btmon guide

[mwall]

Here is a guide to configuring btmon:

http://lancet.mit.edu/mwall/projects/po ... howto.html

It includes recipes for various configurations such as windows, multiple btmon instances, uploading to multiple services, serial and TCP/IP comms.

It includes tips and explanations about multiplexing, client/server modes, and configuring a GEM or ECM-1240.

If you find the guide lacking, or if you have a configuration trick that could help others, please post!

A link to the latest btmon release is here:

http://lancet.mit.edu/mwall/projects/power

[mikeform]

mwall:

Thank you for compiling the guide even though it is almost impossible to take care of all variations of what people want to do. Here are a few suggestions and/or questions. These are not criticisms, just thoughts to make it easier for a person new to things to follow. Please take them as such.

1. You state to put the GEM/ECM in server or client mode without specifying how to do so. I assume that you use the EtherX configuration tool, but that is not specified. The method should be specified or at least a link to it should be in place.

2. I plan on also using the edsmon.py to read from my OW-Server-Enet. I assume that this could be run like your "Run multiple instances of btmon" description. You could add what is necessary to do things like this.

Thanks again for you help.

[mwall]

thank you mike. this is exactly the kind of feedback i am looking for.

i added a few sections about GEM/ECM configuration. it will need an update after i have a chance to play with the new web-based GEM configuration interface.

the guide for edsmon is in the works...

[mform]

You're welcome. I am always glad to be of some help.

In fact, I would be happy to be a "beta" tester for your web based GEM configuration tool or any of the other guides that you may be working on to give you feedback. I am pretty good at doing this type of thing. Let me know and if you want to contact me I will send you a Private Message with my e-mail address.

I look forward to your work on edsmon.

Mike

[grondo]

Thank you for btmon! It saved me so much time getting data from my GEM.
I have btmon running on a raspberry pi sitting next to the GEM and it is
quite a nice and flexible setup.

I missed the configuration guide at first, but the --help output and the comments
in the beginning of the script were sufficient.

The biggest stumbling block I ran across was running the EtherX configuration
tool. (Without a windows box in the house I had to install wine and run under
emulation)

Is the script kept in a git repo anywhere?

[mwall]

here are wiznet configurators for macosx and linux:

http://www.planetarygear.org/2012/06/wi ... ac-v2.html

btmon (and friends) are in a subversion repository right now. i'm not yet sure whether i will open up access to that repository or transfer everything to git...

[grondo]

Great. Nice work. I would like to add support for pvoutput at some point if I have the time.
(Though, honestly I don't know when I'd have the time right now)

[mwall]

support for pvoutput.org was added awhile ago. it is pretty basic as pvoutput is more of a whole-house monitor rather than multiple channels.

[grondo]

Ok, thanks, I must have an older version of the script.
What's the latest version? I have:

__version__ = '3.0.1'

I just grabbed the first hit with a google search for "btmon.py"

I just want to be able to send instantaneous consumption values to pvoutput,
the solar generation is gathered out-of-band by pvoutput itself. To do that I will
probably have to calculate a stream either by summing all the individual loads
or using the mains stream + solar stream (where solar is typically negative
when generating power). Does btmon already support this kind of configuration?

Thanks!!

[mwall]

as of 27jan2013, the latest btmon is 3.0.6b3.

this page has links to the latest stable releases:

http://lancet.mit.edu/mwall/projects/power

every release (including betas) is listed here:

http://lancet.mit.edu/mwall/projects/power/releases