Skip to content

FAQ ‐ Frequently Asked Questions

Jump to bottom
Gundolf Kiefer edited this page May 25, 2024 · 3 revisions

This page has been contributed by Axel Josef Rau.

Building the software

  • Checkout on case insensitive filesystem: The software requires a case sensitive filesystem

Creating circuits

  • Which circuits require 100 ohm resistors in the SDA and SCL bus connections? All but ahub circuits (including bhubs).

Networking

These observations are with home2l installed on FreeBSD 13.1.

  • Does home2l support IPv6? No.
  • Does home2l work with dual stack? No. If there exists both a A and a AAAA Resource record for a net-host used in resources.conf, its best, to remove the AAAA.
  • Are there issues with Name resolution? It's best to use IP-Addresses instead of nethost name or FQDN.

Brownies

  • How to flash a new operational software? The Brownie must be in the maintenance state:

    Flashing device 011 with '/usr/local/home2l/share/brownies/winl.t84.elf' ... 0a00 - 188c (3724 bytes) ... Error accessing device 011: Operation not allowed brownie2l> boot -m Switching device 011 to MAINTENANCE firmware (block 0x01, adr=0x0040) ... Activating and rebooting ... OK brownie2l> program -d oa_win_right

    Segments in '/usr/local/home2l/share/brownies/winl.t84.elf': FLASH : 0a00 - 188c (3724 bytes) (SRAM) : 0060 - 011a (186 bytes) (EEPROM): 0000 - 0032 (50 bytes)

    (Re-)program FLASH of device 011 with this? (y/N) y

    Flashing device 011 with '/usr/local/home2l/share/brownies/winl.t84.elf' ... 0a00 - 188c (3724 bytes) ... verifying ... OK
    brownie2l> boot -o Switching device 011 to OPERATIONAL firmware (block 0x28, adr=0x0a00) ... Activating and rebooting ... OK

  • How to adjust Brownie configuratuion? The Brownie must be in the maintenance state:

    brownie2l> config -d oa_win_right

    011 oa_win_right adr=011 id=oa_win_right fw=winl mcu=t84 sha0_dd=0.524 sha0_td=25.04 sha0_du=0.524 sha0_tu=25.04

    Write back this configuration and reboot node 011? (y/N) y Writing config ... verifying config ... OK Rebooting ... OK brownie2l> boot -o Switching device 011 to OPERATIONAL firmware (block 0x28, adr=0x0a00) ... Activating and rebooting ... OK

  • What to do after a software update?

    After a new version of the home2l suite has been installed, all brownies must be re-programmed and re-configuered.

    Some brownies may not need a configuration update. Be sure to check all.

  • How to change the address of a brownie?

  • Avoid duplicate addresses.

  • While changing addresses do one brownie after another, moving from leave nodes to hubs.

  • Moving a brownie out of a subnet by address change via config command works without problems.

  • How to change the features of a brownie?

  • Modify brownies.conf

  • Restart Server

  • flash a new operational software

  • Adding GPIOs

  • Select free pin(s) (Fig. 7.5)

    Attention: Not all unused pins are available as GPIOs, only those, marked with gpio !

  • Create a new Brownie variant in Family.mk and set the GPIO mask bit(s) in one or more variables like so: GPIO_OUT_PRESENCE=0x80 GPIO_OUT_PRESET=0x00 GPIO_IN_PRESENCE=0x8 GPIO_IN_PULLUP

  • Mask bits are 2**n from gpio in Fig. 7.5

  • Add the new variant to BROWNIE_FAMILY macro

  • Build and install the software

  • Displaying GPIOs

    Open brownie in brownie2l or do a verbose scan:

    013 oa_light2 gpiolight v1.2-0 (t84) Device: ATtiny84 (t84) Features: notify GPIOs: 00000pp Config:

    GPIOs are displayed from left to right by GPIO index (gpio) with symbols:

  • "-" not present

  • "i" input without pullup

  • "p" input with pullup (about 20k)

  • "1" output, preset (initialized to high)

  • "0" output, not preset (initialized to low)

Trouble getting resources

  • Why is no resource returned in Python API? Setting allowWait may help.

Example:

rcNow = RcGet ("/host/h2l/timer/now")
rcNow.PrintInfo()
/host/h2l/timer/now[none,wr] = ?
  (no requests)
  (no subscriptions)

rcNow = RcGet ("/host/h2l/timer/now", allowWait = True)
rcNow.PrintInfo()
/host/home2l/timer/now[time,ro] = 2023-01-25-163849 @2023-01-25-163849.060
  (no requests)
  (no subscriptions)

Writing Rules Scripts

  • Creating local Resources

  • Local Resources, created via NewResource() can only be referenced from the Script where they have been declared.

  • Local Resources have a URI like:

      /host/home2l<roles:57244>/resource/shadingSouth

    instead of

      /host/h2l/resource/shadingSouth

  • This works:

      rcShadingSouth = NewResource ('shadingSouth', rctPercent
  . . .
  RunOnUpdate (hadingChanged,
  	         (rcShadingSouth, ), . . .

  • Author says: These Resources may be referenced globally if you make sure, server has been started by:

    • config option:

      rc.enableServer = 1

    • plus instance definition of rules script in resources.conf:

      H myRules     rules@<some net host>:1234

      In rules script:

      Home2lInit (instance = myRules, server = True)

  • Creating Subscriptions

    • Subscriptions must be created for all resources, which are not used by triggers.

    • Subscriptions must be declared before Home2lStart() is called.

      example:

      from home2l import *

me = 'subscriptionTest'
Home2lInit (instance=me)
myInstance = RcGet('/host/'+me+'/resources')
mySubscriber = RcNewSubscriber(me, myInstance)

minuteTimer = RcGet ('/local/timer/minutely')

all = RcGet('/host/h2l/brownies/*/*')
all.Subscribe(mySubscriber)

Home2lStart ()

t1 = RcGet('/host/h2l/brownies/oa_win1/temp')
print('Temperature is now {:2.1f}'.format(v))

Home2lRun ()

  • Using the Directoryservice

  • To collect a list of Resources (e.g. Brownies) at startup, you should wait until network connections have been established. A RunAt of 1 second works for me.

  • Author says: Directory Service is for information and diagnosis purpose only, do not depend on it with productive code.

Clone this wiki locally