Particle.io in Canada?

As I feel alone in the wilderness I wondered if there any other Particle.io developers/enthusiasts/makers in Canada? I am in Toronto but don’t hold that against me please… LOL

Looking forward to hearing about the work of others and to share learning and experience.

eh?,
philly

Hey Philip,
Nice talking to you.
I’m in Montreal. I promise I will not hold your place of living against you.

We are not alone! There are others around… let’s give them a chance to see this post.

Having fun with Particle on my personal projects and otherwise.
And you?
Gustavo.

@phillycheeseman I’m in Ottawa!

Bonjour Gustavo,

So nice to know there are others out there… actually I live on Toronto Island which is a world away from the city though only 15 minutes by Ferry across the harbour.

I’m puttering on several projects I hope to turn into real work. I’ve built a capacitance water level sensor with a Boron and Chip’s Carrier Board (see community postings) in a. custom 3D printed case. I am applying for a grant to deploy 101 Flood Dog sensors to monitor ground, surface and lake Ontario water levels across the Islands.

As you may know in 2017 & 2019 we both experienced flooding and Montreal was very much at risk I remember. Living on an Island we were surrounded by water and I wanted to at least know what was coming. So I started to build devices to monitor water etc. This year we may very well experience low water - and that’s important to know too!

I’m doing a bunch more stuff with Particle but Flood Dog has taken much of time lately.

Et vous?

salut,
philly

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Hey Ottawa! How are things in the nations capital?

philly

@phillycheeseman waiting for COVID and winter to be over :roll_eyes:

As an Elite/MVP, I get to test a lot of stuff for Particle which keeps me busy. I am working on asset tracking as well though no Particle products just yet.

Salut,
No way Phil! Toronto Island looks like a very nice place to live. In Toronto but not in Toronto. Lovely, lovely.

Je n’ai pas des produits encore, je cherche des idees, je cherche, mais rien encore.

In the meantime, I have fun thinking and automating the things I can/have the time around the house and oftentimes I publish the results on Hackster:
https://www.hackster.io/gusgonnet

Yeah, flood is a risk all over I am also, living on an island has its downsides.

How is your project Flood Dog coming along?

I also think Chip’s Carrier Board is amazing.

Thanks for linking your hackster.io site - it gives me ideas on how to sum up the work I’ve done so far. I have a few gadgets like these also and the hackster format for displaying the work looks great.

“Flood Dog” and my other projects “Floor Dog” (monitoring spaces for movement to track people in restaurants during Covid) and “Float Dog” (a system for monitoring and controlling my boat!) all feel like great ideas but now I gotta figure out to bring any of this to market. I am too old to play the VC game (tried that when I was younger and it almost killed me) and I’ve gotten over the need to rule an empire so maybe developing solutions for non-profits is a good use of time…

Chips carrier board is very useful. The watchdog timer has not let me down in the 6 months of testing in a remote storage garage I monitor. It should almost be incorporated right onto the Boron.

I’ll be using solar for Flood Dog so the carrier board helps there too. Chip walked me through the power system to help me understand the voltage regulators and caps etc. on the board - thanks Chip.

I was just looking at your site and noticed Bluz – looks really interesting - thoughts??

oh that's great to hear!

oh Bluz, I loved it, it closed shop when the Xenons were announced... I still have few around the house.

happy to hear that it failed! :slight_smile:

that would be very cool.

have a nice weekend, Philip!

Nice to see people from Canada, hello hello!

I’m sure there will be a good amount that might never see this post :frowning:

I’m in Toronto and my most significant project is with an Electron. I have an off-grid property (cell does reach, barely) and the device measures the temperature, voltage every hour (this gets sent depending on power levels every 8 hours or once a day) and also sends me a picture every morning using a TTL cam from Adafruit.

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Iv4n,

Thanks for this add to the thread. I am on the edge of my chair wanting to know how you did the TTL camera and uploaded it to… well anywhere. I have yet to crack the photo sending from an electron – can you please share how you did this?

philly

Calgary AB here…using Particle for remote security ( doors, motion, fire etc…) with solar and even Satellite if no cell signal available

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Of course, for reference, I’m using this specific camera: Weatherproof TTL Serial JPEG Camera with NTSC Video and IR LEDs : ID 613 : $54.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

I’m using the TX and RX ports on the electron and for the code there are a good amount of code samples online, including the Adafruit’s tutorial library in the link of the product. I’m using the TCPClient to send packets of 1024 bytes of the image to a personal webserver that has a PHP script that receives them and saves it, the webserver sees it as a simple request with an image uploaded in the body of to the request.

That’s high level how it works, if you want any more details in an area in specific let me know!

pic

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Hey Steward!
How did you achieve satellite?
Cheers

There’s a Iridium VAR unit that works well but is a little $$$, look for “rockblock”

Or with less features and less $$$ the global star smartone range is pretty solid.

Either one requires a subscription and set up.

The iridium easy to use but expensive…

Global star hard to set up but cheap…

Stewart

Magchecks Explosives Applications Ltd.

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Magchecks, this is brilliant info. This would be awesome for boats to transmit sensor data. OK I’m thinking about my small 25’ sailboat…

Iv4n

So I’m on my way this morning to creatroninc.com store to buy a TTL camera. I have several Pi cameras - not the same I guess?

I want to monitor my house which is under major construction. Currently I am using an AssetTracker v2 with an Electron to measure temp under then house so the pipes don’t freeze. I do have a Boron and an Argon but no wifi access…

So I’m pondering how to send the TTL image (assuming I am able to code that far LOL) to the Interwebs? Apart from the Satellite option could I take a photo with a Boron and send it via cellular to Dropbox or a php script on my server?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
philly

I cant comment on the camera issue. The satellite details I can.

The Iridium RockBlock(RockBLOCK 9603 | Rock Seven) unit has no GPS , only sends serial data and you pay per message, I forget the max # of bytes. There’s a line rental fee as well. Easy to use as there’s an Arduino Lib for it already.

The Smartone C (SmartOne C | Globalstar CA) has GPS with motion detection, geofencing ect. & two dry contact inputs that will trigger a packet.
You need to either buy from an VAR ( value added reseller) or set yourself up as one.

It also has a serial port and send custom messages from your Boron’s or Argon’s serial port if no cell or wifi is available,
Note: It uses CRC and the result can be forwarded to an email or http post endpoint.
The packet is HEX and many bytes and with the exception of the serial data ( if any) need to be broken into binary bits for decoding so it is a beast to set up

I was able to grind all the status bits and serial data out into usable data using Losant(https://www.losant.com/).

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very good info Stewart, thank you!