RRDTool with Brultech 1240 (and homevision)

hucker

hucker

Active Member
I've been working nights lately getting this 1240 integrated at the house and finally have it round-tripping from the energy monitor to an rrdtool generated image on a web page. (For those that are interested I also have data from my HomeVision system pumping data into rrdtool)

A little more info is here:

http://www.cocoontech.com/blog/acrocad/ind...p?showentry=104

I'm wondering if there are any rrdtool graph experts (or even novices...) who could help me generate plots that are a little more appealing or perhaps give me some insight into using cacti as an interface to drive the thing. It really seems like once there is a data interface, graphing becomes very doable with little work... (he says after pulling a Thursday night all-nighter...)
 
I have been working in my spare time to get Cacti and apcupsd & SNMP running. Cacti is nice and powerful & flexible, but has a bit of a learning curve, especially running it on XP boxes.

Next up is to try and
  • get data from HomeSeer 1.7 into Cacti
  • get data from SpeedFan into Cact
  • get data from apcupsd into HS 1.7
  • get a ECM-1240 (as soon as the serial version is available) and put it's data in Cacti
  • get a 1-wire system going using P. Anderson's kits and put it's data in Cacti http://www.phanderson.com/
 
i like using the AREA with a LINE outlining the area:

rrdtool graph garage0.gif --start $c --end $b --vertical-label "degrees F" --title "Temp" --width=600 --height=400 DEF:mytempa=temp.rrd:tempa:AVERAGE AREA:mytempa#54EC48:garage LINE:mytempa#24BC14

this won't work if you have different curves that cross (as portions will get blocked), but if one is always less than the other, it can layer on top of the higher curve. i also think the graphs look nicer if the scale is not very large (you can see more of the swings) so i won't graph outside temp with attic temp for example.

(put a new power supply in my server wednesday, hence the glitch in the attached graphs)

gonna have to take a look at cacti now :P
 

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Thanks, those outlined area plots have a much nicer look to them. Next step is to generate some more plots from my HomeVison stuff.
 
the cacti stuff was pretty easy to install since i already run cygwin, php, mysql & apache on my server. one of the download links, the spine executable, points to just the source. you'll need the get the spine beta in the beta forum http://forums.cacti.net/forum-10.html

the poller is annoying in that it pops up 3 cmd windows everytime it's run (every 5 minutes). i need to figure out a way to minimize those windows so they don't interrupt what i'm doing when i'm using my server.

edit: here's how i've minimized the popups. in your cacti install directory, edit lib/poller.php

change this line:
Code: 
			pclose(popen("start \"Cactiplus\" /I \"" . $filename . "\" " . $args, "r"));
to:
Code: 
			pclose(popen("start \"Cactiplus\" /MIN /I \"" . $filename . "\" " . $args, "r"));
 
damage said:
the poller is annoying in that it pops up 3 cmd windows everytime it's run (every 5 minutes). i need to figure out a way to minimize those windows so they don't interrupt what i'm doing when i'm using my server.
Click to expand...
Set the Cacti poller to use a user other than what you are logged in with. Then they don't pop up at all. I created a user specifically for the poller.
 
WayneW said:
damage said:
the poller is annoying in that it pops up 3 cmd windows everytime it's run (every 5 minutes). i need to figure out a way to minimize those windows so they don't interrupt what i'm doing when i'm using my server.
Click to expand...
Set the Cacti poller to use a user other than what you are logged in with. Then they don't pop up at all. I created a user specifically for the poller.
Click to expand...
my fix is easier. no need to muck around with users.
 
I posted this in hucker's blog, but I thought this might be a better place to get me to the bottom of this.

"Hucker,
I'm very interested in Cacti, RRDTools, but I seem to be missing something in my rundown.
Could you walk me through how the data goes from the 1240 to .... to .... to .... Outcomes graph from cacti.
I am interested in implementing this to capture my environment information, temps, waterflow (on/off), solar insolation, and electrical usage. I currently capture all the information from my 1-wire network, and store it in an mysql database. Now that I have a 1240, I want to integrate these two systems.


Thanks,
Rob
project_x at myblackdog dot com"
 
So does anybody have a tool or method to get ECM-1240 data into RRDtool/Cacti yet? How good are RRDtool/Cacti for realtime data and graphing? By default, Cacti polls every 5 minutes and the ECM-1240 spits out data every 1 second, so I am looking for advice on what is an appropriate middle ground? I don't think I want Cacti polling every second, but I want data more than every 5 minutes (at least for a short while). It would be nice to have a short (15 minute long, updated every second) strip chart type graph and long term logging/graphing in Cacti.
 
WayneW said:
So does anybody have a tool or method to get ECM-1240 data into RRDtool/Cacti yet?
Click to expand...
I have written a program in Java that connects to the EtherBee (either in server or client mode) and automatically updates an RRDTool database, with 12 hours worth of data at 1 second intervals, 24 hours at 5 second intervals, 2 weeks at 1 minute and 1 year at hourly intervals. The whole rrd file only takes up about 24.5meg storing every piece of data from the 1240.

Every 15 seconds I then have it update 5min, 10min, 15min, 20 min, 1h, 2h, 3h, 4h and daily graphs of the power usage and a single daily graph of the voltage throughout the day.

It works reasonably well and I chose the 15 second interval as it is a lot to graph when you add in that I am doing the same thing for my 2 Proliphix thermostats at the same time.

I am planning on releasing the code at some point in the future when I have had a chance to go over it and make it a bit more generic, if there is enough interest or if someone is willing to work on the development I would release it a little earlier...

Geoff
 

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Geoffrey S. Zub said:
I have written a program in Java that connects to the EtherBee (either in server or client mode) and automatically updates an RRDTool database, with 12 hours worth of data at 1 second intervals, 24 hours at 5 second intervals, 2 weeks at 1 minute and 1 year at hourly intervals. The whole rrd file only takes up about 24.5meg storing every piece of data from the 1240.

Every 15 seconds I then have it update 5min, 10min, 15min, 20 min, 1h, 2h, 3h, 4h and daily graphs of the power usage and a single daily graph of the voltage throughout the day.

It works reasonably well and I chose the 15 second interval as it is a lot to graph when you add in that I am doing the same thing for my 2 Proliphix thermostats at the same time.

I am planning on releasing the code at some point in the future when I have had a chance to go over it and make it a bit more generic, if there is enough interest or if someone is willing to work on the development I would release it a little earlier...

Geoff
Click to expand...

Hi Geoffrey!

Im really interested to get the data from my Brultech 1240 and put it into another software so I can manipulate it (I want to do something similar as the google power meter but faster) if you can help me with something I will be really thankful with you. You can also contact me so we can talk and maybe work together, if you wanted to... this is a really important assignment so I have to do it as soon as possible.

Thanks for your collaboration.

Jaime
[email protected]
 
Mayoral said:
Hi Geoffrey!

Im really interested to get the data from my Brultech 1240 and put it into another software so I can manipulate it (I want to do something similar as the google power meter but faster) if you can help me with something I will be really thankful with you. You can also contact me so we can talk and maybe work together, if you wanted to... this is a really important assignment so I have to do it as soon as possible.

Thanks for your collaboration.

Jaime
[email protected]
Click to expand...

I would also like to get a copy of this. RRD is the *ONLY* way to store this type of data. Anyone doing it differently clearly has not used RRD before.
 
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