Implementation of OPC UA on ESP32-EVB

OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is an open, implemented under GPL 2.0 license, machine to machine communication protocol for industrial automation developed by the OPC Foundation.

The OPC UA protocol specification consists of 14 documents for a total of 1250 pages. Due to this complexity, existing implementations are usually incomplete.

This is why we were puzzled to see on Twitter post by Selftronics that they made OPC UA server running on ESP32-EVB!

Here are the details of the implementation, the sources are at GitHub.

Open Source Hardware LIME2-SERVER user manual is uploaded and explains how to assembly and how to install Linux images of popular projects

LIME2-SERVER is Linux server with only 2W consumption, A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 and option for HDD or SSD.

The server has bild-in LiPo battery which allow it to run for hours without external power supply, Gigabit Ethernet connection and power adapter 5V 2A.

Today we uploaded on GitHub the initial version of the user manual which explains how to assembly the boxes in case you didn’t bought it assembled.

Also basic instructions to use Ubuntu Bionic and Debian Buster images we provide.

KODI and NextCloud installation.

Additional info how to build and install Home Assistant, Yunohost, TOR server will be included in the next revision.

BAY-HDD/SDD is easy way to add external storage to LIME and LIME2, now Pioneer-FreedomBox-HSK can have 2000GB external storage in robust enclosure

BAY-HDD-500GB, BAY-HDD-1000GB, BAY-HDD-2000GB and BAY-SSD-512GB are external disks with special bridge board to plug in A20-OLinuXino-LIME and A20-OLinuXino-LIME2 servers providing all necessary connections and power supply for external disk.

It’s plug and play recognizable by Pioneer-FreedomBox-HSK and adds significant amount of storage to the platform.

 

Lime2-SD add on board for second SD card on A20-OLinuXino-LIME2

Lime2-SD is small add on board which snaps on GPIO-1 connector and add second SD card to A20-OLinuxino-LIME2. It doesn’t interference with other parts on the board and do not increase the height.

Why we do this? Because this is an easy way to increase storage for Pioneer-FreedomBox-HSK . What we are preparing to offer soon is upgraded version of the Home Server Kit with 256GB storage made with 2 “disks” x 128GB micro SD cards. For these who already have Pioneer-FreedomBox-HSK they still can upgrade by ordering Lime2-SD .

Note that support in FreedomBox for Lime2-SD is not add, but you can try Lime2-SD with the current Armbian image for LIME2. To enable the Lime2-SD support you also have to add this dts overlay .

 

Olimex.com server maintenance

We have scheduled maintenance for olimex.com server at 2:00 PM PST on Friday, May 24th, 2019. So our site will be down for couple of hours.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

FreedomBox – your private Box of Freedom for Decentralizing the Internet and keeping your privacy away from the Big Brother

We are pleased to announce that Pioneer-FreedomBox Home Server Kit is now in stock.

You can read more about how FreedomBox free open source software project started in the FreedomBox Foundation press release.

FroodomBox software is developing 8 years and got lot of coverage in USA, India, Russia:

• SoftwareFreedom.org
• New York Times
• Wall Street Journal
• India Times
• Novaya Gazeta 2011
• Novaya Gazeta 2019

Olimex’s OLinuXino Open Source Hardware Linux Single Board Computers are natural match for FreedomBox Free Open Source Software.

We are very proud that we have been selected by FreedomBox Foundation for Hardware manufacturing partner of Pioneer-FreedomBox Home Server Kit.

What makes OLinuXino LIME2 good platform for Home Server Kit is:

• The Low Power ARM Dual core Cortex-A7 processor running blob free mainline Linux;
• Native SATA interface for connecting external SATA HDDs with power supply backup;
• LiPo battery UPS power backup supply with Power Management Unit and Stepp Up convertors which allow Pioneer-FreedomBox-HSK to run 4-5 hours on battery;
• Metal enclosure;
• power supply adapter with plug adapters for EU, US, UK power supply sockets;
• 32GB micro SD-card for file storage;

What do you get with FreedomBox is:

• Tor browser
• Private encrypted file sharing
• Private encrypted chat
• Peer to Peer file sharing
• Voice chat
• Web proxy
• Virtual Private Network
• IRC client
• Private Calendar and Address book
• File synchronization
• Distributed File Storage
• Your own hosted Wiki and Blog

All these features are made configurable with simple mouse click:

 

New product in stock air/water normal closed magnetic valve driven with 12V with quick connect for 6 mm sleeve

We have new product in stock:

WATER-VALVE-6-5MM-12VDC is electro-magnetic valve with normal closed path. It’s driven with 12VDC/0.54A and when power supply is applied opens the valve. It has quick connect for 6 mm sleeves and makes water/air pipes attachment and dis-attachment easy. The valve can work with 0-0.8MPa (0-8 bar, 0-116 psi, 0-7.9 atm) pressure of the air or water.

With this valve and ESP32-EVB you can make IoT watering system, which allow you to switch on and off water supply to your garden or plants via internet.

The demo code is written with Arduino for ESP32-EVB and sources are at Github.

When the server is run you can view the status in your local network:

You view the current time and with arrows can adjust time when the watering to start or stop. You can also directly drive your valve with ON and OFF buttons.

 

ESP32-EVB now get much better

ESP32-EVB revision A was made quick and has too many errors 🙂 some were due to the non very clear documentation, like that we assumed that all ports could have internal pull-ups but  when we try to write the software we found that the GPIOs we used for the buttons has no such. Other were done by our engineer negligence.

We had small 100 pcs series from Revision A, but after all issues we encounter just decided to trash it and just move forward to revision B.

Now in Revision B all interfaces are tested and confirmed to work fine 🙂

What we keep:

1. Two relays 250VAC/10A
2. LiPo charger which allow ESP32 to work without external power supply
3. Reset and User button
4. micro SD card
5. UEXT connector to add temperature, humidity, etc sensors
6. GPIO with all signals available on 0.1″ proto friendly step connector

What we add:

1. USB connector now is also used for automatic programming of ESP32 so no need for external serial cable, with DTR and RTS bootloader mode is entering automatically
2. Ethernet now is correctly wired and works 🙂
3. We were surprised to read ESP32 has CAN and we try and it works great, so in the new revision we add CAN driver
4. We add Infrared transmitter and receiver, so now you can control all your home appliances with IR control like TVs, VCRs, Air conditioners, and everything else with IR control

What we removed:

1. second button, with all above peripherals the ESP32-WROOM-32 module resources are gone, there is no single GPIO unused left

Revision B schematic can be reviewed here . The PCB is now routing.

Color TFT 2.8″ LCD 320×240 pixel display board with UEXT compatible to ESP32-EVB is also coming soon.

REDS.box – Home cloud server based on A20-OLinuXino-LIME on Kickstarter

REDS.box is new Kickstarter project which use A20-OLinuXino-LIME to create your own home server to keep your files safe and available on the net.

People who use a cloud app these days have to store their data on servers of the companies that provide the app. Without knowing what will happen to your data and who else has access to it, you are asked to trust those companies – which means you are losing control over your data and privacy!

With REDS.box you know exactly where your files are – on your own server where only you have the access rights.

 

A20-OLinuXino-LIME server with 320GB HDD works on LiPo battery over 6 hours

We have server rack with several x86 servers running Linux with our work file repositories, the ERP and etc.

They are quite power hungry as lot of HDDs are connected to them in RAID mirrors to prevent data loss.

We are located in industrial area and power supply glitches are not uncommon, specially during the winter.

To keep the servers alive during power downs, we had to buy expensive 2000 EUR UPS, which actually keep them no more than 20-30 minutes up when power is down, so basically just to allow you 10-15 minutes to finish your work and then to shut them down properly before the battery is drained.

This UPS has lead-acid batteries inside which has to be changed every 3 years and cost almost as much as the UPS itself.

Initially we kept our all Olinuxino Linux images on Gdrive, but there were few issues with this, the images grew to many Gigabytes, and Gdrive start to restrict the access to the files after some limits were reach, so we decided to host these images by us on torrent. We decided to make separate server for this due to security reasons, we just wanted to keep our local network private and to allow external access only to this isolated server which we access also from outside like other users.

To keep it as low power as possible we setup one A20-LIME + HDD320GB + 6600mAh LiPo battery. This configuration works well several years already.

Yesterday our power supply provider EVN warned us that they will change mains high voltage cables in our area and Olimex will have power supply cut from 9.00 to 15.00, so we had to take day off.

We came today and sure we found all x86 servers down, but to our surprise the LIME with the HDD was working fine all these 6 hours of power blackout and didn’t shut down!

We know that with 6600mAh battery the LIME will last at least 10 hours as it uses 1.5-2W, but the HDD is rated 5W (5V/1A), so we were expecting less time stand alone operation.

It was good surprise to see that actual consumption is less, maybe the HDD enters stand-by mode when not used?