Re: solar power / openbsd handheld
We have a need for a low power OpenBSD device or handheld that can connect to a small SCADA device (serial or USB) to collect some temperature and voltage data, plus control one light switch, on a remote solar powered wifi repeater tower. Any suggestions on the lowest powered OpenBSD runnable box we can expect to find for such a job, one that we can connect to the repeater by ethernet, or even wireless? Austin it happens i just got a Soekris 4501 3rd hand, set it on the coffee table, and plugged it into a 'Kill A Watt[0]' recently. the KAW said i had the Soekris plugged in for 45 hours and 43 min. during that time i compiled a gopher server (so?!), regenerated some SSH keys, ran MD5 -t a few times, and just generally messed around and configured it over SSH (while concurrently running a serial console). the KAW read 2 watts power draw during normal (mostly idle) use, and peaked at 5 watts when i ran md5 -t. over the 45h43m period the KAW read 0.12kWh drawn. if my math is correct, 120Wh/(45h+(43m/60(m/h))), this suggests it drew ~2.6 watts on average over the entire ~45.72 hour period of what i would call normal usage (and all while gopher serving, thankyouverymuch :p ). [0] http://www.p3international.com/products/special/P4400/P4400-CE.html [1] i should probably note the power supply used is some 'CUI Stack DPD120080-P5' wall wart thing, i have no idea if that's what they normally ship with or not. i would hazard to guess the efficiency of the thing is less than stellar. OpenBSD 4.1-current (GENERIC) #161: Tue May 15 12:32:03 MDT 2007 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC cpu0: AMD Am5x86 W/B 133/160 (AuthenticAMD 486-class) cpu0: FPU real mem = 66678784 (65116K) avail mem = 52084736 (50864K) using 844 buffers containing 3457024 bytes (3376K) of memory mainbus0 (root) bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 20/70/26, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xf7840 pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.0 @ 0xf/0x1 pcibios0: pcibios_get_intr_routing - function not supported pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing information unavailable. pcibios0: PCI bus #0 is the last bus bios0: ROM list: 0xc8000/0x9000 cpu0 at mainbus0 pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios) elansc0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 AMD ElanSC520 PCI rev 0x00: product 0 stepping 0.1, CPU clock 133MHz, reset 40SCP gpio0 at elansc0: 32 pins sis0 at pci0 dev 18 function 0 NS DP83815 10/100 rev 0x00, DP83815D: irq 10, address 00:00:24:c0:xx:xx nsphyter0 at sis0 phy 0: DP83815 10/100 PHY, rev. 1 sis1 at pci0 dev 19 function 0 NS DP83815 10/100 rev 0x00, DP83815D: irq 11, address 00:00:24:c0:xx:xx nsphyter1 at sis1 phy 0: DP83815 10/100 PHY, rev. 1 sis2 at pci0 dev 20 function 0 NS DP83815 10/100 rev 0x00, DP83815D: irq 5, address 00:00:24:c0:xx:xx nsphyter2 at sis2 phy 0: DP83815 10/100 PHY, rev. 1 isa0 at mainbus0 isadma0 at isa0 pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5 pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot) pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard wdc0 at isa0 port 0x1f0/8 irq 14 wd0 at wdc0 channel 0 drive 0: ELITE PRO CF CARD 2GB wd0: 1-sector PIO, LBA, 1983MB, 4061232 sectors wd0(wdc0:0:0): using BIOS timings pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61 midi0 at pcppi0: PC speaker spkr0 at pcppi0 npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: reported by CPUID; using exception 16 pccom0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo pccom0: console pccom1 at isa0 port 0x2f8/8 irq 3: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo biomask f3c5 netmask ffe5 ttymask ffe7 pctr: no performance counters in CPU dkcsum: wd0 matches BIOS drive 0x80 root on wd0a swap on wd0b dump on wd0b ^--there really is no wd0b
Re: solar power / openbsd handheld
On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 01:32:45AM +0200, Siegbert Marschall wrote: Sharp Zaurus with Display off and maybe Midrodrive replaced with a CF should be very low power. uh... you're joking right ? aside from the fact that zaurii are really hard to find in north america and the fact that sharp has discontinued the zaurus, zaurii are not exactly what I would call reliable hardware, especially not in an outdoor deployment scenario. -- Mathieu Sauve-Frankel
solar power / openbsd handheld
We have a need for a low power OpenBSD device or handheld that can connect to a small SCADA device (serial or USB) to collect some temperature and voltage data, plus control one light switch, on a remote solar powered wifi repeater tower. Any suggestions on the lowest powered OpenBSD runnable box we can expect to find for such a job, one that we can connect to the repeater by ethernet, or even wireless? Austin
Re: solar power / openbsd handheld
On 2007/05/22 15:54, Austin Hook wrote: We have a need for a low power OpenBSD device or handheld that can connect to a small SCADA device (serial or USB) to collect some temperature and voltage data, plus control one light switch, on a remote solar powered wifi repeater tower. Soekris 4501 or 4801 would be ideal, they use around 5W and have a fairly flexible DC-DC converter onboard. GPIO lines are supported by gpioctl(8) and easy to control, even from a shell script or cronjob. Have a look at owsbm(4) too.
Re: solar power / openbsd handheld
Hi, We have a need for a low power OpenBSD device or handheld that can connect to a small SCADA device (serial or USB) to collect some temperature and voltage data, plus control one light switch, on a remote solar powered wifi repeater tower. Any suggestions on the lowest powered OpenBSD runnable box we can expect to find for such a job, one that we can connect to the repeater by ethernet, or even wireless? Sharp Zaurus with Display off and maybe Midrodrive replaced with a CF should be very low power. -sm
Re: solar power / openbsd handheld
We have a need for a low power OpenBSD device or handheld that can connect to a small SCADA device (serial or USB) to collect some temperature and voltage data, plus control one light switch, on a remote solar powered wifi repeater tower. Soekris 4501 or 4801 would be ideal, they use around 5W and have a fairly flexible DC-DC converter onboard. GPIO lines are supported by gpioctl(8) and easy to control, even from a shell script or cronjob. Have a look at owsbm(4) too. The Soekris is the fastest and easiest (and likely also the cheapest) device to use. You may have to factor in a different weatherproof enclosure and possibly a temperature-controlled resistive heating element/pad, depending on the installation location and method. The archives of the Soekris mailing lists has a number of references to similar installations.
Re: solar power / openbsd handheld
Thus Austin Hook [EMAIL PROTECTED] spake on Tue, 22 May 2007 15:54:32 -0700 (MST): We have a need for a low power OpenBSD device or handheld that can connect to a small SCADA device (serial or USB) to collect some temperature and voltage data, plus control one light switch, on a remote solar powered wifi repeater tower. Any suggestions on the lowest powered OpenBSD runnable box we can expect to find for such a job, one that we can connect to the repeater by ethernet, or even wireless? Austin Hi, have a look at http://pcengines.ch/alix.htm It's predecessor, WRAP, works still very very well for me as OpenBSD router (for years now); as alix is the next thing to come, I guess the superb outdoor enclosures will be 'ported' for it ;) http://pcengines.ch/case2c1.htm HTH, Timo btw: Mine runs as a way-below 10 Watts SMTP, IMAP, DNS, DHCP server using a MicroDrive ;) -- Hello, he lied. -- Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent
