For our Public Astronomical Observatory we created a TinkerForge setup.

WeatherStation;

- Masterbrick

- Ethernet Master extension

- Outdoor weather bricklet ( Outdoor Weather station & Temp/Sensor TH-6148 in the telescope Dome to check humidity and check dew point.)

- Temperature bricklet & Humidity bricklet (Indoor measurement control-room)

SensorStation;

- Masterbrick

- Ethernet Master extension

- Ambient light Sensor & UV Sensor under protecting dome to measure outside light and UV radiation

- Will be extended with Barometer bricklet and 4-digit LED

We have an small Centos based Server (Mini-PC; Intel Celeron, dual-core, 8GB mem, SSD) running the required processes;

- Java programs for WeatherStation and SensorStation which stores the data in standard txt-files.

- We use node-red to "tail"  the txt-files and store the data in an InfluxDB Database.

- Grafana Server is then used to expose the data via http.

We have a wall mounted TV and Raspberry PI which is running in kiosk mode and connects to the Grafana Server to show the data in some interesting graphs to the public.

The purpose of the setup is not just to show the weather and sensor data, but also to show the public how technology is used to gather data, use programming to do something interesting stuff with the data. Learn programming, learn technology, etc.

What other interesting things could we do or show with the Tikerforge components? Any nice ideas?

Needs to be interesting, needs to help people to get interested in technology, IT, programming, science and physics?

Some explanation of what we setup. We still need to add some better pictures of the TinkerForge setup.

in the past (a few years ago), I've tried to create some smaller project with Tinkerforge - but honestly speaking, I never really finished them.
I tried to wirte some software in C# - but in the end, it did work - but never as stable as it was required for the use case - so I quit the projects and realized them with other components and hardware.

Since then, my hardware was just laying around and collected dust...

Now, I've decided to start again - but with a different approach...

I am using HomeAssistant for getting information about our solar-production and energy usage - have my ev charging-station implemented and some other "smarthome" components... so now, I am thinking to create another project with my current tinkerforge hardware and integrate this into homeassistant, too.

I already learned that there are some MQTT Bindings available - And, I could use MQTT in HomeAssistant...
But, there are some questions left about the best "approach"...

Now, I am struggling a bit with the decission, how to realize this project...

for now, I have created a debian 11 lxc container in Proxmox - running brickd...
A first python script, connecting to one of my bricks and barometer bricklet over tcp-ip (wifi 2.0 extension) seems to work so far.

I have also installed the MQTT Bindings so far:

> systemctl --type=service
  UNIT                                 LOAD   ACTIVE SUB     DESCRIPTION
  brickd.service                       loaded active running Brick Daemon
  tinkerforge_mqtt.service             loaded active running Tinkerforge MQTT API Bindings

Now I am struggling a bit...
Honesty speaking, I don't really see the correct approach right now...

As far as I could get, the MQTT Bindings are based on the Python bindings.
The tinkerforge_mqtt which comes with the bindings is "just" a python script, which does - more or less collect data from the bricklets - and send it to an mqtt broker.
Also, it listens to topics from the broker and send this to the brick / Bricklets...

Correct so far?
In this case, it is pretty much what I had first in mind - I need to write a python script that reads the data - and send it to the Broker...

So... how can I use the MQTT Bindings now?
I have found the following under /etc

tinkerforge_mqtt.cmdline

sorry - if this may sound dumb... but honestly speaking the last time I had the Tinkerforge stuff in my hands was somewhere in 2016...

i'm trying to run "Heating system Project" using Tinkerforge system (using Master Bricks3.0 , Solid State Relay Bricklet connencted to the heaters with SS-RELAY) programmed throw Labview.

The LabView Programming and simulation working perfect! the Problem is if the System is running  and heater are ON and Labview collapsed the Heater keep the Signal On as it was the last signal came from  Labview and the only way to get it off again is to run the labview then bring system to safe state or throw Brick viewer application. 

Now as i want to run the system stable and safe want to find a way that makes the Master Bricks not to send/keep any Signals as soon as Labview collapsed or any other propability could happen. 

IHow could i solve this issue? is there anything that i could do with Labview or Hardware solution from Tinkerforge could help this issue.

Thanks  

Ahmed

I have a project where I need to detect the linear movement in 1 axis of a cylindrical tool 15cm (length) and 8mm diameter moving inside a pipe that is 15 mm dia. How do I detect the linear position movement of the cylindrical tool inside the pipe ? (preferably wireless if possible).

What sensors would you guys recommend in this case? 

Thanks. 

1>main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _ipcon_create referenced in function _main
1>main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _ipcon_destroy referenced in function _main
1>main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _ipcon_connect referenced in function _main
1>main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _imu_v2_create referenced in function _main
1>main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _imu_v2_destroy referenced in function _main
1>main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol _imu_v2_get_quaternion referenced in function _main

Thanks for the help.

I was wondering how the 2 components work together exactly. Can i directly mount the RS485 master extension on the IMU Brick using the stack connector and then use the RS485 to get the output signals? Or do i need another Master brick in between? Requirement is to send the IMU Gyroscope signals/values over a distance of more than 10 meters atleast and could go upto 20 meters.

Any help is appreciated.

IMU Brick: https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/doc/Hardware/Bricks/IMU_V2_Brick.html

RS485 Master Extension: https://www.tinkerforge.com/en/doc/Hardware/Master_Extensions/RS485_Extension.html#rs485-extension

Thanks,

Siddhant

My idea would be a usable, smart, autonomic board same like the microbit which can be stacked and connect to other and has bricks. Containing with e.g.

* giroscope

* temperature

* light

* wifi/bluetooth/something wireless

* 2x servo PWM,

* rgb led

* 2x Led or dual button

* Button

* 2x Bricklet connector

* Power source connector

* GPIO/Breakout/InputOutput

* infrared

* and other small sensors if possible

Compared to the microbit (https://eckstein-shop.de/DFRobot-micro-Maqueen-micro-bit-Robot-Platform) they have many small electronics on a single board like the IMU brick. But when i want to build a robot with Tinkerforge, than i need a big stack like servo, master, Wifi, power supply. And i don't even have a good case for the driving part. I would love to have a kind of a Starter Brick.

For my personnal project I use an IMU 2.0. But I face some magnetic disturbance because it is located near motors and battery (it needs to be in a specific place).

I am thinking about getting a simple compass to add in an isolated (from strong magnetic fields) place, and wonder :

The same way it exists an Accelerometer Bricklet, does TinkerForge have ever think about creating a Magnetometer Bricklet ? is it in project ? 

Thanks in advance !

Measure, from an Indoor Air Quality Station (using TinkerForge Building Blocks), the Air Quality Index & Accuracy, Air Pressure, Humidity, Temperature, Illuminance and display the values in Domoticz Home Automation System.

Read more https://github.com/rwbl/domoticz-plugin-indoor-air-quality-monitor.

Notes

For learning purposes on how to build a Domoticz Plugin interacting with Tinkerforge Building Blocks, created a simple Traffic Light plugin (https://github.com/rwbl/domoticz-plugin-traffic-light)

Also described in my Domoticz Home Automation Workbook (https://github.com/rwbl/domoticz-homeautomation-workbook) [in progress].

Measure the soil moisture of a plant, display the value in Domoticz Home Automation System, in a TinkerForge Segment Display 4x7 and TinkerForge RGB LED indicator.

Read more https://github.com/rwbl/domoticz-plugin-soil-moisture-monitor.

I'm trying to implement a code (Python) to get position x y z from IMU Brick 2.0 accelerometer, in live mode.

In the first step, I implemented the rotate accelerometer by quaternion to remove the gravity and rotation of my sensor.

After i integrate directly to have velocity and position :

example :

Vx(k) = Vx(k-1)+Ax(k)*dt

X(k) = X(k-1) + Vx(k)*dt 

Nevertheless, into my accel. data I have an offset.

Somebody would have already implemented this type of code to remove the offset (drift) ? to get the position

I don't know if i must a kalman filter or other....

Thank you

I will continue to update progress and provide a Github repo for schematics and firmware soon. Let me know if you have any questions or can provide any help/ideas/advice. Thanks!

I am trying to connect the tinkerforge thermal imaging bricklet with Matlab's image acquisition toolbox. I was able to run the Matlab example codes and capture thermal image/video, but I want to connect it to the image acquisition toolbox to use some of the advanced features that Matlab can offer. Has anyone tried this before, or could anyone suggest a possible solution?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance

My goal: basically to mount a small "sensor platform" with a couple of bricklets on top of a stepper motor, where the motor shaft is pointed up.  Any suggestions for how to do this with readily available components where I would not have to drill or otherwise machine something?

I have found a 5mm to M3 mounting hub https://www.pololu.com/product/1998, but the M3 holes have odd spacing, so that I would not be able to secure a Makerbeam mounting bracket with more than one screw.  I have looked through other options, but so far nothing has seemed a good match.

Anyway, thanks for any advice.

--Mark

working now on solution (see attached diagram) where I need to modify firmware of Silent Stepper Brick a little bit, for reading Digital Indicator values.

Also Master Brick should be connected to USB port on PC, but appear as virtual COM (RS232), to be able to send and recive simply commands and aswers this way, instead of using API and TCP/IP connection. How to do this?

Also need some simply communication with custom Bricklet via I2C.

Should I use Debug Brick to modify the firmware? Can I use Atmel Studio with AVR Dragon programator for this?

Best regards

Tomáš

Motor_control_diagram.pdf

Just sharing my latest little project. The venerable Pong video game, "TF" style, using the latest OLED displays.

The main display is really tiny for this kind of application, but it's fun to play nevertheless. 

PS. For social media followers, I've also tweeted about this using the #tinkerforge hash.

I m new in this forum and just wanted to know if someone could help me solve a little problem. I wrote a program in visual studio 2015 C++. the program is actually quite simple. it just miss the room's temperature and give it back. I also debugged it and test it from my PC and it works formidably. I wanted to upload it on the Red-Brick and let it be always scheduled so that it will always run, but after the upload it always shows me "Not running, last run exited with an error (exit code: 2) ". I already removed syntaxes like "printf("Press key to exit\n")" and "getchar()". can any one help me to solve this problem?

thanks

Tades

I want to find a censor can commnicate with Tinker brick, can anyone suggest me where can I find it (or any link)

Thanks a lot.

Good fun integrating TinkerForge Bricks into LEGO. Communication is based on MQTT.

Prototype

Control Unit

Circuit

Lookup http://www.rwblinn.de > IoT > Lighthouse58 or for the detailed PDF document http://www.rwblinn.de/iot/lighthouse58.pdf.

IOTAstrip - a LED strip control with Tinkerforge RedBrick. My target is with LED strip to show the state of IOTA network and the price of IOTA token. LED strip will forms the IOTA letters.

IOTA is a new open ledger project for IoT devices. For more information please follow this link:

http://forum.iotatoken.com/t/tinkerforge-and-iota/132

Smartphone Holder = rather handy when developing Apps or watching Newsfeeds and the likes.

thanks & regards

ankesh

find here http://www.rwblinn.de/144k1t2.htm the first Prototype of a simple Weatherstation which I have called WeatherCubeOne. The Cube is not fully ready yet as few tweaks required, but running fine.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi 2 Model B.
  
• TinkerForge: Master Brick, Barometer Bricklet, Temperature Bricklet, Humidity Bricklet.
  
• MakerBeam aluminum profiles.
  

Software

• Domoticz Home Automation Server (http://www.domoticz.com).
  
• TinkerForge Brick Daemon.
  
• B4J App WeatherCubeOne (Developed by the author www.rwblinn.de).