iSpindle - DIY Electronic Hydrometer

[nujjer]

Flash trouble. The Wemos is driving me crazy. Please save me!
Back story - I built an ispindel with v1 wemos D1mini and all the familiar bits. It failed to show up when I plugged it into my PC. Assumed dead wemos (which could be my fault during build or it was a DOA) so ordered a new wemos. Have now received a v3.0.0 and attempting to flash before I commit to build.

Current problem - When flashing - progress bar goes to 100%, wemos does the flickering LED thing then resets. I press reset a few times. LED flashes about 5 times then goes dark, so assume the wemos is NOT in config mode and some code is now running. But then no "ispindel" wifi network appears on my PC or phone. Although occasional a network appears called "ESP-0Cxxxx" [hex number redacted by me] If I try to connect to it, it fails.

I read somewhere that in operation the wemos is only 'on' for a short time then sleeps - but nothing about that in all the various guides for flashing your wemos and then connecting to ubidots, so I figure that isn't the problem.

I have tried NodeMCU ESP8266Flasher and Tazmotizer - same result.
I have tried firmware 6.3.1 (current) and others at random 6.3.0 and 6.4.1 (pre-release) - same result

PuTTY gives totally random output - this is the entire log I get when I press reset on the wemos and wait for a few minutes;
It's different each time I press reset and create a log.
--- PuTTY start ----
V▒j
\▒j
▒!Vpd▒2▒=▒@▒'▒▒▒▒▒▒;▒
▒▒`ȷ;▒'▒▒D▒#▒▒▒%?▒▒▒R▒ L^▒rp"▒H<▒▒~▒< ▒▒▒▒▒▒*!▒▒Ϫ▒
---- PuTTY end -----

So am I missing a putty setting?

To debug I went to learn about wemos and installed Arundino and board libraries etc from a good resource here Wemos D1 Mini Setup | Average Maker I got the "blink" sketch to work and also was able to edit the sketch (changed off/on durations) and upload - all good, so I think the wemos is OK. And the ESP-0Cxxxx wifi shows up. Remembering that this is a bare board out of the bag.

I have done loads of research on this forum and on other sites and cant find an answer.
So I joined this forum in the hope that y'all can help me please.

 

[BreeBrew]

Current problem - When flashing - progress bar goes to 100%, wemos does the flickering LED thing then resets. I press reset a few times. LED flashes about 5 times then goes dark, so assume the wemos is NOT in config mode and some code is now running. But then no "ispindel" wifi network appears on my PC or phone. Although occasional a network appears called "ESP-0Cxxxx" [hex number redacted by me] If I try to connect to it, it fails.

You need to build the iSpindel completely in order to make it work. You can flash it with the firmware first but it doesn't function until you build the whole thing.

 

[ChrisThomas]

@nujjer As @BreeBrew says the iSpindel won't complete the boot process until it is fully built and found all the hardware. Assuming you have fully built it you can see what's happening on the serial port, which should be set to a baud rate of 115200. Looks like you just missed off the trailing zero.


Chris

 

[nujjer]

You need to build the iSpindel completely in order to make it work. You can flash it with the firmware first but it doesn't function until you build the whole thing.

Aw man!
Huge thanks @BreeBrew and @ChrisThomas - I guess that was an obvious step! I have soldered the wemos headers and plugged it into the board that I already made - it works! OMG I wasted sooooo much time
Another learning point emerged (which also means my v1 D1 might not be duff) I was able to flash the bare wemos, but once I had removed the infamous diode the PC would not recognise it when plugged into the usb. Once I had assembled everything, if I then powered the wemos with the battery it showed up as COM4 and worked fine. It is currently telling Ubidots the temperature of my kitchen.

Thanks again - standby for more stupid questions.

 

[nujjer]

There is only news (Master Oogway). I may have fried my V3 wemos or gyro. All working ok on the bench pre calibration. I assembled into PET container which required matrix board filing (I have made exactly per iSpindel.de) and adding a plastic assembly to hold the battery compartment. No electronics work, only mechanical assembly. When I turned on, the LED stays solid on. Reset has no effect. After a few mins the wemos/gyro assembly was hot to the touch. I let it cool down. turned on. LED stays solid. To test I plugged USB into PC, COM4 came up but NodeMCU couldn't flash.

There isn't anything in the wemos spec webpages about solid LED. Is it dead?
I can only guess some swarf entered somewhere, but I have looked all over with a magnifying glass and all pins that should be isolated according to the circuit diagram are fine.
Per my earlier Q - I found that I could indeed flash the V1 Wemos. And configure it. In config INFO mode it shows temp every second (gyro not attached, its soldered to the v3 version). But then when I save the led comes on solid and nothing shows up in ubidots.

I realise that this might be difficult to debug when you cant see my device, but hoping that the solid LED is a symptom with a known cause.

Thanks for reading this far.
Neal

BTW I did educate myself why removing the diode stops the wemos working if there is no battery connected - it is the link from the USB +5v to the wemos VCC https://www.wemos.cc/en/latest/_static/files/sch_d1_mini_v3.0.0.pdf

 

[ChrisThomas]

@nujjer What do you see on the serial port when you reset?

 

[rockdoctor]

I purchased an iSpindle on eBay and I am having loads of problems with it. At first I successfully connected it to Brewfather, but it would only log once when I turn the device on, then never log again until I reset the pins. I read somewhere that it may be an issue with my modem, so I tried connecting it to the wifi at work and it still only logs once when the pins are reset. Then I tried connecting it to Ubidots, but the device will not connect even though I entered all the information correctly in the configuration page. Then I decided to try Brewfather again, but this time I cannot connect the device to Brewfather at all. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? Any insight will be much appreciated!

 

[BreeBrew]

What does the seller on ebay has to say about that?

 

[Bobo1898]

Does anyone have a synthetic formula for battery percentage? On Ubidots, the standard battery widget shows voltage. My battery max is 4.5v and I believe 0% is 2.7v.

I've been using the standard battery widget as some form of indication but a variable that shows percentage would be convenient.

 

[Lalo_uy]

Does anyone have a synthetic formula for battery percentage? On Ubidots, the standard battery widget shows voltage. My battery max is 4.5v and I believe 0% is 2.7v.

I've been using the standard battery widget as some form of indication but a variable that shows percentage would be convenient.

For that you need to look at the battery datasheet, not all batterys deplet with the same voltage drop.
https://batteryuniversity.com/_img/content/18650chargeDischarge-powercell-web.jpgYou can see the drop is more or less linear, but you need to know the ebowl point.
For iSpindle the discharg is even lower than the 0.2C ploted.

 

[Bobo1898]

For that you need to look at the battery datasheet, not all batterys deplet with the same voltage drop.
https://batteryuniversity.com/_img/content/18650chargeDischarge-powercell-web.jpgYou can see the drop is more or less linear, but you need to know the ebowl point.
For iSpindle the discharg is even lower than the 0.2C ploted.

Thanks for the response. The link says "access denied."

Once I extract my battery's data, how would I go about to determine the formula?

 

[nujjer]

@nujjer What do you see on the serial port when you reset?

@ChrisThomas a bit of a mish-mash. Some looks OK (not that I would know) but lots of "Acc Test Connection ERROR!"
The main chip is mildly warm to the touch (not hot) but certainly consuming some energy. Blue LED is faintly on.

---- PuTTY start -------
FW 6.3.1
2.2.2-dev(38a443e)
Worker run!
mounting FS... mounted!
reading config file
parsed config:
{"Name":"iSpindel_Winx1","Token":"BBFF-bTqT37LNenrjtxund0gp2u8YNhFgm7","Sleep":30,"Server":"","API":0,"Port":80,"Channel":0,"URI":"","DB":"ispindel","Username":"","Password":"","Job":"ispindel","Instance":"000","Vfact":191.8,"TS":0,"OWpin":12,"POLY":"-0.00031*tilt^2+0.557*tilt-14.054","SSID":"[redacted]","PSK":"[redacted]","Offset":[0,0,0,0,0,0]}
Acc Test Connection ERROR!
offsets not available
Boot-Mode: External System
power-cycle or reset detected, config mode

going to Config Mode
Acc Test Connection ERROR!
Acc Test Connection ERROR!
*WM: Scan done
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: name
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: sleep
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: vfact
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM:
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM:
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: tempscale
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM:
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM:
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: selAPI
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: token
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: server
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: port
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: channel
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: uri
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: db
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: username
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: password
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: job
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: instance
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM:
*WM: Adding parameter
*WM: POLYN
started Portal
*WM: SET AP
*WM:
*WM: Configuring access point...
*WM: iSpindel
*WM: AP IP address:
*WM: 192.168.4.1
*WM: HTTP server started
Acc Test Connection ERROR!
Acc Test Connection ERROR!
.... etc this then carries on.....
----------PuTTY end --------------

 

[ChrisThomas]

@nujjer Can you connect to the iSPindel in AP mode? That is, can you see and connect to a network called iSpindel, connect to that network and then open a web broswer?

 

[Open Source Distilling]

Hi nujjer, "Acc" means accelerometer which is a gyroscope error. How do your solders look on the GY-521? Can you replace the GY-521?

Acc Test Connection ERROR!

 

[rockdoctor]

What does the seller on ebay has to say about that?

He wasn't helpful, he told me to check that I set up the iSpindel correctly (which I did). He also said that he uses BrewSpy, but I have an iPhone.

 

[nujjer]

Hi nujjer, "Acc" means accelerometer which is a gyroscope error. How do your solders look on the GY-521? Can you replace the GY-521?

First - thanks Joey Joe Joe jr, your ispindel webpages are excellent.
Second - awful. My 25W 35 yr old soldering iron is just about shot and fluctuates wildly in temperature. The solder quality is rubbish and I probably killed something.
I got a new soldering iron. I'll order new parts and have another go.

 

[ZeSlammy]

Hey guys. Anyway we can start a WhiteList / BlackList of suppliers (mainly Ali Express ones) who carry bad/good batches of D1, Gyros etc ? I just tested 32 D1 Minis for the DeepSleep "bug", 28 out of 32 were bad ... I would hate for this to happen to someone else ...

 

[toadyus]

Hey guys. Anyway we can start a WhiteList / BlackList of suppliers (mainly Ali Express ones) who carry bad/good batches of D1, Gyros etc ? I just tested 32 D1 Minis for the DeepSleep "bug", 28 out of 32 were bad ... I would hate for this to happen to someone else ...

I only buy the 3.0.0 boards now and I'm going to start building my own going forward or making boards that use the esp-12s, the amount that I have also got that have issues is shocking.

 

[cayde1001]

Hey guys. Anyway we can start a WhiteList / BlackList of suppliers (mainly Ali Express ones) who carry bad/good batches of D1, Gyros etc ? I just tested 32 D1 Minis for the DeepSleep "bug", 28 out of 32 were bad ... I would hate for this to happen to someone else ...

I recently bought 20 D1s and none of them would even start in AP mode. My last batch I only had 1 bad out of 20.

 

[ZeSlammy]

Today I :
- Test all my Gyros
- Flash the D1 with a simple sketch that test for deep sleep
- Mount my iSpindel fully and make sure it works

That's a pain

 

[toadyus]

yeah, and the Gyro (MPU-6050's) are hit and miss too, usually 50-60% bad. That's why I've gone to the SMT ispindel boards. I just need to worry about the d1 and TP4056, which I'm currently in the process of building both and having made myself.

 

[gromitdj]

My recommendation is to only get the D1's from the Lolin store on Aliexpress.

Lolin D1 Mini V3.1.0

 

[ChrisThomas]

I've sourced several D1 mini clones from China for various projects over the last few years and with mixed results. I agree with @gromitdj , all my recent D1 mini have come from the Lolin store, V3.0.0s and V3.1.0s and since then I've not had a duff one.

For other modules I haven't yet found an Aliexpress reliable source. I have found an eBay shop that I find very reliable and a quick shipper, ModuleMe.

Chris

 

[Bigdaddyale]

SMT ispindel boards.

Is there a link for this board?

 

[gingerneil]

I'm finding that the majority of the D1 boards I am buying are fine - but the gyros are awful. Just tested a batch of 20, and half of them give either zero tilt, or the calibration on the ispindel fails and the blue light stays on until I turn it off.

 

[ZeSlammy]

for the Gyro, I have no test method apart from mounting it on an iSpindel :/

For the D1, I agree, real Lolins are a good way to go. What I found out is that there are more issues with "all in one" (ESP12X type) than with "proper PCB"

 

[BreeBrew]

My recommendation is to only get the D1's from the Lolin store on Aliexpress.

Lolin D1 Mini V3.1.0

Yes those are the real deal, I build 20 iSpindels with those and they all work. See also LOLIN D1 mini — WEMOS documentation

What I notices with the gyro boards is that the ones on the left with the orangy/yellowy block are working all fine, the other ones with the black block on the right 3 out of 10 worked from my last order.

 

[Bane]

I have a couple of iSpindels, that after running the calibrate function in the maintenance menu page, they now read negative gravity. Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks

 

[ZeSlammy]

I have a couple of iSpindels, that after running the calibrate function in the maintenance menu page, they now read negative gravity. Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks

If you used the calibrate function, then you need to run a "new" calibration (water, water with sugar, water with more sugar etc) to make sure your polynomial approximation function is still coherent with your iSpindel.
Once you run a calibrate function, you should check if it's at 25+/-1 degrees in Water.

 

[LBussy]

after running the calibrate function in the maintenance menu page, they now read negative gravity. Anyone know how to fix this?

Flip them over?