Update – March 2023

The Orange Pi EMMc flash died, probably because I was writing data to InfluxDB every 30-60 seconds for 3 years without compacting it at all.  I suspected this would happen but didn’t get around to doing something about it before it failed.

I’ve looked at the possibility of getting a new EMMc flash chip and having fixing the board.  It should be a good exercise in replacing BGA chips.

For now the data from the greenhouse is not being recorded, although I have just received a Orange Pi 5 board which will run a M.2 NVME SSD.  Probably a good update path.

Late last year I started looking at Zigbee and Home Assistant running on a Odroid XU4.  So far still running as a test setup but another story for another day.

As it Started

It’s over a year since I started this in late 2019.  A work in progress, experimenting with the ESP8266 D1 Mini-pro and the ESP-01S running Tasmota. 

Connecting to a Orange-Pi attached to the back of a 22″ LCD screen and running InfluxDB and Grafana.  This setup has been collecting data from a ESP-01S in the greenhouse and a D1 mini-pro in the computer cabinet.

The ESP-01S failed a few weeks back (late March 2021).  Not surprising as it was a temporary install hanging from the roof, powered by a 10W solar panel and 3-cell 18650 battery.  It lost the DHT11 sensor configuration and the sensor itself was providing bad data.  A tidy up and new sensor and it’s working but possibly not as reliably as it was.  Time to update it to the D1-mini-pro board.

With a couple of applications in mind I designed a carrier board for the D1-mini-pro to make it easier to use and operate from 12V.  If the D1-mini module is soldered directly rather than on header connectors the whole thing slides into a 32mm conduit for mounting outdoors and harsh environments.  A few more details Here.