DIY server room monitoring

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Monitoring temperature and humidity in server rooms are usually tasks for dedicated hardware and software. It is just a case of this stupid COVID situation that called for urgent and somewhat desperate measures. Postal services are not functioning normally, delivery time for everything is uncertain and some things are even impossible to buy. Combined with living in a godforsaken place it`s as Chris Rea would say a “Road to Hell”. This is why I went down this road and put Domoticz and ESP to the task and created DIY server room monitoring and alerting system.

Measuring device with ESP and Tasmota

I will try to make this look more like a guide since there is plenty of applications for this kind of device.

I made this as simple as it can be. I combined the ESP8266 development board with a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor. It`s what I had at my disposal, maybe in a different situation, I would use DHT21 or BME280 sensor. Here is a schematic:

This is as easy as it can be no need for any explanation except power connections. You can supply power like this or simply use a built-in USB connector on the ESP board. I just put a standard USB connector on the other side so it can draw power from any USB port. I chose this method since I did not want any possibility for data communication if the USB is plugged to a port on the server or something like that.

Getting DIY server room monitoring device in the box

It took 30 minutes to put everything together. Measuring part of the DIY server room monitoring system is finished.

Flashing Tasmota firmware on ESP8266

I already wrote here about flashing Tasmota on ESP but I will mention it again. First, get your hands on Tasmota Pyflasher and Tasmota firmware. You will want to use the tasmota-sensors.bin file. That is the only one you need in this type of flashing. Second, connect your esp to your computer and press reset while holding the flash button.

Configure Tasmota to use Wi-Fi

Scan for Wi-Fi networks on your mobile phone. You should see a new SSID with a tasmota_something in its name. When connected to that network, you will get a prompt to sign in. Click sign in and you will get a prompt to enter SSID and password of your network. It will look like the picture below, and it is as simple as it can be.

First, take note that ESP supports only 2.4 GHz networks. Therefore make sure that your network is 2.4 and not only 5 GHz. Second, if you have two Wi-Fi networks you can also configure the other one as a failover.

Configure Tasmota for sensors attached to ESP

Now your device is connected to Wi-Fi. Therefore go to your DHCP server and check what IP address is leased to your Tasmota device.

Afterwards, enter that address to a browser on the device that is on the same network and you should get the Tasmota web interface. Click on configuration and then configure the module. Under Module type, chose Generic(18). Since we connected DHT11 to D1 open the options next to D1 GPIO5 and find and select DHT11(1). Click Save, and go back to configuration.

Now you should see readings from sensor on the main Tasmota page.

Configure Tasmota and Domoticz to work together

From here we go under the assumption that there is Domoticz up and running. If not, here is the full guide for the setup. On the Domoticz go to Setup -> Hardware and Create Virtual Sensors. (If you already do not have a Dummy virtual switch, create one now).

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Now back to Tasmota again. We need to configure it to use MQTT and Domoticz. So under configuration, we first go to Configure MQTT and after that to Configure Domoticz.

Presentation in Domoticz

Here we can see how it looks like in Domoticz. Not bad ha? 🙂 Besides that, the real power of this is in notifications. Notification settings look like this.

So it will send an email and Telegram message if the temperature exceeds 25 degrees Celsius. Not to enter in explanations why this temp as a trigger, let`s just say that it does a great job for me at this moment. And here is how 24-hour log looks like so you will figure out one of the reasons why I made all this in the first place.

For instance in this situation it was necessary to log and visualize data to find the problem, and to be able to document it. Therefore, this little project just did that, and in the end, it will stay, as it proved to be quite useful.

DIY server room monitoring system server room installation.

Likewise, here are few more pictures of two devices that I made to just be plugged in the AC utility socket and transmit temperature and humidity. For instance, I used adapters of the old cellphones as a power source and put ESP on top of it with DHT21 outside to avoid it being influenced by the heat that adapter and esp produce.

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Once more, thank you for reading.  

Posted in *.*, DIY, Home Automation Tagged with: Domoticz, ESP8266, server room monitoring, Tasmota

Tasmota and Domoticz ESP8266 sensors station

How does monitoring Temperature, Humidity, Pressure,  Illuminance, and Air quality sounds like? Well, it sounds great especially if we can do it in under 50 US $ budget, and it even has some basic weather prediction functions, when combined with Tasmota and Domoticz.

Why measure air quality?

We had a situation in the city where people started to get sick with respiratory problems at the mass level and it was obvious that a major problem is the quality of the air. I mean it was noticeable with the bare eyes and nouse but authorities kept saying that air is ok, and they were publishing fake results. Moreover, results were in the form of a statement like “Air quality is at a satisfactory level”. Yes, it is ok if you ar an internal combustion engine with a great air intake filter!

How could air become so bad in a city without industry?

This started happening with the beginning of a heating season, and it was just a coincidence that the city got a brand new heating plant. Well, later we find out that it was not exactly in city ownership. Moreover it is a privately owned and operated, with a nice and lucrative contract. In fact, the new plant is so nice that they shut down former plant (with chimneys like two times higher than those at the new plant) that was owned by the city and the only heating option left is this new monster that uses wood as a fuel. I could write a completely new story on this subject, but I will stop here.

Why Nova SDS011 PM sensor?

I came to learn about it from the necessity. I wanted to see what is going on with the air pollution and I found a bunch of sensors there on the market but did not know where to start. In fact, one independent journalist brought few “Purple Air” sensors and installed them around the city, and the results were catastrophic. For example, they measured 300 – 500 (US EPA PM2.5 AQI ) almost all the time for 2 months. On the other hand, 0 – 50 is ok on their scale and that scale ends with 500.

These purple air sensors cost around 250 US $ so they are not so cheap. On the other hand, you just have to put it on a good spot, connect it to Wi-Fi and power. But it is very enjoyable to build something yourself so, DIY again 🙂 . Just one more comment, authorities said that these “so-called” measuring devices like “Purple Air” sensors are not calibrated, and not attested by their accredited agency so the results were wrong. As soon as they started talking things like that, the air became so pure and enjoyable to breathe that everyone was so shocked and happy to have the opportunity to live under so wise rule.

Joost Wesseling (RIVM) – Air quality measurements using cheap sensors

What convinced me even more that I`m on the right track was Mr. Joost Wesseling from The Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, keynote at the Things conference in Amsterdam. If you read this article until now, it means you are interested and I warmly suggest you watch this 25-minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgvghFFSQ6c .

Back to technical stuff…

First, we will make a little bom (bill of materials) containing major parts. After all, we are building a quite complex device. Therefore we must know what parts do we need.

Part	Price US $
1. ESP8266 development board	2.8
2. Nova PM sensor SDS011 High precision laser pm2.5 air quality detection sensor module	18
3. BME280 temp hum baro sensor 3V	3
4. BH1750 light intensity illumination module 3V	2.5
5. 5V 2A power supply	3
6. Some wires, cables, connectors, screws, cable ties and a box…	10

Regarding tools needed for the job, I used: soldering iron, hot glue gun, small drill, angle grinder, few screwdrivers, cutting pliers, multimeter, smartphone and a computer.

Since I had to order some parts from China, there was not much to do until they came. I was killing some time wondering how to assemble everything together. What will I use as housing? I went through some stuff I had and noticed the old HP Inkjet printer power supply. I opened it and after measuring the size, it looked like everything could fit in nicely. And it did, so this power supply casing was a box for my sensors device.

First I put everything together to see how it works. I had a doubt regarding connecting two i2c sensors in parallel (doubt was about addressing not about can it work or not). BME280 and BH1750 are both connected to scl and sda pins of ESP, and I did not now will Tasmota firmware be able to discover them both without fine tuning. But it worked like the charm from the start.

Wiring diagram

Regarding wiring, SDS011 talks on serial, so RX goes to ESP TX and TX goes to ESP RX. +5 Volt from SDS goes to Vin on ESP with the assumption that you will connect that pin later to the power supply of 5V DC. This sensor working voltage is 4.7 – 5.3 V, so do not connect it to 3 V pin, it is to low and it may affect readings. As always ground goes to ground. BME280 and BH1750 use the I2C bus, so their SCL (Serial Clock) together goes to ESP SCL which is on pin D1, and SDA of both sensors goes to D2 on ESP since it is Serial Data pin. Sensors VCC connects to a 3V pin on ESP. We already know about ground :).

Handling SDS011 while working

Just to mention that it is not a bad idea to cover air inlet and outlet of a sensor while you work around it, especially drilling or grinding, to prevent dirt to pollute sensor. When all rough work is done, remove the covers. Better safe than sorry.

How it fitted together

Since the goal was to make it nonexpensive, and yet durable and to finish it fast, this is what I did regarding assembly. I positioned the Nova SDS011 sensor on one side of the box, put a microcontroller next to it and then made some physical barrier to create a compartment for BME280. The reason I wanted it separated was the intention to remove it from any heat dissipation that the ESP8266 board produces no matter how small it is. That way alteration of the temperature reading would be minimized.

I made a socket for the ESP development board on the prototype PCB, so it can be removed, or replaced easily without any soldering. After all this sensors unit is a prototype. The micro USB connector on the board is accessible when the box is open in case it is needed. There are markings on board so there will not be the accidental wrong insertion of ESP board.

Installation for test measurements

Well, I had the opportunity to dig in some cables since there is still no facade on the house, and I put a few UTP cables in. I used one for PoE camera, other for sensors device power supply, and since this is the IoT time, I left two more cables to wait for it 🙂 . First, I chose this location thinking, that it is high enough from the ground to prevent dust and some other near ground particles to contaminate sensor readings. Second, it is far enough from the roof to have its heat dissipation mess with the temperature readings. Third, it is enough protected from the rain and both air openings are from the bottom so it should be impossible for rain to get into the device or sensors.

Software

Everything built here is a piece of junk without the software.

Tasmota had been flashed on to the ESP. Tasmota will be sending data from sensors to Domoticz. I will not enter into many explanations here, you can find needed information at those two links. I also uploaded flasher and two needed .bin`s here. Firmware is 7.2.0, and it will be obsolete very soon. I put it for those of you that like shortcuts 🙂 . It will do the job, and later you can upgrade.

Flashing ESP with Tasmota firmware

There are literally tons of information regarding the process out there, but I will put it in very short terms again here. 1. Connect ESP to your computer, figure out what com port is it using and configure Tasmota flasher accordingly. 2. Press taster for entering flashing mode and then press the reset taster on the ESP dev. board. 3. Release the reset taster, and then release the first taster on ESP. 4. Select the tasmota-sensors.bin in flasher and then send it to the device. (tasmota-minimal.bin is needed only if you are doing OTA (over the air) upgrade).

Configure module pins with sensors.

We now need to tell Tasmota, what sensor is connected to which pin on the ESP board. I attached the screenshot of the config and when compared with Wiring diagram it is self-explanatory.

Results from Tasmota and Domoticz

When flashed and configured, here is how Tasmota web interface looks like. You just find its IP address on your dhcp server (it will be showed as sonoff-acb or tasmota-xyz or something like that) and enter that IP address in your browser. It is nice to make a reservation (or static assignment) on dhcp so address stays the same. On that interface you can basically read values from the sensors and configure, backup or upgrade Tasmota.

This is how the results from Domoticz look like.

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But it is not just about reading values that came just now, logging gives the real power…

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So, from the PM 2.5 monthly shows some real air quality statistics although my sensors unit is still not operational for a full month. One more thing to remember, this shows pollution in PM2.5 μg/m3 (raw) and the usual standard is US EPA PM2.5 AQI. That means if you are going to compare it to “Purple Air” you need to convert, or at change units displayed on Purple air (it is on the map). Anyway these raw readings converted to AQI are much higher, so you know what to expect.

Conclusion

I wrote this with a simple intention. That is to show how easy to build and inexpensive this kind of sensors unit can be. I hope it serves as a warning and a manual.

If you find this article interesting maybe you should check on this one regarding fixing a “weather unknown” message. Once again, thank you for reading, and if you have any questions or need help, just post a comment. I’ll get in touch with you asap.

Here is a little update on Jully 2020. , a friend send me a few pics of his “do it fast” sensors station. He even added external Wi-Fi antenna for a better connection range.

Posted in *.*, DIY, Home Automation, Micro controllers Tagged with: Air quality, Domoticz, ESP8266, SDS011, Sensors station, Tasmota

Add SDS011 sensor with Tasmota to Domoticz

Wondering how to add an SDS011 air quality sensor with Tasmota to Domoticz? Here is a step by step guide how to do it.

First, we need to start with the Tasmota configuration. In addition, let`s just assume that we have a hardware sensor like this built. Above all, now we need to configure it.

Flashing ESP8266 with Tasmota Firmware

It is easy so I`l make it as short as possible…

Here are a flasher and 7.2 version bin if you want to start right now. 1. Connect ESP to your computer, figure out what com port is it using and configure Tasmota flasher accordingly. 2. Press taster for entering flashing mode and then press the reset taster on the ESP dev. board. 3. Release the reset taster, and then release the first taster on ESP. 4. Select the tasmota-sensors.bin in flasher and then send it to the device.

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Wi-Fi configuration

Further, after flashing just do a regular reset and you are ready for initial configuration. Therefore you need to connect to Tasmota via WiFi as it now acts as a hotspot. For instance, you could use your smartphone to scan for available WiFi networks and you should see one with “tasmota” in a name. Connect to it and it will show you “sign in” message. Click on sign in and it will open Tasmota configuration site. Here are screenshots in a gallery.

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When flashed and configured, here is how Tasmota web interface looks like. Just find its IP address on your DHCP server (it will be shown as tasmota-ACB or something like that) and enter that IP address in your browser. It is nice to make a reservation (or static assignment) on DHCP so the address stays the same. On that interface, you can basically read values from the sensors and configure, backup or upgrade Tasmota.

Configure Tasmota Module for the sensors

This should be easy. SDS011 is connected to the Rx and Tx ports of the ESP board. Above all, remember that Rx and Tx need to be crossed (Rx goes to Tx, and Tx goes to Rx). Imagine it like talking. When You talk (Tx)then I Listen (Rx), and vice versa. We are talking about wire connections right now. Now we move to a logical connection. For TX (GPIO1 serial Out) chose from the drop-down menu SDSx1 Tx(101), for the (RX GPIO3 Serial In) chose SDS0x1 Rx (70). In this example, I connected more sensors. It means more pins need configuration. For more info about wiring go to this article.

Configure Tasmota to send data to Domoticz

First of all, Tasmota is not gonna talk directly to Domotics. Therefore you need to have an MQTT broker up and running. Moreover, in most cases, it is a Mosquito and it is installed on the same machine as Domoticz. Under this assumption, we will continue configuring Tasmota. On the MQTT menu, you only need to edit the first field named Host(). There you enter the IP address of your MQTT broker. If it is installed on the same machine as Domoticz than IP address is the same. If you left everything on default values during Mosquito and Domoticz setup, no need to do anything else here.

Configure Tasmota and Domoticz in pairs

This part can be a little tricky if you do not know how MQTT, and Domoticz work, but I will try to make it clear and in pairs, so it is easier to understand it. First, we will deal with SDS011. Since it has readings of PM 2.5 and PM 10 we will need to create two virtual sensors. Moreover, since the process is the same only one will be shown here. You go to Domoticz website- Setup menu in the top right corner then hardware, and after that chose “Create virtual sensor”.

Then you name it PM 2.5 since it will be for that sensor data, chose “Custom sensor” from the drop-down menu, and add “μg/m3” as axis label as these are the units that sensor actually measures.

This virtual sensor is gonna display data from the SDS011 physical sensor. Meanwhile, next thing to do in Domoticz is to go to Setup/Devices and check the “idx” of the newly created sensor. You can find it at the end of the list or by searching for its name.

It`s time to follow this setting in the Tasmota Domoticz menu. Idea is to configure tasmota`s predefined value (in this case Sensor idx 7 Voltage/PM2.5 with idx of the newly created virtual sensor named “PM 2.5” in Domoticz. So we enter the value of 192 to that place.

Configure Tasmota for Domoticz

Further, I will explain the creating and mapping of a Temp+Hum+Baro virtual switch. Proces is the same, create virtual switch but this time chose like this:

Again check the idx of the virtual sensor on Setup/Devices menu

After that, we go back to the Tasmota page and into Domoticz menu and this time set the value of the ” Sensor idx 3 Temp,Hum,Baro” to 148. This has to be repeated for every sensor added, on both sides!

How it looks in Domoticz

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If you find this article interesting maybe you should check on this one also. Once more, thank you for reading, and if you have any questions or need help, just post a comment. I’ll get in touch with you asap.

Posted in *.*, DIY, Home Automation, Micro controllers, Tech Tavern Tagged with: Domoticz air quality, Domoticz weatherstation, ESP8266, SDS011, Tasmota weatherstation

Domoticz weather prediction: Unknown

This is a Temp+Hum+Baro virtual sensor in Domoticz, or to clarify it is its graphical representation. It sure looks nice but there is one very annoying thing going on here and that would be “Prediction: Unknown”. Later we will deal with this problem after we explain our setup and what is going on in the background.

Environment

In this case, I have Domoticz running on my Windows 10 PC with (yes it is not on Raspberry Pi, can you imagine 🙂 ) I have PC running all the time anyway so that is the main reason for Domoticz on PC and regarding that subject, we will stop right now. On the other side is ESP8266 with the Tasmota firmware and Bosch BME280 sensor. For easier understanding we will call ESP and BME together “physical sensor”, and another side that represents and logs data on Domoticz will be called “virtual sensor”.

This “Prediction: Unknown” message is not a big deal, but since the rest of the sensor looks so nice it is a shame not to get it in a perfect state. Therefore, I started with the assumption (and we all know that assumption is the mother of all fuckups) that physical sensor is just feeding the virtual sensor and Domoticz with data and that “Weather prediction” is done on Domoticz by applying some kind of algorithm to gathered pressure data. WRONG!

How it really works

I looked into the DeviceStatus table of the Domoticz DB and under sValue for my device, I found data like this: 3.2;66.3;1;1019.5;5. There are five values in sValue: 3.2 was the temperature at the moment, 66.3 was the humidity, 1 was for “Feels like” , 1019.5 was for pressure, and 5 was value for “Weather forecast”. I Googled a little bit and here is what I found regarding Forecast mapping in Domotiz.

Forecast:
0 – Stable
1 – Clear/Sunny
2 – Cloudy/Rain
3 – Not stable
4 – Thunderstorm
5 – Unknown

“Unknown” explained my problem, but beware, this is not correct mapping. On the other hand, this is the correct one:

0 – No Info
1 – Sunny
2 – Partly Cloudy
3 – Cloudy
4 – Rain
5 – Unknown

Therefore, take care as there is lot of semi truth out there….

As a result, it was logical to see what kind of data is Tasmota sending to Domoticsz so I looked into a Domoticz log, and this was coming: MQTT: Topic: domoticz/in, Message: {“idx”:148,”nvalue”:0,”svalue”:”3.2;66.3;1;1019.5;5″,”Battery”:100,”RSSI”:5} So it matched values in DB, that was concluded, weather forecast data should come from the source. And Tasmota was sending 5, and 5 means unknown. But what to do now?

Solution

This matter made me stuck for a few days in a discussion with my colleagues. We were trying to figure out possible solutions. A friend sent me the link to a Domoticz forum where guys published Script To Parse WeatherUnderground Multi-Value Sensor, and that was our base. The script can be found at this address https://www.domoticz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3830&start=40 along with some other interesting thoughts.

After that we created device lua script with this code:

  -- + lua / device script
local sensorx = 'ESP Outside' --name of the sensor that  has a problem with weather prediction (Temp+Hum+Baro virtual sensor), you put your sensor name
commandArray = {}

if (devicechanged[sensorx]) then
    
        WeatherTemp, WeatherHumidity, HumFeelsLike, WeatherPressure, WeatherPressureForecast = otherdevices_svalues[sensorx]:match("([^;]+);([^;]+);([^;]+);([^;]+);([^;]+)")
       WeatherTemp = tonumber(WeatherTemp)
      WeatherHumidity = tonumber(WeatherHumidity)
       HumFeelsLike = tonumber(HumFeelsLike)
        WeatherPressure = tonumber(WeatherPressure) -- hPa
       WeatherPressureForecast = tonumber(WeatherPressureForecast)
         
         if (WeatherPressure == 0) then
             WeatherPressureForecast = 0
                        elseif (WeatherPressure > 1030) then
          WeatherPressureForecast = 1
        elseif ((WeatherPressure > 1010) and (WeatherPressure <= 1030)) then
        WeatherPressureForecast = 2
      elseif ((WeatherPressure > 990) and (WeatherPressure <= 1010)) then
       WeatherPressureForecast = 3
     elseif ((WeatherPressure > 970) and (WeatherPressure <= 990)) then
     WeatherPressureForecast = 4
 end
 
    --[[
    Forecast:

0 - No Info
1 - Sunny
2 - Partly Cloudy
3 - Cloudy
4 - Rain
5 - Unknown
    --]]
 commandArray['UpdateDevice'] = '148|0|' .. WeatherTemp ..';'.. WeatherHumidity ..';'.. HumFeelsLike ..';' .. WeatherPressure.. ';'.. WeatherPressureForecast
 -- 148 is the idx of a virtual sensor that is going to be fixed, in this case it is the idx of the "ESP Outside" virtual sensor. You put your idx number

 end
return commandArray

Comments are already in the code, therefore you should not have any problems adjusting it for your sensors and environment. Above all, do not create Lua / All (commented) script, but Lua/Device script. It may work anyway but as a result, you will have an error in Domoticz log file. I hope this will save you some time 🙂 . The script was up and running after this. I peeked in DB to see, what is going on, and there was “3” smiling out on me from the end of the sValue data. 🙂

What the script does

We dealt with this problem this way. It can be dealt with in many other ways. The script basically reads all the values from the virtual sensor. Then it puts them in variables. After that, it does some math (comparing may be a more modest word) with pressure and as a result updates, four values of the virtual sensor with the same values and the fifth data field is updated with the number that is calculated based on the pressure. I borrowed that calculation from this article:https://diyprojects.io/esp8266-web-client-sending-data-domoticz-tcp-ip-wireless-api-json/#.Xix9UshKiUl Article is great, therefore if you like this stuff I recommend it for reading. The script runs every time the virtual sensor gets an update from the Tasmota, and in my case, it is every 5 minutes, in other words, it is not putting any heavy load on the hardware.

I`m not gonna enter into weather prediction algorithm, that is not a subject of this article. This is not a commercial weather station or piece of scientific equipment, it is a homemade system and should be treated like that. On the other hand it should work at least like it supposed to. That was the point.

Result

So if you liked this article may be the one about micro-controllers would be also an interesting one, so if you have some time take a look here. And in the end, thank dr_Kosh for the great contribution regarding this problem.

Once again, thank you for reading,

Posted in *.*, Home Automation Tagged with: BME280, Domoticz, ESP8266, Home Automation, Tasmota