SenSyr News

The Energy Monitoring Box (and network hub) is shown nearly complete in the above photo.
Below are some videos showing how the front panel was prepared.

Part I

Part II

Part III

SenSyr has been exploring the potential of Pachube (www.pachube.com), which is all about sharing sensor data across the web.

We set up a working example feed (www.pachube.com/feeds/2289). This feed is a Smart Building System compatible temperature and humidity sensor. The sensor device uses a PIC processor to regularly collect and format data from a SHT75 sensor. The Ethernet connectivity is implemented with a Lantronix XPORT module. A LabVIEW program, in turn, collects data from the temperature/humidity device once per minute using the Collabworx/SenSyr Smart Building (SmB) Protocol, and transmits those values to Pachube. The LabVIEW program is running as a stand-alone executable.

Here’s a Google Visualization of this Pachube Feed data History: www.sensyr.com/pachube1.html

Another feed was set up to extract and track local weather data from the NWS. See http://www.pachube.com/feeds/2779.

Collabworx (www.collabworx.com) and SenSyr (www.sensyr.com) accepted the TAD (Technology Application and Demonstration) award by U.S. Congressman Dan Maffei on July 20, 2009 at The Tech Garden. The TAD award is funded by the EPA through the Syracuse Center of Excellence (www.syracusecoe.org). The project is “Open Web Services-based Indoor Climate Control System, Phase III” and principally concerns the actual implementation of the technology in laboratories and buildings. This included a number of extensions to the technology; however, these are rather modest, as the existing system is already quite advanced. The project now focuses on deployment and on application development, and addresses energy conservation and air quality in buildings while maintaining individualized comfort levels that improve employee efficiency and productivity. See previous blog entries.

While continuing the development of the open web services-based climate control system (see previous article), we needed to be able to quickly integrate prototype versions of attached devices with realistic functions. Consequently, SenSyr designed the General-Purpose Sensor Platform (GPSP) to fill this need.

The GPSP provides all the necessary hooks, bells, and whistles required to attach most off-the-shelf sensor and actuator modules to the software framework. Lantronix XPORT or WiPORT modules are supported for web access. Applied external DC power (wall wart) is regulated on-board. Two voltage levels are supported. A PIC18F6622 microcontroller
is used to interface sensors and actuators via analog and digital I/O  lines available on three headers. These allow easy connection to attached modules or daughter boards.  The GPSP provides direct support for a 2×16 LCD, a temperature-compensated RTC with battery backup, and a SHT75 temperature and humidty sensor.

We have successfully interfaced an air quality monitor, a barometric pressure sensor, several temperature sensors, an RFID reader, a light sensor, and a PIR presence sensor.

GPSP thermostat prototype during firmware development outside its enclosure. The base board is the back side of the GPSP board.

GPSP thermostat prototype in its enclosure. The box to the left is our “virtual furnace”, demonstrating the three output states: heat, cool, fan. In this implementation, the GPSP supports a temperature and humidity sensor, RTC with battery back-up, a 2×16 character LCD display, several solid-state relays, and “nav switch” for menu navigation.

GPSP-based temperature/humidity/barometric pressure module on the bench. Notice the XPORT ethernet interface module.