TILT Hydrometer @ Carl-Wilhelms-Bräu

Remark:
This project needs to be revamped due to several architectural design issues. However, there is another version of this project exporting data into csv files which is recommended to be used. You can find the csv-based version in my tiltCsv repo.

TILT Hydrometer @ Carl-Wilhelms-Bräu

Log data from a TILT Hydrometer to an InfluxDB using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. To handle data a NodeJS client built on-top of influx and node-bleacon is used. The GIPOs for a user push button and a LED are accessed with onoff. For data visualization the open source monitoring platform Grafana comes into play.

Infrastructure

    +---------------+           +---------------+           +---------------+           +---------------+
    |               |           |               |           |               |           |               |
    |     Tilt      | --------> | NodeJS client | <-------> |   InfluxDB    | --------> |    Grafana    |
    |               |           |               |           |               |           |               |
    +---------------+           +---------------+           +---------------+           +---------------+
                                        ʌ
                                        |
                                        |
                                        |
                                        v
                                +---------------+
                                |               |
                                | Button & LED  |
                                |               |
                                +---------------+

General information about the software used in this project, as well as its proper installation and configuration can be found in the sections below. The hardware connections for button and LED are:

Button: GPIO24 (Pin 18 on header J1) and 3V3 (Pin 17 on J1), debouncing is done in software, internal pull-down resistor is activated by default (see datasheet, pp. 102/103)
LED: Connected via 68 Ohms to GPIO27 (Pin 13 on J1) and GND (Pin 14 on J1), calculate appropiate resistor value as needed

Are general pinout diagram for a Raspberry Pi 3 B/B+ can be found here.

Comparable projects

A very basic implementation of a NodeJS-based TILT client called can be found here. The software used on an "orignal" TILT Pi is based on Node-RED and its flow is available online. In addition there are several implementations based on Python like pytilt.

User login and credentials

Package installation and system configuration requires user login on the Raspberry Pi. This can be done locally or remotely via SSH. The default user credentials pi / raspberry can be used for this, but it is highly recommended to change these credentials. In addition any user credentials stated below are just sample values an should be changed.

Install Raspbian Lite on SD card or USB drive

Download the latest release of Raspbian Lite from the Raspbian homepage. After the download is completed, flash it onto the SD card or the USB drive using balenaEtcher.

In addition to boot from SD, some of the later Raspberry Pi models support USB boot to boot form USB drives such as USB flash drives, HDDs or SSDs. This can be handy due to improved data transfer rates and improved reliability - espcially when working with data-driven applications and interfaces such as databases.

Basic configuration (before and after first boot)

If you want to access the Raspberry Pi in headless mode (without connecting keyboard, mouse and monitor to the Pi), you need to enable ssh. To do so, create an empty file with name ssh on the BOOT partition of the SD card or USB drive. In addition you can create Wifi credentials (for non-enterprise grade networks) as explained in the headless docs.

DHCP-based ethernet is enabled by default. However, setting-up a static IP address requires some further work for which you need to mount the main partititon of your SD card or USB drive. For this, a Mac or a Linux computer (or Virtual Machine) is needed. Futher information can be found here.

Enterprise-grade Wifi networks (such as eduroam at TU Braunschweig) can be configured after having access to the Raspberry Pi.

InfluxDB

According to the project website, InfluxDB is

a high-performance data store written specifically for time series data

and can be used as a stand-alone database or in conjuction different stacks. To keep things simple, none of these stacks will be used in this project. However, data will be written to InfluxDB by using a NodeJS-based client.

For a small introduction read Getting started with InfluxDB and InfluxDB key concepts.

Install and configure InfluxDB

Update repositories and install Java JDK:

 sudo apt-get update  sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-jdk

Add repository key for InfluxDB's repository:

 curl -sL https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add -

Add reposiotry to list of available repositories:

 echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/debian stretch stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list

Update repository data and installl influxdb from repository
```
 sudo apt update
 sudo apt install influxdb
```

Enable influxdb service to run after start-up and start service:

 sudo systemctl enable influxdb
 sudo systemctl start influxdb

Check if influxdb service has been started and is running:
```
 sudo systemctl status influxdb
```
Exit by pressing q when done.
Open influxdb CLI:
```
 influx
```
Create new admin user (having all privileges) with username and password:
```
 CREATE USER pi WITH PASSWORD 'raspberry' WITH ALL PRIVILEGES
```
Create database for beer data (optional, since database will be created by the NodeJS client):
```
 CREATE DATABASE beer
```
Exit influx CLI:
```
 exit
```
Open influxdb's config file for futher adaptions:
```
 sudo nano /etc/influxdb/influxdb.conf
```
Check section [http] for following entries to enable InfluxDB's HTTP interface at port 8086. Uncomment lines (remove # symbol):
```
 enabled = true
 bind-address = „:8086“
 auth-enabled = true
```
Exit editor nano by pressing Ctrl+X and save changes with y when prompted. Press Enter to quit.
Restart influxdb service to reload edited config file:
```
 sudo systemctl restart influxdb
```

Grafana

A look into Grafana's documentation, tells us:

[Grafana is the] analytics platform for all your metrics. Grafana allows you to query, visualize, alert on and understand your metrics no matter where they are stored. Create, explore, and share dashboards with your team and foster a data driven culture.

With Grafana it is easy to set-up a very versatile and flexible data monitoring and visualization platform supporting different databases and graphing tools. Since InfluxDB is supported as a data source by default, we will use it in this project.

Install Grafana

Determine ARM architecture of Raspberry Pi:
```
 uname -m
```
This should either give something like armv7 or arm64 and is needed to download the correct version of Grafana in the next step.
Determine latest relase from Grafana's download page for ARM architecture, download file and install:
```
 wget https://dl.grafana.com/oss/release/grafana_5.4.3_armhf.deb
 sudo dpkg -i grafana_5.4.3_armhf.deb
```
There might be additional dependencies needed. To fulfill these, follow on-screen instruction to install and fix missing dependencies. When done, retry to install .deb file by re-running the second command given above.

Enable grafana-server service to run after start-up and start service:

 sudo systemctl enable grafana-server
 sudo systemctl start grafana-server

Check if grafana-server service has been started and is running:
```
 sudo systemctl status grafana-server
```
Exit by pressing q when done.

Configure Grafana and import dashboard

A running Grafana instance listens on port 3000 per default. Open http://134.169.130.127:3000 in your browser and login with default credentials admin / admin (adopt to apropriate IP address and port if needed).
On initial login, Grafana asks for a password for the administrator account (is set to admin/raspberry currently).
Configure data source and add new dashboards as needed. See Grafana's docs and Getting Started for further information.
Import the JSON Model of the dashboard from within the dashboard search. The exported JSON model can be found in grafanaDashboard.json
Double-check all dashboard panels (esp. the data queries) and the dashboard annotation query (Dashboard Settings (Gear Icon) → Annotations → table of queries)

NodeJS-based client for TILT

The TILT hydrometer uses the iBeacon data format which is documented here and used to retrieve data from the device. A measurement is done every five seconds and the updated readings are sent via Bluetooth thereafter.

For communications with the Tilt Hydrometer, a NodeJS-based client (written in JavaScript) is used. An implementation of the iBeacon data format for NodeJS can be found in the bleacon module which is used to communicate with the hydrometer.

In order to make all the measuremtens available for later analysis and visualization, every reading is stored in the InfluxDB database. With InfluxDB's HTTP interface enabled, the NodeJS module influx can be used to access the database and its entries.

The GPIOs available on header J1 are used to interact with the user push button and LED, the GPIOs (available on header J1) are used. These are accessed via the NodeJS module onfoff which additionally provides button interrupts and software-debounce.

Install required packages, prerequisites and dependencies

Update package repositories and install latest packages:
```
 sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
```

Install additional packages:

 sudo apt-get install bluetooth bluez libbluetooth-dev libudev-dev bluez-hcidump

Install Node Version Manager (nvm) (needs curl which should be installed by default):
```
 curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash
```
The dowonload link is version specific. Check nvm's GitHub repository if in doubt.
Install NodeJS Version 8 via nvm (NodeJS version 8 is needed for node-bleacon compatability):
```
 nvm install 8
```

Install files and enable `systemd` service

You can either install all the required dependencies on your own or install all dependencies automatically by calling

    npm install

after you downloaded or cloned all the files from the project's repository into the user pi's home directory (if the user name and user group is different, you need to edit tilt.service).

In order to execute tilt.js automatically after the system is booted, a systemd service file is provided. If you want to use the service, follow these steps:

Copy the .service file to the appropriate location:

 sudo cp ~/tilt/tilt.service /etc/systemd/system

Enable the service to systemd:
```
 sudo systemctl enable tilt
```
Check the service status to check if it was loaded properly:
```
 sudo systemctl status tilt
```
Start the service manually (if you do not want to reboot the system):
```
 sudo systemctl start tilt
```

Log files

The systemd service logs into the global syslog, which can be accessed via journalctl -u tilt-client. Some very basic diagnostics (about the systemd service) can be obtained from systemctl by using systemctl status tilt.

Test and debug Bluetooth connection to Tilt

For testing and debugging the Bluetooth connection to the Tilt Hydrometer, hcitool lescan and hcidump -R can be used. In addition, to check the BLE-module is working, Nordic Semiconductor's app nRF Connect for Mobile is handy. The data protocol can be found here.

Issues

Feel free to submit any issues and feature requests using the Issue Tracker.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change. In general, we are using a "fork-and-pull" workflow:

Fork the repo on GitHub.
Clone the project to your own machine.
Commit changes to your own branch.
Push your work back up to your fork.
Submit a Pull request so that we can review your changes.

License Information and module dependencies

This project is published under the MIT Licencse. A copy of the license text can be found in LICENSE.md.

Direct dependencies, this project depends on, are:

Module	license	Repo	npm
bleacon	MIT	Link	Link
influx	MIT	Link	Link
onoff	MIT	Link	Link

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 21 Commits
remote_scripts		remote_scripts
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE.md		LICENSE.md
README.md		README.md
config.js		config.js
dataParser.js		dataParser.js
grafanaDashboard.json		grafanaDashboard.json
helpers.js		helpers.js
influxHandler.js		influxHandler.js
mockup.js		mockup.js
package.json		package.json
tilt.js		tilt.js
tilt.service		tilt.service

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TILT Hydrometer @ Carl-Wilhelms-Bräu

Infrastructure

Comparable projects

User login and credentials

Install Raspbian Lite on SD card or USB drive

Basic configuration (before and after first boot)

InfluxDB

Install and configure InfluxDB

Grafana

Install Grafana

Configure Grafana and import dashboard

NodeJS-based client for TILT

Install required packages, prerequisites and dependencies

Install files and enable `systemd` service

Log files

Test and debug Bluetooth connection to Tilt

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Contributing

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TILT Hydrometer @ Carl-Wilhelms-Bräu

Infrastructure

Comparable projects

User login and credentials

Install Raspbian Lite on SD card or USB drive

Basic configuration (before and after first boot)

InfluxDB

Install and configure InfluxDB

Grafana

Install Grafana

Configure Grafana and import dashboard

NodeJS-based client for TILT

Install required packages, prerequisites and dependencies

Install files and enable systemd service

Log files

Test and debug Bluetooth connection to Tilt

Issues

Contributing

License Information and module dependencies

Further information

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Install files and enable `systemd` service

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