First evening with egg - strange temperature trend (and then lockup)

[Marcus Williams]

Hi group.

Got my egg delivered this morning and set it up this evening. First broadcast at approx 21:50 GMT. Feed is here: https://xively.com/feeds/584670155

All very exciting, but...

Reported temperature of 22 deg C for the first few minutes is accurate (as compared to an independent thermometer). Over the course of the first hour the reported temperature climbs to 31 and is stable there for about 2 hours until the egg stops reporting data.

Putting aside the reporting issue, is there likely explanation for that climb in temperature reading when I know for a fact that the ambient temperature during that period was pretty stable around 22 deg C? I have dust and VOC modules installed in my wireless egg.

As for the reporting issue, perhaps the same as discussed here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/airqualityegg/WKhZL04JgNA ?

Thanks,
Marcus

[Victor Aprea]

The Egg is reporting the temperature inside the enclosure. Without the fan (which causes a whole other set of problems in the current implementation), the heat naturally tends to build up in there. This should (I think?) manifest as an constant offset to ambient temperature outside the Egg once it reaches equilibrium with its surroundings. 

As for why it stopped reporting, that's peculiar and could very well be related to the thread you referenced. Most likely it has something to do with the Ethercard library not playing nicely with your router / network appliances in some way (difficult for me to determine without physical access to your network). You could try modifying the Arduino source code to reset itself periodically, which might be a workaround. I'll go into more detail if that's a path you're interested in pursuing.

Regards,

Vic

Victor Aprea // Wicked Device

victor...@wickeddevice.com

M: 607.745.1515

T: @vicatcu

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[David Ehnebuske]

If you have access to your router's settings, you might wish to set it to log errors and warnings (if it's not already set that way) and then check the log after the AQE stops reporting. In my case that's how I discovered that my router had decided that the AQE's reporting sometimes failed stateful packet inspection (SPI) rules and needed to be blocked.

[Marcus Williams]

Vic & David - thanks for the feedback.

Re the elevated temperature inside the enclosure, that explanation makes sense. I'd be curious to know more about the checkered history of the fan so will look through the forum archives for clues. For the moment I've made the 'cracked egg' modification outlined by Bob Holmstrom (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/airqualityegg/iTmoUObWC5c) and it has reduced the reported temperature by 3 deg; but it's still about 4 deg higher than the ambient temperature.

As for the connection/reporting lock up issue, today the egg reported data continuously for 9 hours until I powered it down to crack open the enclosure. Perhaps yesterday's lock up was an anomaly (hope IS a strategy)...we'll see. I'm an Arduino newbie and not relishing the thought of diving into source code immediately.

Regards,
Marcus

[Victor Aprea]

On the fan issue, I have a set of ideas to try and reincorporate it in the nexr revision of the Egg shield.  Those ideas are kind of documented here: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/83387/reducing-electrical-noise-induced-from-a-small-dc-electrical-fan

Any community members with electronics backgrounds have strong opinions on what the best approach might be?

Regards,
Vic