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Raspberry Pi
Any thoughts on what this product or one like it may do to the control industry?
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Originally Posted by
theoldman
Any thoughts on what this product or one like it may do to the control industry?
Good day theOldMan,
Personally I do not see Pi, etc really make too much of an impact simply because it is designed for a completely market and/or usage. Indeed, having a very inexpensive and powerful controller is desirable, but there are a number of other factors which are equally or even more important for the control industry. For example, product longevity, support, and reliability/robustness. Pi's architecture/processor is designed for a certain lifespan and this is really dictated by product sales/volumes. Control product have relatively small to medium volumes and so there is a risk that the architecture/processor may not be available in 3,5,7, or even 10 years. Secondly, reliability, etc is extremely important in the Control Industry and Pi, etc have minimal circuitry with regards to protection (physical, electrical, etc). There is a reason why the Pi, etc is the price it is... That is not to say that the Pi is a bad product, etc... it isn't. It is just designed with a specific target usage, etc which I see as being different that what I would consider for mainstream Controls Use.
As for the O/S, etc ... Given that it is an Arm11 core and its infrastructure, one has some options here. This may be something that Pi may offer in the sense that it provides a very inexpensive means to experiment with a few O/S's, its internal graphic engine, etc to see what "can" be done. It is certainly a very impressive little device.
Cheers,
Sam
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Based on that , they should fit right in . Lot of what was available 10 years ago is not nor has been available for the past few years as it was discontinued , sold off , or parts no longer available.
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Originally Posted by
Control Man
Based on that , they should fit right in . Lot of what was available 10 years ago is not nor has been available for the past few years as it was discontinued , sold off , or parts no longer available.
Good day Control Man,
Point taken, however, this would depend on the Manufacturer... and in the cases, products, etc that I am aware of the items that became no longer available (NLA) were done so not entirely for technical reasons (can someone say "forced" obsolescence?).
My point was geared towards technical reasons... i.e. selecting key components that are used mostly in consumer based products will almost guarantee component availability issues in a few years. If a firm already punts a product for "marketing" reasons, think how fast they will punt a product when it requires a complete redesign (+ compliance certification, manufacturing, testing, etc) every few years... In contrast there are a number of high performance processors (with much greater performance than that used in the Pi) designed for the automotive/industrial markets that have a guaranteed product life of 15 years and in fact can be around longer than that. However, since these device's are not usually used in consumer products their production volumes are not nearly as high and so their price is not nearly as low as what the Pi's manufacturers are paying for their processor.... in fact these processors are very close or in some cases cost more than the fully assembled Pi device.
Cheers,
Sam
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$35 is hard to argue with, especially if Niagara 4.0 offers portability. I have two Raspberry Pi's that I've been fiddling with for a few months now. One is running a full LAMP server on it that I'm running a fairly good sized mysql database off of and the other one I loaded up with the Bacnet for Linux from sourceforge. I have a breakout board with an xbee radio on that I'm still in the process of learning how to use the arduino boards with xbee to read inputs and control outputs for my home. None of it is pretty, but it's been fairly simple after countless hours of searching Google to learn how it all works.
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Originally Posted by
noskilltech
$35 is hard to argue with, especially if Niagara 4.0 offers portability. I have two Raspberry Pi's that I've been fiddling with for a few months now. One is running a full LAMP server on it that I'm running a fairly good sized mysql database off of and the other one I loaded up with the Bacnet for Linux from sourceforge. I have a breakout board with an xbee radio on that I'm still in the process of learning how to use the arduino boards with xbee to read inputs and control outputs for my home. None of it is pretty, but it's been fairly simple after countless hours of searching Google to learn how it all works.
Good day NoSkillTech,
No argument here... $35 or anything in this range is amazing and the performance of this device is equally impressive. As for yourself, congrats on your accomplishments, as what you have done is not very easy and it seems you have mastered it very well in a very reasonable time frame!
There is no doubt that embedded Linux will continue to make big strides in a number of applications/Industries with the Control Industry being one of them. At the lower levels it is not for the faint of heart, as there is tons to know in order to develop, maintain, and produce one's own embedded Linux device... and thus this is what the Pi and other comparable devices are doing... removing a lot of the low level burden so that others can focus on the usage of such products.
Cheers,
Sam
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Originally Posted by
noskilltech
$35 is hard to argue with, especially if Niagara 4.0 offers portability. I have two Raspberry Pi's that I've been fiddling with for a few months now. One is running a full LAMP server on it that I'm running a fairly good sized mysql database off of and the other one I loaded up with the Bacnet for Linux from sourceforge. I have a breakout board with an xbee radio on that I'm still in the process of learning how to use the arduino boards with xbee to read inputs and control outputs for my home. None of it is pretty, but it's been fairly simple after countless hours of searching Google to learn how it all works.
You can mix Raspberri PI + arduino + Niagara Supervisor for linux = Small web controller (Powered by Niagara AX Framework) !!!
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Originally Posted by
black_syphilis
You can mix Raspberri PI + arduino + Niagara Supervisor for linux = Small web controller (Powered by Niagara AX Framework) !!!
Doubtful at the moment. Sure the 700MHz ARM Raspberry Pi is capable of running the Java runtime environment, but until Niagara 4.0 comes out and delivers on the promise of portability, you can only obtain a license to run Niagara-AX on a QNX Jace, x86 or x86-64 Windows, or x86 Linux (RHLE 5 and 6).
Additionally, the cost the Supervisor license would be a bit prohibitive for a DIY setup.
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Im not an engineer but I do believe rasberry pi will definitely have an impact on controls. Home automation on the fly and custom to one's individual needs. (w/ a non monopolize price)
It will definitely open up commercial customers eyes,, when they tell the sales man that his 11 year old kid can control there home lights and other household appliances for under 50 bucks. Just cables to existing controls cost 30 bucks.
Automation will be brought to the masses at low cost,, similar to what online brokerage firms did to the the wall street brokers. True Price mark up will be known.
The inventor is not in it for the money google him he's doing it for the kids. When someone works for a cause not profit he can't be bought im sure many of companies would of liked to buy his concept/work and shelf it.
Very important that we know this is not an open sourceForum there is motive to Protect the ones that pay the bills with ads and im fine with that It's been very helpful to me multiple times,,, I never new about Kroil great stuff wd what????
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Originally Posted by
zartangreen
Im not an engineer but I do believe rasberry pi will definitely have an impact on controls. Home automation on the fly and custom to one's individual needs. (w/ a non monopolize price)
It will definitely open up commercial customers eyes,, when they tell the sales man that his 11 year old kid can control there home lights and other household appliances for under 50 bucks. Just cables to existing controls cost 30 bucks.
Automation will be brought to the masses at low cost,, similar to what online brokerage firms did to the the wall street brokers. True Price mark up will be known.
The inventor is not in it for the money google him he's doing it for the kids. When someone works for a cause not profit he can't be bought im sure many of companies would of liked to buy his concept/work and shelf it.
Very important that we know this is not an open sourceForum there is motive to Protect the ones that pay the bills with ads and im fine with that It's been very helpful to me multiple times,,, I never new about Kroil great stuff wd what????
Good day zartangreen,
There is no question that the "Pi" is very impressive on all accounts, however, the metrics and concerns viewed in the commercial control industry is a lot different to those in the consumer industry where pricing and the newest of features are paramount. Most (if not all) commercial customers are not so fixated on the device's cost, but rather the total installed cost (device, wiring, labor, commissioning, etc), long term support, and long term reliability. You are simply looking at the device cost and not considering these other costs which are actually more important to a commercial customer. For example.. what if the inexpensive device fails in a month... or three months, etc... The customer has to dispatch someone to repair/replace the device... or the device's failure resulted in some form of damage to other equipment... These costs can easily exceed the device's costs by several magnitudes. Another example... What if after a year or so the customer wants to install more devices...because the Pi's design is based upon a consumer component platform some components may have been changed/substituted or the design itself changed... Now all of the customer's testing and qualification of a particular device is now lost, because we now have a completely new device.
If we now look at it from a purely economical point of view... Let us say that the device in question retails for $50 and the total manufactured cost of this device of $1
(extreme case and really unobtainable), so the manufacturer makes $49 profit. Explain to me how you can support this product (i.e. customer calls for assistance, warranty, etc) on a $49 profit? Just one or two phone calls, a warranty claim/replacement, etc would consume this cost quite quickly. Also remember that in the consumer industry the products are made in significant volumes (i.e. millions+), whereas the Industrial/Commercial market is in the 1000's (10's or 20's), and so the development, support, marketing, etc costs are amortized over a much smaller volume. Secondly, in the Consumer market product expectations are a lot different than in the Industrial/commercial market in that most consumer items are discarded after a time or after a device fails. This is in contrast to the Industrial/Commercial market where product lifetimes and reliability are significantly longer and expected... read this as years and years... 5, 7, 10, or more years. See if your iPhone3 (or other popular consumer device) will work and be supported in 10+ years...
Please do not interpret the above as Pi bashing or a mechanism to stifle open source software/hardware and in fact I am a supporter of both. It is just that there are a host of other factors that are considered and expected in the commercial product industry. Where I see the Pi's benefit is that it serves as an excellent inexpensive and powerful platform for people to expand their skills, knowledge, and creativity into technologies that were perhaps too expensive or too complicated to explore previously.
Cheers,
Sam
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I agree with everything u said,, Im sure lawyers play a role in Price mark -up. Presently building a Hackintosh and have a iphone thats 4 years old with No service but yet I can make calls and email/surf as long as i have a hot spot thanks 2 Wire$hark. Everything can be gutted like a deer. Trust me didnt learn these tricks in Usa ,, had to watch a Canadadian show via torrent Lab wiTh ?e0. Just have pet pive when customers have downtime due to a swap out of a board when im sure it can be fixed in house with engineer and a solder set from Radio Sck. Im sure that will void any warranty,, which is completely understood. 90's seen countless boards DC on vav boxes being sent out and customer was ready 2 pay didn't even care about Price.
I completely understand in reference to the Customer service overhead, Just mentioned in another thread of office productivity time being wasted on health care questions,, But there's a kid out there that is in a garage right now who will get Voice recognition software To actually work acent or not, Dragon nots far away.
Texting would save those call centers 1000 of hours for the basic questions.
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I saw many views
2009 article
good article about hackintosh Not to long ago it was considered impossible
http://voices.yahoo.com/what-hackint...e-3793356.html
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This is a very interesting and promising development. Figures that it would come along just as I'm figuring out this stuff the hard way on my own.
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=...3&e=f465caffc5
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Originally Posted by
noskilltech
Really Cool! I couldn't resist investing in one of their developer kits.
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Anyone using a Pi to interface with HVAC heating equipment especially heat pump. Looking at a new system for the house. I would like one that I could connect a PI to and run diagnostic monitoring live. Hooking the PI to the computer interface right on the heater to get info directly via the PI running scripts to turn the debug data into graph-able statistics would be my goal. I would like to compare compressor pump run time vs outdoor temp and maybe refrigerant pressure and be able to alarm on low pressure. My current system burned out because the refrigerate ran out and I would love to monitor that. So any system with a tech computer connector would be awesome and make me check out that system.
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I highly doubt that you could find a north american made heatpump that would have that level of diagnostic/communication built in. Of course there are ones that have gateway option for basic information, like temp, setpoint, alarm, but It simply translates into extra cost for manufacturers for communication boards. But almost all will have an alarm relay, that you could monitor with with rpi gpio.
Your original system should have safeties in place such as low pressure cutoff to prevent a burnout, you need to ask the manufacturer why these safeties did not function.
good luck
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Originally Posted by
eastsidebuzz
Anyone using a Pi to interface with HVAC heating equipment especially heat pump. Looking at a new system for the house. I would like one that I could connect a PI to and run diagnostic monitoring live. Hooking the PI to the computer interface right on the heater to get info directly via the PI running scripts to turn the debug data into graph-able statistics would be my goal. I would like to compare compressor pump run time vs outdoor temp and maybe refrigerant pressure and be able to alarm on low pressure. My current system burned out because the refrigerate ran out and I would love to monitor that. So any system with a tech computer connector would be awesome and make me check out that system.
Just buy an IP controller powerful enough. I just saw a customer putting an enable/disable on trends with his PID setting into his graphical user interface for the device. Open up the web page of the device and its there or run the graphic on the browser and you have it.
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I am looking at the Trane XV18-20 and a tam8c. Seems pretty high tech. So I bet I can get some good data out of it. And could have the pi grab stats from the panel.
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Nah... likely not. It's resi junk. Likely you access some level of nothing. This means you get nothing. I see one manual states "3 wire communication". That's three words stating nearly 100% nothing.
I meant toss the controls in a trash can and write your own logic on a controller.
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