Navitrino - An open source controller for Renewable Energy Applications

[skyewright]

I agree that well-engineered wireless devices nowadays can perform. But, hey not everything is well engineered.

Yep. I have a couple of Oregon Scientific weather stations. You'd have to be in absolutely ideal conditions to get reception on the console from a sensor at anything like the full range mentioned in the spec. On the otherhand I also have an RfxCom receiver which can also receive data from OS (and other 433MHz) sensors; that is a much better receiver and has the benefit of a much better antenna but even so I was pretty amazed the first time it picked up a signal from one of the sensors at a neighbour's OS station half a mile away! It only occasionally spots that sensor but considering the inverse square law it's still rather impressive performance.

[Dyslexicbloke]

Hi folks .... Interesting stuff

I am no expert in these things but have had occasion to install and program many and varied PLC, BMS and home automation systems over the years.

Obviously they all have different design briefs and target markets and I suspect there will not have been many things mentioned here that haven’t already been tried or applied somewhere.

I think the whole open source idea is great but I would like to see it solve some practical issues not addressed with existing systems (as far as I know)

For example …..

An unpolerised two wire interface that handles multiple master comms whilst delivering useful power to drive actuators, indicators or controllers rather than simply powering sensors.

Distributed logic so intelligent and semi-intelligent devices can operate in the absence of a central controller.

The opportunity to modify the behaviour of these semi-intelligent subsystems with a more complex scripted controller if necessary

A bridge module able to integrate mesh connected wireless devices on the same network.

If this approach was taken, and there are so existing similar models, a user would only need to buy the actual IO that was required an an appropriate level of addition central processing, if any.
I am reasonably confident that even relatively cheap PIC’s would easily handle the distributed applications and, assuming a suitable protocol was designed or selected, almost anything could be utilised for centralised functions.

Wouldn’t an inteligent valve controller with an onboard PID loop that accepted data from semi-intelligent sensors and or calculated values from a command controller make sense …..

Al