Tag: RS485

Introduction

DISCLAIMER: This is an old topic that I migrated from my old website due to the traffic it used to get.  I no longer use MisterHouse for my automation, so I will not be able to answer any questions regarding this topic.  Some of this information may be out of date, but may still work.

For some time now I have been using the MisterHouse automation software with my Raspberry Pi as my main automation software.  One of the features that I use is the weather data from the internet_weather.pl common code module.  I also have an RCS-TR40 RS485 thermostat and 7 one-wire temperature sensors throughout the house that I use with this setup also.  The weather module has a graphing feature that allows me to graph the indoor temperatures from my one-wire sensors.  A sample of this is shown to the right.  Though this was a nice feature, there was somehting missing.  I wanted a visual representation of my HVAC operation overlayed on the graph.  I saw a perfect example of what I was looking for on Marc Merlin's blog site marc.merlins.org/perso/homeha/2009-12.html.  About 1/4 of the way down the page you will see the 2 graphs.  Marc uses cacti with RRD to get his results, but I was using a module in MisterHouse that did not have this functionality.  This post shows the steps I took to modify the code in the weather module to be able to do this.

The Code Modification for HVAC Overlays

Before performing any of the steps described here, it is always a good idea to make backups of the files that you are modifying in the event that you need to revert back.  With that said, let's proceed.

The main file that you will need to modify is the weather_rrd_update_graphs file located in the MisterHouse/bin folder of your installation.  When I made the modifications to my setup, I had to start a new RRD database file because of the way that I modified the file.  I am going to show you how to do this in a way that SHOULD NOT affect your current RRD database.

The first step is to locate the section of code that defines the default color codes for the graphs.  In my file, this started at line 44.  Depending on the number of HVAC zones and whether you want to show heating, cooling or both for these zones, this will determine the number of tempspares that you will want to sacrifice for this.  In my setup I only have single zone heating and cooling, so I would only need to hijack $tempspare9 and $tempspare10.  The default color codes used for 9 and 10 are "66FFFF" and "0000CC" respectively.  These will need to be changed.  I used "FF6F7D88" (9) for the heating color, and "6F87FF88" (10) for the cooling color.  One thing you will notice that is different with these 2 values is that they are longer than the original values with the added "88" at the end of each. This is very important as the last 2 hex values are the transparency values.  This is what allows the HVAC color bars to be overlayed over thetemperature line graphs and still have them visible.

The next part is a bit tricky.  You will need to remove the tempspare RRD DEFinitions for whatever $tempspares you are using for this.  In my setup I would remove tempspare9 and tempspare 10 DEFs.  For each tempspare, you will need to remove 6 lines of code.

Now, where you deleted these lines of code, you will add 2 lines for each tempspare you are replacing.

Next, you will need to change the LINE2 definitions for your tempspares to AREA plots.  Find the following lines:
. ($sensor_names{tempspare9} ? "\"LINE2:... :'')

Remove the "LINE2" and "GPRINT" lines from each and replace with this:

"\"AREA:ftempspare9#${colortempspare9}:" . sprintf("%-${max}s",$sensor_names{tempspare9}) . "\","

For the last code modification, you need to edit the weather_rrd_update.pl file in "misterhouse/code/common/".  Look for this block of code:

if($config_parms{weather_uom_temp} eq 'C') {
grep { $_=convert_c2f($_) unless $_ eq 'U' } ($rrd_TempOutdoor, $rrd_TempIndoor,
$rrd_TempSpare1, $rrd_TempSpare2, $rrd_TempSpare3, $rrd_TempSpare4,
$rrd_TempSpare5, $rrd_TempSpare6, $rrd_TempSpare7, $rrd_TempSpare8,
$rrd_TempSpare9, $rrd_TempSpare10, $rrd_DewOutdoor, $rrd_DewIndoor,
$rrd_DewSpare1, $rrd_DewSpare2, $rrd_DewSpare3, $rrd_TempOutdoorApparent);
}

You will need to remove all references to TempSpareXX that you are converting.  If not done, this could prevent the HVAC bars from showing up if you have your user configuration "weather_uom_temp" set to "C"elsius.

HVAC overlays user code additions

Now you need to define things in your user code.  This will vary for each setup as thermostats and/or ways of identifying that the furnace or AC is on are done differently in each setup.  This is basically how I have it set up in my user code:

# Define the weather hash's initial starting HVAC values
if ($Startup or $Reload) {
    $Weather{TempSpare9}  = int(0);
    $Weather{TempSpare10} = int(0);
}

#### Now, if your furnace is on tempspare 9, the code will be something like this: ####
if ($RCS_current_state eq 'heat') {
# Tell the weather hash that the furnace is on
$Weather{TempSpare9} = int(1);
} else {
# Tell the weather hash that the furnace is off
$Weather{TempSpare9} = int(0);
}

Last, you can tweak your setup in your mh.private.ini file adding your own sensor names for each tempspare that you set up.  You can also tweak the colors of your displayed bars from here the same as your other sensors.  Remember though, if you change color values in your mh.private.ini file, you NEED to add the transparency value to each color.  I found 88 to be a good transparency value for me, but your situation may differ.

Below is a sample output of my setup with the furnace overlays in place.

Related Images: