Author: Brett

Long Distance European Hiking… with a Tweenager

Gear Sleeping bag MD Ultra 500 (900g) has a probable EN rating of -8°C (limit) to 0°C (comfort). This was ok for me for all non-snow hiking. Sleeping outside in a bivy on snow was cold but not deadly. Hence for earlyish […]

Energy Dashboards

Currently (2021) PhiSaver has one billlion data points. It’s a bit hard to display in a single user dashboard. An efficient user dashboard should answer questions. This page charts my progress to the mythical perfect energy monitoring dashboard. Typical user 30 – […]

Energy Monitoring: Circuit Positives and Negatives!

At the switchboard This is how I use a control-volume approach to practically monitor circuits. It’s half maths and half “it’s easy that way”. The area below is a switchboard, monitored with multiple CTs. See phisaver.com. Referring to the above: Net Import […]

InfluxDB v2 (Flux) Setup for Energy and Power Data from Iotawatt

This are my notes on setting up InfluxDBv2 for storing Iotawatt power readings. Specifically I needed to: Transition a live site from InfluxDB1 to InfluxDB2 Setup InfluxDBv2 to use InfluxDBv1 api and auth, so that ‘old’ IotaWatts can continue to post data […]

Raspi Zero W router with wlan1 Wifi Dongle

There are a few options to do this. I used the official documentation and adapted it to create a script: https://gist.github.com/brettbeeson/4ecf4eb21b39f502a4c50bd1e196e90c On the Raspi Zero W, plug in a USB OTG adaptor and a wifi dongle. Then run the script. I used […]

InfluxDB1 to InfluxDB2 with SSL

Install new Ubuntu 20 LTS on AWS (t3.medium). ‘t3 is better value than t2’ (tried installing influxdb2 (auto upgrade from v1) then upgrade distro. Ok but influxdb crashed after upgrade.) Install InfluxDB2 using one big bucket with name as “db-name/rp-name” (phisaver/autogen) to […]

Enclosures for electronics and RF

Investigations into using ABS, polycarbonate and sheet metal enclosures to house electronics with a focus on getting that radio signal (wifi, 3G/4G) out of the box Requirements Weatherproof. IP66 = no dust and no water even from jets. IP55 would be okay […]

Robustel 3G Router Setup

Setting up a R1510-4L 3G router in Australia The setup is R1510-4L router with Telstra SIM card and Jasper web control. The goal is to setup the router on 3G and configure data allowances, etc. Plug into a computer and login to […]

OpenVPN for IoT

Using a AWS Linux server, and Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu or Robustel router clients Situation Lots of linux devices (and embedded devices) behind firewalls without public IP address Publicly accessible computer (AWS) Goals Connect from the server (or office PC) to these devices […]