No reference voltage or frequency detected

Support
1

My system’s been working reliably for several months until this afternoon, where at about 2pm it just stopped recording anything. The interface wasn’t responding and I couldn’t ping the device, so being a highly-trained IT professional, I turned it off and on again. This brought the interface back up, but it’s not recording anything at all. So I cleared both the logs - same result.

The reference transformer appears to be working correctly (measuring at 9.85V / 49.95Hz) and I’ve ensured the plugs, etc. are all seated correctly. However, IotaWatt reports 0V and is reporting an input frequency that fluctuates between about 1250 and 1550Hz.

iotawatt
iotawatt608×680 13.7 KB

The reference input still appears to be configured with the same calibration factor as before:
iotawatt2

IotaWatt’s running firmware 02_07_05. The message log would tend to indicate that the system is crashing regularly too…
iotamsgs.txt (1.5 MB)

Any ideas?
Thank you.

2

Your system has been going through some rough periods of periodic restarts on and off over the past year. Your WiFi RSSI is probably the worst I’ve seen in an other wise working system. You should look into improving that.

Are you using home assistant? the reason I ask is that many of the restarts over the past year were caused by exceptions during a query and it’s similar to another open issue with HASS.

While you may have had datalog damage over the last year with so many restarts, I don’t see any direct evidence of it and wonder what compelled you to delete them. In any event it does not seem to have resolved your issues that I think are more likely related to WiFi.

Looking at your status display above, it doesn’t seem to be communicating with the IoTaWatt, so all bets are off with the display. I think you need to improve your WiFi before making any other radical changes.

Can I ask why you decided to delete the datalogs? I can’t see any indication of a problem there. It has been working pretty well through January and February despite the very poor WiFi. You had a couple of restarts due to heap loss which is commonly associated with poor WiFi.

Something began happening with the WiFi around 10 pm yesterday (Feb 27). It could be that something has moved in the way, that there is a new 2.4GHz device in the house or neighborhood that is interfering, higher load on the WiFi… anything, but the poor WiFi does appear to be why you could not communicate, or even ping, the IoTaWatt. It was probably disconnected. Have you looked at the LED? It turns red when it’s disconnected.

As of 17:34 today it has not reconnected to WiFi since the power cycle at 16:05.

3

Hi Overeasy

I’m not sure why the wifi signal is so bad. I have Nest mesh wifi in the house, and the IotaWatt is no more than 8m from the nearest access point, although there is a brick wall in the way. If I put my mobile phone right next to the IotaWatt, Nest wifi reports a “great” connection when using the same 2.4GHz band. As the IotaWatt is mounted in a weatherproof plastic box outside the house, I can’t really move wifi any closer without installing more access points. But I will if I need to.

I deleted the datalogs because I read somewhere on this forum that it might resolve the issues with the unit not reporting correctly. Clearly I was a) wrong and b) misunderstood the original post.

I’m not using Home Assistant. I have a Hubitat box, but it doesn’t talk to IotaWatt at all. I have integration with InfluxDB and Grafana through some custom scripts to pull data every couple of minutes, and it’s been running (outwardly) fine for several months like that. IotaWatt is talking wifi though; I can get to the management interface without any issues, and could at the time I posted - I was generating the screenshots and pulling the iotamsgs file through the interface. Viewing the IotaWatt statistics frame in the Status page, the samples per AC cycle and mains frequency read-out get updated approx once a second. If I go to calibrate the reference feed, the current value updates continuously - just indicating somewhere between -2 and 2V.

Nothing’s changed on my wifi network recently. I’m not aware of any changes elsewhere or noticed any problems with any otgher devices on the network. Poor wifi would explain the comms issues I was having initially, but would it explain why it’s not reading any data at all?

4

OK, good information. Gives me more context. It’s possible that there is a bad connection with the AC adapter plug. It is a surface mount component and the one of the connections can be pulled loose. I don’t know if you have anything connected to input 13 or 14, but I’d like to try reading the VT through one of the three-phase voltage connections.

Please choose either 13 or 14, then remove whatever CT is plugged in there. Plug the VT into the corresponding AC input, then configure that input as a VT and select your AC adapter model.

Go to the Status display and see if you get a voltage reported for that input.

5

At this point the most likely cause would be a loose socket on L1

1 Like
6

I’ve temporarily moved one of my Nest wifi nodes to literally the other side of the brick wall (single layer of brick, no metalised insulation wrap or anything that should cause significant RF attenuation, and restarted the IotaWatt to force it to re-establish the connection. I had to disconnect wifi to have it properly register, but now it’s connected again with an RSSI of -76.
Still no data being recorded though.

7

Yep - that worked. Reading just fine on input 13:
image

8

OK, if you go into the setup for each of the inputs, you should see a new item “VRef” with a dropdown that will have your two VTs “Reference” and Input_13. Select Input_13 for each and they should read properly.

9

Awesome. Thank you very much for your assistance.
image

10

Your unit is more than a year old, so I won’t replace it. Judging by your timezone I think you are down under. If you want to try to fix it, the most likely cause is that the input_0 AC socket has broken of the solder pad. Touching the four pads with a soldering iron would probably resolve the problem good as new.

You should keep an eye on the WiFi situation and whether restarts continue to occur. If so, getting that WiFi under -70 would be the ticket.

1 Like
11

Hi @overeasy, I think i may have a similar issue to Sanx. I had been using my iotawatt until ~5pm local on 3/5. I had added 2 additional CT sensors to my unit, booted up and was intitally having trouble reconnecting to my local emoncms setup. when i was researching i think i ran into the same issue as Sanx with having my nest wifi node too far.

I reboooted a few times and got my wifi connectivity better, but after a few reboots i “lost” all of my feeds.

image
image766×870 41.9 KB

12

Are you sure the VT is powered up, connected and working? It could be the same issue, but also could be a host of other things.

13

Here is my log:
3/09/22 02:40:33 dataLog: datalog WDT - restarting

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 08:40:34z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646815234
3/09/22 08:40:34z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 08:40:34z Trace: 9:0[14], 9:0, 9:1, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[14], 1:2, 9:0, 9:0, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 1:2
3/09/22 08:40:34z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 08:40:34z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 08:40:34z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 02:40:34 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 02:40:34 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 02:40:34 HTTP server started
3/09/22 02:40:34 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved
3/09/22 02:40:34 timeSync: service started.
3/09/22 02:40:34 statService: started.
3/09/22 03:52:08 dataLog: service started.
3/09/22 03:52:09 dataLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 01:33:15
3/09/22 03:52:09 WiFi connected. SSID=LeppidLily, IP=xx.xx.xx.xx, channel=6, RSSI -34db
3/09/22 03:52:09 MDNS responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 03:52:09 LLMNR responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 03:52:09 Updater: service started. Auto-update class is MINOR
3/09/22 03:52:09 historyLog: service started.
3/09/22 03:52:09 historyLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 01:33:00
3/09/22 03:52:09 emoncms: Start posting at 02/06/22 17:11:10
3/09/22 03:52:10 Updater: Auto-update is current for class MINOR.
3/09/22 03:52:10 emoncms: stopped, Last post 02/06/22 17:11:00
3/09/22 03:57:10 dataLog: datalog WDT - restarting

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 09:57:10z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646819830
3/09/22 09:57:10z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 09:57:10z Trace: 1:3, 1:1, 1:2[1], 9:0[1], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[1], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[1], 1:2[2], 9:0[2], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[2], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[2], 1:2[3], 9:0[3], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[3], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2
3/09/22 09:57:10z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 09:57:10z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 09:57:10z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 03:57:10 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 03:57:10 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 03:57:10 HTTP server started
3/09/22 03:57:10 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved
3/09/22 05:08:44 timeSync: service started.
3/09/22 05:08:44 statService: started.
3/09/22 05:08:44 Updater: service started. Auto-update class is MINOR
3/09/22 05:08:44 dataLog: service started.
3/09/22 05:08:45 dataLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 03:52:10
3/09/22 05:08:45 historyLog: service started.
3/09/22 05:08:45 historyLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 01:33:00
3/09/22 05:08:45 WiFi connected. SSID=LeppidLily, IP=xx.xx.xx.xx, channel=6, RSSI -34db
3/09/22 05:08:45 MDNS responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 05:08:45 LLMNR responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 05:08:46 emoncms: Start posting at 02/06/22 17:11:10
3/09/22 05:08:46 emoncms: stopped, Last post 02/06/22 17:11:00
3/09/22 06:25:21 dataLog: datalog WDT - restarting

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 12:25:22z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646828722
3/09/22 12:25:22z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 12:25:22z Trace: 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[14], 1:2, 9:0, 9:0, 8:2, 8:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1, 1:2[1], 9:0[1], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[1], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[1], 1:2[2], 9:0[2], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[2], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2
3/09/22 12:25:22z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 12:25:22z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 12:25:22z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 06:25:22 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 06:25:22 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 06:25:22 HTTP server started
3/09/22 06:25:22 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved
3/09/22 07:36:56 WiFi connected. SSID=LeppidLily, IP=xx.xx.xx.xx, channel=6, RSSI -33db
3/09/22 07:36:56 MDNS responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 07:36:56 LLMNR responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 08:48:31 timeSync: service started.
3/09/22 08:48:31 statService: started.
3/09/22 08:48:31 Updater: service started. Auto-update class is MINOR
3/09/22 08:48:31 dataLog: service started.
3/09/22 08:48:32 dataLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 05:15:40
3/09/22 08:48:32 historyLog: service started.
3/09/22 08:48:32 historyLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 05:15:00
3/09/22 08:48:32 emoncms: Start posting at 02/06/22 17:11:10
3/09/22 08:48:32 emoncms: stopped, Last post 02/06/22 17:11:00
3/09/22 08:48:34 Updater: Auto-update is current for class MINOR.
3/09/22 08:53:35 dataLog: datalog WDT - restarting

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 14:53:36z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646837616
3/09/22 14:53:36z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 14:53:36z Trace: 8:8, 8:9, 9:3, 9:5, 9:9, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[1], 1:2[2], 9:0[2], 9:0, 9:1, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 9:3, 9:5, 9:9, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[2], 1:2[3], 9:0[3], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[3], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2
3/09/22 14:53:36z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 14:53:36z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 14:53:36z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 08:53:36 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 08:53:36 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 08:53:36 HTTP server started
3/09/22 08:53:36 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved
3/09/22 08:53:36 timeSync: service started.
3/09/22 08:53:36 statService: started.
3/09/22 10:05:10 Updater: service started. Auto-update class is MINOR
3/09/22 10:05:10 dataLog: service started.
3/09/22 10:05:11 dataLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 08:48:35
3/09/22 10:05:11 historyLog: service started.
3/09/22 10:05:11 historyLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 05:15:00
3/09/22 10:05:11 WiFi connected. SSID=LeppidLily, IP=xx.xx.xx.xx, channel=6, RSSI -25db
3/09/22 10:05:11 MDNS responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 10:05:11 LLMNR responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 10:05:13 emoncms: Start posting at 02/06/22 17:11:10
3/09/22 10:05:13 emoncms: stopped, Last post 02/06/22 17:11:00
3/09/22 11:21:45 dataLog: datalog WDT - restarting

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 17:21:46z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646846506
3/09/22 17:21:46z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 17:21:46z Trace: 1:3, 1:1, 1:2[1], 9:0[1], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[1], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[1], 1:2[2], 9:0[2], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[2], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[2], 1:2[3], 9:0[3], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[3], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2
3/09/22 17:21:46z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 17:21:46z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 17:21:46z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 11:21:46 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 11:21:46 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 11:21:46 HTTP server started
3/09/22 11:21:46 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved
3/09/22 11:21:48 timeSync: service started.
3/09/22 12:33:20 statService: started.
3/09/22 12:33:20 Updater: service started. Auto-update class is MINOR
3/09/22 12:33:20 dataLog: service started.
3/09/22 12:33:21 dataLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 10:06:00
3/09/22 12:33:21 historyLog: service started.
3/09/22 12:33:21 historyLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 10:06:00
3/09/22 12:33:21 WiFi connected. SSID=LeppidLily, IP=xx.xx.xx.xx, channel=6, RSSI -33db
3/09/22 12:33:21 MDNS responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 12:33:21 LLMNR responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 12:33:22 emoncms: Start posting at 02/06/22 17:11:10
3/09/22 12:33:22 emoncms: stopped, Last post 02/06/22 17:11:00
3/09/22 13:49:58 dataLog: datalog WDT - restarting

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 19:49:59z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646855399
3/09/22 19:49:59z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 19:49:59z Trace: 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[3], 1:2[4], 9:0[4], 9:0, 9:1, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 9:3, 9:5, 9:9, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[4], 1:2[5], 9:0[5], 9:0, 9:1, 8:4, 8:6, 8:8, 8:9, 9:3, 9:5, 9:9, 1:2
3/09/22 19:49:59z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 19:49:59z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 19:49:59z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 13:49:59 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 13:49:59 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 13:49:59 HTTP server started
3/09/22 15:01:33 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved
3/09/22 15:01:33 WiFi connected. SSID=LeppidLily, IP=xx.xx.xx.xx, channel=6, RSSI -31db
3/09/22 15:01:33 MDNS responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 15:01:33 LLMNR responder started for hostname IotaWatt
3/09/22 15:01:33 timeSync: service started.
3/09/22 15:01:33 statService: started.
3/09/22 15:01:34 Updater: service started. Auto-update class is MINOR
3/09/22 16:13:08 dataLog: service started.
3/09/22 16:13:09 dataLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 12:45:00
3/09/22 16:13:09 historyLog: service started.
3/09/22 16:13:09 historyLog: Last log entry 03/09/22 12:45:00
3/09/22 17:04:35 Restart command received.

** Restart **

SD initialized.
3/09/22 23:04:37z Real Time Clock is running. Unix time 1646867077
3/09/22 23:04:37z Reset reason: Software/System restart
3/09/22 23:04:37z Trace: 9:0[7], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[7], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[7], 1:2[8], 9:0[8], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[8], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:3, 1:1[8], 1:2[9], 9:0[9], 9:0, 9:1, 8:2[9], 8:2, 9:2, 1:2, 1:3, 10:2, 10:3
3/09/22 23:04:37z ESP8266 ID: 12668673, RTC PCF8523 (68)
3/09/22 23:04:37z IoTaWatt 5.0, Firmware version 02_07_05
3/09/22 23:04:37z SPIFFS mounted.
3/09/22 17:04:37 Local time zone: -6:00, using DST/BST when in effect.
3/09/22 17:04:37 device name: IotaWatt
3/09/22 17:04:37 HTTP server started
3/09/22 17:04:37 emoncms: Starting, interval:10, urlremoved

14

Are you xing out the IP address or is that what your log actually reads?

15

I x’d them out and redacted my Emoncms url because it wasn’t wanting me to post the log with url

16

So are you able to check that the AC adapter output is putting out 9-12 V? If you don’t have an ability to do that, you can try what Sanx did with channel 13 or 14 to test the output.

17

Thanks @overeasy. i pulled it to test and plugged into a different outlet and it started working. The transformer must have worked its way loose and I didn’t see it.

I’m still having the issue with emoncms uploader, but I’m guessing its an API key issue.

image
image763×924 56.6 KB

18

@overeasy, thanks again for the quick reply tonight.

I did some other forum searching and the post fail issue seems to come from the emoncms. I could see the iotawatt posting new data to the emoncms, so i wonder if its something in the process of the iotawatt resyncing the “missed” data in the background. I ended up just deleting my inputs out of emoncms and restarting the uploader and it took off without any issues.

19

2 posts were split to a new topic: Zero Reference Volts