Raspberry Pi reading WH1081 weather sensors using an RFM01 and RFM12b

Technical Stuff 168 Comments

This article describes using an RFM01 or RFM12b FSK RF transceiver with a Raspberry Pi to receive sensor data from a Fine Offset WH1080 or WH1081 (specifically a Maplin N96GY) weather station’s RF transmitter.

I originally used the RFM12b, simply because I had one to hand, but later found that the RFM01 appears to work far better – the noise immunity and the range of the RFM01 in OOK mode is noticeably better.  They’re pin compatible, but the SPI registers differ between the modules, in terms of both register-address and function.

This project is changing to be microcontroller based, and using an AM receiver module (Aurel RX-4MM5) – a much more effective approach – arduino-yun-reading-wh1080-using-aurel-rx-4mm5. Currently testing on Arduino Yun, but will probably move to a more platform agnostic design to support Dragino and Carambola etc.

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PIC/MOSFET PWM Model Train Controller

Technical Stuff 5 Comments

Having been unable to resist buying some old Hornby OO Gauge bits from the second hand cabinet in a model shop, justification came from the educational value it would offer my son if I could make a speed controller, perhaps adding a sensor or two – the essence of industrial control and feedback mechanisms. Being three and a half, he just wanted to make the train fly off the track, but at least he enjoyed it.

This is a project to create a model train speed controller using the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) output of a PIC16F690 microcontroller, to drive a MOSFET that ultimately controls the voltage on the tracks. The train will automatically switch into reverse when the control is turned anti-clockwise through the zero point. Continue reading →

Raspberry Pi Power Controller

Technical Stuff 15 Comments

This article is a work in progress to create a power-controller for the Raspberry Pi based on a PIC microcontroller and MOSFET. The PIC implements an I2C slave to allow power control, and also to approximate the registers of a PCF8563 Real Time Clock (RTC) chip, to allow timed wake-up of the Pi.

  • Power the Raspberry Pi off and on with a push-button.
  • Fully shut down the Raspberry Pi on ‘shutdown -h’.
  • Wake-up at a specified time (one-off or periodic).
  • Monitor the supply voltage.
  • Log glitches in the power-supply (e.g. caused by USB device activity).
  • Maintains the time from a CR2032 button cell.

During power-down, the circuit currently consumes around 5μA of power, useful where a battery is being used to power the Pi (remote solar-power applications, or in-car systems, for example).

The Pi is able to instruct the PIC to power it down using a short I2C command sequence. Wake up events include a push-button, or other voltage-sense on an input pin. Continue reading →

Raspberry Pi – Driving a Relay using GPIO

Technical Stuff 141 Comments

There’s something exciting about crossing the boundary between the abstract world of software and the physical ‘real world’, and a relay driven from a GPIO pin seemed like a good example of this. Although a simple project, I still learned some new things about the Raspberry Pi while doing it.

There are only four components required, and the cost for these is around 70p, so it would be a good candidate for a classroom exercise. Even a cheap relay like the Omron G5LA-1 5DC can switch loads of 10A at 240V. Continue reading →

Raspberry Pi GPFSEL, GPIO, and PADS Status Viewer

Technical Stuff 3 Comments

The gpfsel_list (I maybe should have called it lsgpio) utility displays a list of the currently configured function selections across all available GPIO pins and, for pins configured as GPIO, the current state of the pins. For pins configured with ALTn functions, the selected function is listed according to the datasheet information.

It also shows the state of the PADS registers to display the configured drive current, hysteresis, and slew setting for the three groups of pins (GPIO 0-27, 28-45, and 46-53).

It’s been written to produce output that’s easy to grep and cut, and performs only read operations on the registers – it can’t be used to modify settings, though I suppose this could change in future.

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Raspberry Pi PCF8563 Real Time Clock (RTC)

Technical Stuff 18 Comments

Having recently received my Raspberry Pi, one of the first things I wanted to do was hook up a real-time clock chip I had lying around (a NXP PCF8563) and learn how to drive I2C from the BCM2835 hardware registers. Turns out it’s quite easy to do, and I think makes a useful project to learn with.

So, here are some notes I made getting it to work, initially with Chris Boot’s forked kernel that incorporates some I2C handling code created by Frank Buss into the kernel’s I2C bus driver framework.

After getting it to work with the kernel drivers, I created some C code to drive the RTC chip directly using the BCM2835 I2C registers, using mmap() to expose Peripheral IO space in the user’s (virtual) memory map, the technique I learned from Gert’s Gertboard demo software, though my code’s simpler (hopefully without limiting functionality!).

Note: Revision 2 boards require the code to access BSC1 (I2C1) rather than BSC0 (I2C0), so changes to the peripheral base address may be required, or in the case if the Linux I2C driver, a reference to i2c-1 rather than i2c-0. It should be simple enough, but I don’t want to write about things I haven’t done or tested, so a bit of extra work by the reader may be required.

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Dell R415 R515 (11G) Random Reboots

Technical Stuff 10 Comments

We have Dell R415 and R515 11G servers that have been rebooting sporadically. These restarts are seemingly random, but occur at approximate intervals of 6 weeks, 2 weeks, or 2 days. The messages in the BMC/iDRAC6 system event log seem to be misreporting various hardware problems. The problem appears to have been avoided by disabling the Event Message Buffer using ipmitool, but only time will tell.

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