway there can be applied other solutions like using DHT-22 or DS18B20 digital sensors, but let's try to work-around this first.

Cheers,
g.

[mvdarend]

Thanks Gene, I was thinking about asking here first where I could best buy one, but then I found a seller on Ebay UK so I got one there. (In retrospect I could have bought a DS18B20 from my local retailer, but I didn't know that it would also work.)

I should have everything ready to test at the end of the week, can't wait to try it all out

[mvdarend]

The transistor finally arrived, but when I started soldering everything I saw that Conrad sent me the wrong part for J1 (the 1x3 2.54 male connector)

How important is the dip switch here and can I test Eden without it?

[Gene]

Yes mvdarend you can use without it. That is only needed for connecting things to the P3 connector.
Upgrade to r431 as there is a newer version of the MCP3008 app that support values "smoothing" and makes the TMP36 more stable and usable without a regulated voltage input.
Also keep the update frequency of MCP3008 app >= 60 seconds for better results.

g.

[mvdarend]

It works!  (I'm quite surprised I managed it without stuffing something up...)

She's showing a mixture of Celsius/Fahrenheit for the temperature sensor, but the value is correct. Now to wait on the last parts so I can connect other stuff

[Marco]

Hi Gene,
nice "temperature sensor graph"(speak about your Eden_TMP36_stats_01.png).
it's a feature of MCP3008 APP and TMP36 sensor or I can add a new graph in statistic?
I don't find nothing about it

Thank

Marco

[Gene]

Hi Marco,

all numeric data coming from any module parameter is automatically collected by the statistic engine.
The you can "analyze" collected data from the "Analyze" section.
In the analyze page, the "options" button (in the upper right corner) let you select what kind of data to display.

g.

[Gene]

Hi everybody,

this is the resulting graph with "Soft Stabilize" active on Eden's TMP36.
Much more reliable now.
Have any of you been trying this already?

g.

[mvdarend]

I haven't tried it with Stabilize set to 'No' so I can't compare, but the temperature is very stable in my situation and matches the temperature given by my Oregon scientific thermometer.

Edit: by the way, which luminance sensor should I use with Eden?

[Gene]

Hi mvdarend,

unfortunately I'm a electronics newbie so can't tell what luminance sensor to use.
You can take a look at adafruit's tutorial page:
https://learn.adafruit.com/photocells
Indeed I just picked one and put a 10Kohm resistor too:
https://learn.adafruit.com/photocells/using-a-photocell
And surprise.... it's working pretty well =)

g.

[mvdarend]

Thanks for the links Gene, went to the local electronics store and bought the cheapest sensor and it works great

[mvdarend]

I had one of these Infrared motion detectors lying around, so decided to test it. I suppose you don't need Eden for this (it can connect directly to the GPIO pins), but it's a nice addition