#GRAFANA TRACKMAP HOW TO#
#GRAFANA TRACKMAP SOFTWARE#
#GRAFANA TRACKMAP MAC#

The Mac does not have node.js, and this is required for node-red. This was all done on a Mac, but wanted to write it down, as it has to be repeated on the computer in Molly. The following is a blow-by-blow of the installation process for the prototype. This means we can plug sensors into the Raspberry Pi instead of the main computer. The nice thing about the Raspberry Pi are the USB ports, there a 4 in total. A few days after the prototype was complete, we decided to add a Raspberry Pi into the mix. The combination of Node-red, influxDB and Grafana is going to work for us.

#GRAFANA TRACKMAP HOW TO#

This prototype is not really related to monitoring solar generation or batteries or anything to do with Molly, but regardless, it will test the approach.Д«efore getting into all the details of how to install the software, just wanted to say the approach looks good and the initial testing worked out well. The HAM radio will receive GPS messages from other HAM radios, extract the height above sea level and this height is what will be displayed. For this proof-of-concept test, our HAM radio was used as our sensor to generate messages, the HAM radio was connected to our Mac computer where the messages were stored in the database and ultimately visualized.

#GRAFANA TRACKMAP SOFTWARE#

So, spent a morning installing all of the software and playing around. The first step in any project is making sure the idea will work and sort out any fundamental issues with the design. We wanted the display to look good and be very flexible, we settled on Grafana as our main visualization software.

Lastly the information in the database needs to be visualized into a display.

For our application we went with a lightweight database called influxDB.

The sensor measurements are stored in a database, and more specifically a time-series database.

Node-red is the software we chose to mediate between the sensors and the database.

The software that connects the sensors to the computer and processes the sensor information into a standardized form for storage.

These will be called the sensors, and range from simple things like a temperature sensors to more complex devices like the Engine Control Unit (ECU) of the FUSO truck.

The final monitoring system consists of four basic components:

In fact, we now monitor more things than would seem reasonable. We ultimately ended up creating a complete monitoring solution, that is able to monitor all sorts of devices and sensors in Molly. It all has to be hidden away quieting logging away, allowing us to access it when we want to. To make sure this monster does not grow out of control, one of the design requirements was that none of the monitoring gadgetry should be visible or interfere with the enjoyment of our home. But with each day, we would think of new things to monitor. Mainly because our batteries did not seem to hold a charge. The original thought was to monitor just the solar panels, so we could see how much electricity we make each day. In the last part we get into the details of the final configuration. In the second part we explore all the aspects of Molly we will monitor. In this part we introduce early prototyping to establish a good approach. We took a slightly different technical approach, but the end goal is the same. We were inspired by a YouTube video by Everlanders to monitor of solar production and battery state.

Grafana trackmap