The Queen of Green

Last Thursday (October 27th) Lindsay Coulter, David Suzuki‘s Queen of Green spoke at BCIT. She presented discussion and tips on how to turn a home into a healthy and sustainable environment. Some of her tips include:

• avoid canned foods, the can contains a BPA lining;
• if you want people in the office to throw out less garbage, label the garbage can “landfill”;
• the “Christmas shrimp ring” is one of the worst things to eat this holiday season;
• when buying products think of their “end of life” , e.g. silicon (currently) cannot be recycled;
• and there was so much more (you had to be there).

Some tips I already new about, but others where an eye opener. She also talked about the benefits of forest bathing, and idea that came out of Japan.

On another note: David Suzuki just finished airing an interesting 3 part series on nano technology on CBC. You should check out The Nano Revolution: Will Nano Save the Planet? Part 3 talks about how nano technology has the potential to clean up the environmental mess we have created.

Related articles

• BCIT- Big Info Session Nov 2 (tamanawisgtp.wordpress.com)
• Forest Bathing (marksdailyapple.com)

Wire Cabinet Finished

Well I have been very busy with course work. I though I would post a quick update.

I have finally finished reorganizing my wiring cabinet and I now have it jam-packed with all sort of equipment. As seen on the right.

I also stated the Arduino Power Meter Reader (APMR) project page which I will slowly add information to in the coming weeks. I will also be posting the source code on GitHub in the next couple of days. This will be released as an open source project.

Related articles

• Security system working with mControl via NPort (eco-sustain.org)

A picture of William Deverell, Stephen Makonin, and Buzz Holling (from left to right)

Last night I was privileged to be invited to a dialog sponsored by SFUs Burnaby Mountain College called Are We Just a Bunch of Ecopaths? A Dialogue on Our Environmental Paradox. William Deverell (famous author) and Buzz Holling (eco-complexity scientist) were the honourary guess. Elisibeth May (Green Party Leader) was also invited but could not attend. Burnaby Mountain College is a project that brings together visiting scholars, postdocs and graduate students from all the different SFU schools in to on common place for discussion and debate. This interdisciplinary forum allows for the exchange of ideas and for graduate students to meet others outside their own school.

It was very inspiring hearing Bill and Buzz talk about how we are living in a paradox. A very interesting discussion point postulated on the idea of  “media fair and equal coverage”, this has caused special interest groups to refute scientific fact without any credible evidence. Bill approached his work with passion and activism while Buzz uses his sense of calm curiosity. Both gentlemen have different approaches to their work but have the same goal; change the attitudes of people so that our planet can sustain human and other species, not just this generation but all future generations. The discussion and exchange of ideas was broad, but all were connected.

I did a search for the definition of “echpath” on the web. Urban Dictionary came up with two definitions:

1. A person so obsessed with “environmentalism” and “being green” that they deem any sort of infraction against their misguided mindset as the ultimate sin. Possessed of a gigantic “holier than thou” attitude. Were this type of person given a choice between cutting down a tree and strangling a newborn baby…well, sorry baby!
2. Someone who uses the environment in a destructive fashion purely for their own gratification without regard for the common good of life on earth. These people have no sense of remorse or guilt or remorse about their destructive impact on the environment. Ecopathism is a personality disorder much like sociopathism.

It is interesting that there would be these two contrary definition… perhaps here lies part of the paradox…

Related articles

• Bucks: Friday Reading: Embracing Energy Conservation (bucks.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Going Green: Energy Conservation During Record-Breaking Heat (blogsouthwest.com)
• eeS Group explores Energy Efficiency vs. Energy Conservation (ees2001.wordpress.com)

I spent the last couple of weeks figuring out how my HVAC system is wired. This took some time because there where a different amount of terminals with different labels (e.g. my system labels W2 as X2, and not needed). The colouring of the wires was also different. I cautiously documented the current wiring scheme and the new wiring scheme with my new IMT550w installed. I then talked to Proliphix Support and they worked with me to come up with the right wiring scheme. Proliphix has one of the best support departments. Mark, from Proliphix Support, was knowledgeable and responded quickly to all my emails–what more could I ask for. For those of you who are interested in seeing the before and after diagram of my HVAC wiring take a look at my HVAC Wiring Scheme document.

What I like about the IMT550w is:

1. I can read and change setting from my browser, making it easier to set up schedules;
2. I can install additional indoor temperature sensors, providing more comfort and energy efficiency;
3. the temperature sensors that go with the thermostat (need to order separately) are more accurate than the ACONT802;
4. the thermostat firmware can be updated with new functionality.

Related articles

• Installing mControl v3 (eco-sustain.org)

In my opinion, there are 2 basic data types that 99% of all sensors and actuators use (the other 1% in have not seen yet):

1. a relay, like on/off, 1/0, yes/no, open/closed, or high/low;
2. or, a setpoint, like a scale or discrete value (e.g. the temperature, the light level).

With sensors you can read these values and with actuators you can set these values. When it comes to reading sensors, there are 2 ways that sensors can be read, and this depends on the function of the sensor:

1. continuous and periodic set interval, meters and environmental sensors (temperature, light) are typical examples of this;
2. or, event triggered, PIR motion and door/window contacts are typical examples.

An example of how you can read sensors and set actuators would be to trigger a furnace to heat a room. You might place a temperature sensor in a room that is connected to micro-controller or MCU (e.g. an Arduino). The MCU would continuous read a discrete value from the temperature sensor, say once every second. The MCU could also be connected to the furnace (the actuator), say via a relay interface. We then program into the MCU the simple command, “when the temperature is under 21°C set the furnace relay to on, and when the temperature is over 21.5°C set the furnace relay to off”. Note: setting the furnace relay to on would turn the furnace on, and 21°C would be considered a setpoint.

Now if you wanted to store sensor data in a database the most basic table you could create that would store any kind of reading would be:

• the sensor name or ID, this is a unique value and a way to identify one sensor from another;
• the date and time of the reading, it is best to store this in UTC or GMT to avoid daylight savings time change issues;
• the periodic value, the amount since the last periodic reading;
• the instantaneous value, what the sensor’s reading is now.

So what is this periodic value, instantaneous value thing? When and how do I use them? Good questions, I am glad you asked! If we look at power meters, the periodic value would be the amount of Wh (watt-hours) used since the last reading and the instantaneous value would be in W (watts) for the current power level. With temperature sensors there would be no periodic value and the instantaneous value would be the current temperature (in °C, °F, or °K).

I may have more to add later…

In the next couple of weeks I will be posting more information on:

• how to create a meter enclosure for your smart/revenue meter;
• how to start writing mControl drivers;
• a project page on how to create you own Arduino power meter reader (the APMR project), that uses a real-time clock (RTC) and RS485/MODBUS.

One thing to note is that I am trying to get the “DSC PS” driver in mControl modified. My security system has 4 partitions and the driver, in its current form,  only support 2.

Related articles

• Installing mControl v3 (eco-sustain.org)
• mControl Device Drivers (eco-sustain.org)

Related articles

• Insteon communication issues (eco-sustain.org)

!!! PowerLinc possible data loss: 0x02 not found at beginning of data
!!! PowerLinc communication error - NAK received (B)
!!! PowerLinc possible data loss: 0x02 not found at beginning of data

And the device summary shows a lot of “reachable=false, hops=3″ which is not good. If I change where the Insteom PLM is plugged in then I get somewhat better results. Looks like I need to:

1. couple the phases with a SignaLinc hardwired phase coupler;
2. a filter out any noise from my computer UPS with a 10A FilterLinc.

Hopefully this will do the trick. I have ordered the equipment and will update you on how I resolve this issue…

The University of British Columbia is Celebrating CIRS and Accelerating Sustainability November 3 to 5. This should make for an interesting conference. “It will explore the ways in which we can advance debates, technologies, discoveries, and instruction that support a sustainable future, and will celebrate the opening of CIRS” (as quoted from their invite email). I just registered, see you there!