Tinkering; Like Guntering for the Connected Generation.
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Some interesting reading for anyone interested in building an electric fence tester. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/1161/02whole.pdf
I also came across this, which is probably the closest to what I want to build. https://github.com/kiu/lofence , Its LoRa WAN based using The Things Network. I've experimented in the past with The Things Network, its free to use but you need to either deploy a TTN Gateway or be near someone who already has, so I'll adapt this project to my existing MySensors network instead.
They have provided detailed Schematics too, https://github.com/kiu/lofence/blob/master/rev_b/hardware/kicad_lofence_schema.pdf
But I only need to look at a small portion of it.
The top circuit is just a voltage divider using a series of Resistors, this is very similar to how the cheap Neon bulb type testers work.
The other 2 circuits will take the output from the voltage divider circuit and process them into signals readable by a microcontroller. I can take their output and connect directly to one of my existing sensor nodes.1 -
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I've sourced a few parts to experiment with the electric fence monitoring, but finding the time is the issue at the moment.
Most of what I do here is pure messing mostly for my own entertainment and education, but I'm really happy with 2 things that I built this year.
- Is the solar well pump, it is performing much better than expected and cost under €400 and has probably already saved more than that in fuel and water costs alone, but it has been a big time saver too.
- Is the monitoring setup for the same pump, especially in this very hot weather, it gives me piece of mind that the pump is providing enough water while I'm away at work and also saves me hiking up to the far end of the out farm to check it every evening. The walk wouldn't bother me normally but I'm glad to avoid it in this heat.
Interesting too to see the difference between water use this week compared with beginning of June
June 11th
This Week.
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Latest Version of my Remote IOT Gateway https://farmer-eds-shed.com/remote-3g-4g-mysensors-lora-gateway-v2-with-iot-sim/
I now have 2 IOT Gateways running from solar panels on 2 different out farms, still only monitoring water levels, but they have been very stable now for weeks. After experimenting with a number of different USB 3G modems I finally gave in and bought a couple of 4G modem Hats designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi Zero and long term use.
One of them has a LoRa radio Module which is good for long range communications with the sensor nodes.
The other has an NRF24 radio Module which is shorter range, but I had some sensor nodes built previously and a spare radio module.
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I've come up with a simple electric fence monitor.
1 simple signal light.
+ a photo diode.
+ a microcontroller with integrated LoRa radio
Some crude code stolen from a MySensors PIR Sensor, shows up in Home Assistant as a motion sensor, but it doesn't really matter its just a binary on off sensor which can report the electric fence pulses.
#define MY_DEBUG #define MY_RADIO_RFM95 #define MY_DEBUG_VERBOSE_RFM95 #define MY_RFM95_RST_PIN 4 #define MY_RFM95_CS_PIN 8 #define MY_RFM95_IRQ_PIN 7 #define MY_RFM95_IRQ_NUM digitalPinToInterrupt(7) #define MY_RFM95_MODEM_CONFIGRUATION RFM95_BW125CR45SF128 #define MY_RFM95_FREQUENCY (RFM95_868MHZ) #define MY_NODE_ID 83 #include <MySensors.h> uint32_t SLEEP_TIME = 120000; // Sleep time between reports (in milliseconds) #define DIGITAL_INPUT_SENSOR 3 // The digital input you attached your motion sensor. (Only 2 and 3 generates interrupt!) #define CHILD_ID 1 // Id of the sensor child // Initialize motion message MyMessage msg(CHILD_ID, V_TRIPPED); void setup() { pinMode(DIGITAL_INPUT_SENSOR, INPUT); // sets the motion sensor digital pin as input } void presentation() { // Send the sketch version information to the gateway and Controller sendSketchInfo("Electric Fence Sensor", "1.0"); // Register all sensors to gw (they will be created as child devices) present(CHILD_ID, S_MOTION); } void loop() { // Read digital motion value bool tripped = digitalRead(DIGITAL_INPUT_SENSOR) == HIGH; Serial.println(tripped); send(msg.set(tripped?"1":"0")); // Send tripped value to gw // Sleep until interrupt comes in on motion sensor. Send update every two minute. sleep(digitalPinToInterrupt(DIGITAL_INPUT_SENSOR), CHANGE, SLEEP_TIME); }2 -
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