jgyates
commented
7 years ago Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for the feedback. I will add your suggestions to the documentation.
Regarding the ClientInterface.py issues you describe, ClientInterface.py takes one command line argument which is the IP address of the system running genmon.py. If not argument is provided then the default is the localhost IP address of 127.0.0.1 (i.e. ClientInterface.py is running on the same system as genmon.py). The message you are seeing (WARNING: Not receiving data) is generated by genmon.py which tells me that Clientinterface.py is establishing a socket connection to genmon.py. The warning message is generated from a thread (thread name in genmon.py is ComWatchDog()) that counts the packets received from the generator controller. The watch dog thread runs every 5 seconds so make sure that the genmon.py has been running at least 5 seconds so it can gather some data. You can just exit ClientInterface.py and restart it, if you still get the same error then we can look at communication debugging. There is some debugging built into genmon.py but it needs to be enabled from genmon.conf. To debug serial communications in genmon.py, modify the lines in genmon.conf to enable the console output and enable the monitor statistics: "displayoutput = True" and "displaymonitor = True". This will make genmon.py output to the console display, every 10 seconds, how many serial packets have been transmitted and received. This data should allow us to see what is happening in terms of serial communications. Another thing that may be useful is the daughter board for bringing out the serial communications on the Raspberry Pi should have a couple of LEDs on it that flash when data is transmitted or received. This is another indicator that would be helpful in debugging. One note that also helped me, when making the cable I had a learning curve on crimping the molex connectors. To validate my cable was working is created a simple program that would transmit data and print what it received. I looped back the tx to the rx on the end of my cable so I was transmitting through the cable and receiving through the cable. I am attaching a simple test app that I used to test serial communications. It uses /dev/serial0 so, depending on your RPi version the name of the device may change. As I write this I recall that you may want to validate your device name of your serial device. If memory serves, they renamed the raspberry pi on board serial device name from /dev/ttyAMA0 to /dev/serial0 (assuming you are using raspbian). I can't remember if this name change started with the RPi2 or RPi3. You can check this by doing a "ls -la /dev/" from the console and see if you have a device named /dev/ttyAMA0 or /dev/serial0. SerialTest.py.zip
Let me know if how it works for you and if you have any other questions. Thanks Jason
JeremyStevenson
jgyates - this is awesome that you've done this. THANK YOU!
I've run into a few problems on setup, and would appreciate some help.
First, I ran into the exception below. I solved that exception by putting "enable_uart=1" at the end of /boot/config.txt. Looks like this is required for all Raspberry Pi 3s if you are using the built in serial port (as opposed to a usb serial port). If this is the correct fix, you may want to add this to the documentation. I am using a Pi Zero W.
Second, when I tried to run ClientInterface.py from the OtherApps directory I got an exception that mylog.py wasn't found. I moved the program to the same directory as mylog.py and problem solved.
Third, and this is where I'm stuck, when I got ClientInterface.py running I got a warning, "WARNING: Not receiving data. : ," I've tried switching around the TX and RX lines in my wiring, and no luck. I don't get any output from genmon.py as if it is hung. Am I supposed to get output from genmon.py? Is there some basic direct access of the serial port I can do to test my hardware?
Thanks in advance, and thank you for writing this including the very detailed documentation.
-Jeremy
Exception from First issue:
pi@GeneratorRPi:/genmon $ sudo python genmon.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "genmon.py", line 2510, in
MyGen = GeneratorDevice()
File "genmon.py", line 334, in init
self.FatalError("Error opening serial device: " + str(e1))
File "genmon.py", line 2429, in FatalError
raise Exception(Message)
Exception: Error opening serial device: global name 'FatalError' is not defined
Error in atexit._run_exitfuncs:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/atexit.py", line 24, in _run_exitfuncs
func(*targs, *kargs)
File "genmon.py", line 2434, in Close
self.mail.sendEmail("Generator Monitor Stopping at " + self.SiteName, "Generator Monitor Stopping at " + self.SiteName )
AttributeError: GeneratorDevice instance has no attribute 'mail'
Error in sys.exitfunc:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/atexit.py", line 24, in _run_exitfuncs
func(targs, **kargs)
File "genmon.py", line 2434, in Close
self.mail.sendEmail("Generator Monitor Stopping at " + self.SiteName, "Generator Monitor Stopping at " + self.SiteName )
AttributeError: GeneratorDevice instance has no attribute 'mail'