Seeking information on this Emoncms dashboard style

Glad to her that you now have data coming in from the IoTaWatt device. That is the hard steps (not really), and now to the fun of building and collecting data!

From the INPUTS coming in from the IoTaWatt, you will begin to build FEEDS. Think of INPUTS as raw data and FEEDS as more refined or organized data. Here you can begin to combine or subtract other INPUTS to get what you want.

Mostly, I have a FEED for the Raw (watts), One that provides (Watt Hours), and in some bases I wants a FEED for MIN/MAX values (such as with my temperature data). For IoTaWatt energy info, often a MAX feed a good tings to have as well; if you like to have that type of historic data. I also have FEEDS for my Solar Production, Mains consumption, and Battery export and import.

IN the above example, I log my second main raw value. Capture the MAX value if the current one is higher than the previous. I also convert the Watts to KwH i the third step. After that I start to combine the second main and remove my others CTs to get a “Other” raw value which lets me see the energy being used but not currently using CTs on my smaller circuits.

When you have your FEEDS you like, you can then start to build the dashboard based of the FEEDS you created in the previous steps. Be aware, this is an ever changing and fluid process. You will think that a given feed is all you need, but with the power of the tool, you can create some really interesting data points. Just let it be fluid and enjoy the process. :slight_smile:

Thanks! I have made feeds for the first 6 inputs so far, but somehow missed the option to name them. I went back and tried to rename one of them, but I was unsuccessful. I know I could delete them all and start over, but if you could tell me how to rename one, I’d like to know that.

Along the way I actually got to see the feed 1 reference voltage appear for a single entry on a graph, but not anymore, and I don’t know for sure how that happened. But I get the feeling I should do all of the feeds first, before trying to see graphs. I should mention that the IotaWatt was installed into my service panel 6 days ago, and I left emonpi running overnight, so there should be nearly a week of raw data accumulating by now. I hope to spend more time working on it later today.

It has been awhile last I did a setup, but if I remember correctly, the names of the INPUTS comes over from the IoTaWatt. In previous versions, you could click on the name and type over what was there. I’m running 10.1.8 right now and I do not see this as an option. There is a wrench for creating FEEDS from the INPUTS, and I seem to remember pencil icon where you could update info on the feeds.

Found it when you now click on the check box next to an Input or Feed and then select the pencil up top. That will allow you to modify things.

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Well, I’m getting there! I have a rudimentary dashboard with 6 dials that are working to show real time watt usage on some of my sensors.

I’d like to change my emoncms account password to something I can remember so I don’t have to keep looking it up in my password manager when I want to access the dashboard from my smartphone. I don’t see a way to change it. How can I do that?

You can find that on the far right with the circle where a profile picture goes. Click on My Account and on the left side you will see a “Change Password” link.

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Thanks! I should have looked there before asking. :slight_smile:

So, I currently have things running smoothly on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B that is a part of my PiTop notebook. I think eventually I’d like to move emonpi over to a dedicated headless Raspberry Pi board so I don’t have to leave the PiTop running all the time, and tie it up with this project. If I take its micro SD card with the emonpi installation and OS on it, and move it to another Pi board, will it still run emonpi as I have it now, or would I have to set things up again? One option would be to put a new Raspberry Pi into the PiTop, and keep using this same board and SD card for emonpi in a different enclosure. I could get a Model 4 for the PiTop that way.

If you simply take the SD Card out of the PiTop and put it in a same model Pi 3B+ you should be good to go. The kits with case and such are rather cheap. Not sure of the PiTop supports the Pi 4 or not. That is outside of my knowledge. Sorry.

Are you going to show us a screen of your initial dials? It is fun to see it early and how it grows over time. :slight_smile:

I can post a screen shot, but not until I get back on my PC I guess. I am on my Android tablet and it won’t paste the screen shot here that I made in its browser.

I’ll have to check on the PiTop compatibility with a Pi 4 myself. Not sure if that will work yet. As long as they didn’t change the headers it should, though, I would think. The emonpi image isn’t 100% compatible with the PiTop keyboard. The tilde key makes some kind of funky right angle character. But it seems to run well enough to do the server duty.

It does appear the Raspberry Pi model 4 has changed enough that it won’t work in the PiTop notebook “without a lot of hacking” as per what I read. PiTop has even moved away from a notebook style product to use with the model 4. They have a small containment case they are marketing for it instead. The allure of the PiTop notebook for me was all about the intrinsic display and keyboard, so they are moving away from my interest.

My main interest in this project is to get real-time indicators of what is powered on and running, and to be able to see the dashboard on my smartphone. So that will limit the overall size and complexity of any dashboard design changes as I go along. Here’s what I have at the moment.

Looking very nice and you will find yourself making changes over time. Make it the way you want and understand. You are at the most fun stage in the process.

Thanks!
I’d like to make a dial configured to show the total power from both mains minus each of the monitored inputs, yielding the “un-monitored” power. I seem to recall you had something like that on your own dashboard. But I can’t seem to find how to do it. Making dials for each input was fairly easy, selecting the as yet unused input and editing it’s properties to create a feed. I see the option for a virtual feed, but I can’t figure out how to set it up. When I tried, it erred, attempting to reconfigure the first input I had chosen (the main power feed) and failing. What’s the right way to do this?

I take for example my Main1 input and add input main2. This give me total consumption by combining both mains to one value. I log that to a feed as total consumption and do the power to kWh to keep track of that as well. Once you have that number, I subtract all my other feeds from that total consumption number to get my “Other” value. Right after logging consumption, I subtract the values of each of the devices/circuit I’m monitoring via CTs which leaves me with a value which is consumption minus monitored circuits which equals “Other” which I log to a feed and also convert to power/Daily kWh.

So, other is something like this.

Main1 + Main2 = Total Consumption
Total Consumption - solar - barn - fridge - garage - etc. = Other Device Consumption

Hope that helps point you in the right direction.

Thanks! But do you do that as a virtual feed, or in which section of EmonCMS? I follow the formulation of how you did it, but I can’t figure out where I can do that formulation. I figured out how to get the Total Power as a Feed, by using the 2 main inputs. Do I then select all the other input check boxes and make them each subtracted, and log that to another feed? - Edit – OK, I did that, and I think I’m getting it sorted out. It seems I now must add that value, which is showing up as -kW, to the total power used, logged to a 3rd feed, to get a dial with total un-monitored power in real time.

If you dive into the INPUTS and click on the WRENCH Icon, you will be able to add options such as the below. You some of the options will modify the data (add, subtract, multiply, etc.) and other just log and pass the number down the chain.

Below you can see this is my Mains2 input. Here you can see that once I log it, I add INPUT MAINS1, Double add my barn (240v), etc. There are some many things you can play with in the queue within a given INPUT.

Sample of actions you can do to your INPUTS.

Thank you VERY much for all the help so far! I finally realized something that had not been clear before. In a list of steps being processed for an input, like the list you posted above, you must ADD the value of the input under which you are making all the entries, or it won’t get figured into the equation. I had thought just because I was using an input listing for one of my Main feeds, any subtraction steps I put in would be subtracted from the Main input value automatically. Now I see it doesn’t work that way. You may have noticed I mentioned above that I had a negative number for subtracting all the sensor input values. That is because I had not given it anything from which to subtract those values. By Adding in my 2 Main inputs (and it can be done last in line…it doesn’t have to be first in the list) I now have achieved my goal > a dial showing total power in use that is not monitored on any of the current transformers.

The other thing becoming apparent is that if I put a “log to feed” in the process list of operations, I was thinking that any operations AFTER the log to feed would be starting at a value of zero again? Testing showed it doesn’t do that. The total value gets carried past the inserted log to feed and can be manipulated more, if desired, or I see there is a choice where it can be reset to zero and then continue on past that point.

So all the things that can be done within an Input’s process list calculations are kind of like how a flow chart works in programming – forking off to display a value at various points along the way, or be put through additional operations to achieve other results. This is really neat! :grin:

I don’t know if any of you use a browser called Puffin Browser. I use it on my Android devices because it automatically supports Flash content without all the complaints Chrome Browser puts me through to do that, and also because it loads much faster than Chrome.

I can’t get my dashboard’s local IP address to load in Puffin. If any of you have a suggestion why, I’d love to hear it. I can just use Chrome, but I’d really like to use Puffin if I could.

You are starting to grasp the power of the input and feeds now in EmonCMS. Yes. This is very much like a flow chart. As you go down the processes of the chart, things can happen or be modified. When you select an item to add to your flow, make sure you read the description as it will tell you if the value is modified as it passes through or not, this can be very important. There are also conditionals and many other things you can do to modify the flow of data.

So for me, I do the following type of flow.

Here is a sample of my Main2 and you can see the flow and where I log different values.
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Here you can see that I log the raw Mains2 only details and also save to a different feed if the value is MAX for the day along with convert to kWhs. I subtract all my CTs being monitored, add in my solar and battery which give me my “Other” which I also log that RAW number, update MAX if higher, and also convert to kWh Daily.

Mail2 Raw is one feed (not Input)
Main2 Max Daily is another feed
Main2 kWh Daily is another feed
Other Raw is a feed
Other Max Daily is a feed
Other kWH daily is a feed.

That is only my MAINS2 Input, I also have the same type of data for MAINS1, without the OTHER as that is captured when MAINS2 input is processed. So, for each of my inputs, I at a minimum do a log to feed the Raw, Record MAX is true, and convert power to kWhs which is easier for trending, etc. With my weather Inputs, I also may have MIN/MAX values recorded so I can make sure I know wind speed, temp, humid, etc. min and max values. You can do simular things with power, but it really comes down to what and why you want to monitor something.

Using the flow chart analogy, you will be able to confirm or validate as you walk though what is being done as the value passes down the stack of options; from top to bottom.

I’ve got a problem. When I use the Log to Feed process on either my Main_1 or Main_2 inputs, it is doubling the value.

In the above, I started out by Logging to a feed the Main_1, and then added the same Main_1 input below it just to show you what it is doing. I won’t be doing this when this input is properly configured.

Note the Main_1 input is at 1128 watts, which I verified by looking at the IotaWatt Status screen concurrently. I don’t know why this is happening, and it is throwing off all my derived calculations for things like a dial for each main and total power. Any idea how to fix this? The only inputs I have set to be multiplied x 2 within the IotaWatt setup are my electric range and heat pump, as I used a single CT on one side of each of those 220V circuits. So the main CT outputs shouldn’t be doubled, but for some reason that’s what EmonCMS is doing when I log them to feeds.

Do you have two IoTaWatts?

From your screenshot, the one being logged at the start of the feed lists “IoTaWatt:Main_1” and the added feed is from “Node:IoTaWatt2 Main_1” Make sure you have selected the correct Input from the list when given the option.

I have not seen this type of behavior in my environment.

No, just one IotaWatt. It appears that in the Input dropdown list while configuring a process, the inputs are enumerated as to their respective connection order, as such:

So when listed, they are including the input number, making it read as IotaWatt 2:Main_1. Rather confusing, in my opinion.

The odd thing is that today, with no intervention of any kind on my part, the Main inputs have stopped doubling their values and are once again displaying correctly, matching values between the IotaWatt status screen and emonCMS. I’ve no idea why. I was going to try rebooting the PiTop where I am running emonpi, but I didn’t have to do that.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, and hope you all have a Merry Christmas!