FarmBot Software for the Raspberry Pi 3

The "brains" of Farmbot. Responsible for receiving the commands from the browser or the FarmBot API. It executes them and reports back the results to any subscribed user(s).

First Time Installation

If you are setting up your FarmBot for the first time, download the latest FarmBot OS .img file here.

Windows users

• Download Win32 Disk Imager
• Select the .img file you downloaded
• Select your sdcard's drive letter
• Click write

Linux / OSX / UNIX

• dd if=img_file of=/dev/sdX
• where img_file is the path to you .img file, and X is your device's drive letter.

Running

0. Plug your SD Card into your RPi3
1. Plug your Arduino into your RPi3
2. Plug your power into your RPi3
3. From a WiFi enabled device*, search for the SSID FarmbotConfigurator
4. Connect to that and open a web browser to http://192.168.24.1/
5. Follow the on screen instructions to configure your FarmBot. Once you save your configuration FarmBot will connect to your home WiFi network and to the FarmBot web application.

* If you are using a smartphone you may need to disable cellular data to allow your phone's browser to connect to the configurator.

Updating the firmware

To update the firmware on the Raspberry Pi and the Arduino, simply use the "update" buttons on the web application. There is no need to reinstall the entire OS.

Issues

Please read through the FAQ. If you don't see what you need please by all means open a Github Issue!

Building / Development (for developers only)

Technical Stuff

• Written in Elixir using Nerves Project.
• Device status info such as X,Y,Z and calibration data is stored on the Data partition Nerves allows.
• Backups to the cloud provided by Farmbot API
• Messaging happens via MQTT

Building

You need Linux to build Linux.. Windows is not supported. Bash for Windows and Cygwin will not work. A VM or dual boot environment will work. So with that rant out of the way, and ready for revision here are the steps to build:

• Install Elixir and Erlang. (installer script)
• Install Nerves and all related dependencies.
• clone this repo. git clone https://github.com/FarmBot/farmbot-raspberry-pi-controller.git
• cd farmbot-raspberry-pi-controller.
• Insert an sdcard into your development machine and run:

MIX_ENV=prod mix deps.get
MIX_ENV=prod mix firmware
MIX_ENV=prod mix firmware.burn

You can also run locally (not on an RPI3- Windows is supported for this):

export MIX_ENV=dev
rm -rf _deps build _images
mix deps.get
iex -S mix

You should only need to do the first two commands once.

Running Tests

There aren't a lot of tests, but they do exist and can be run by executing the following:

MIX_ENV=test mix deps.get
mix test --no-start

Make sure to have the --no-start in there. Otherwise it will try to start the supervision tree, and tests will be broken and what not.

Debugging on hardware

The Raspberry Pi will boot up with an Iex console on the hardware UART. If you need to debug something this is the easiest to get too.

If you do not have a 3.3v FTDI cable, you can build the firmware with the console on HDMI. In the erlinit.config file change -c ttyS0 to -c ttyS1. This requires a usb mouse, keyboard and monitor into your pi.

Development Tips

You can connect IEx to the running pi by running iex --name console@localhost --remsh farmbot@<FARMBOT IP ADDRESS> --cookie democookie.

Debug message still only will print to UART or HDMI (whichever you have configured)

If you frequently build the firmware, removing the sdcard and writing the build every time gets pretty old. You can upload firmware to an already running farmbot one of two ways after you run a successful mix firmware 0. You can upload the image to the pi using CURL or similar. curl -T _images/rpi3/fw.fw "http://$RPI_IP_ADDRESS:8988/firmware" -H "Content-Type: application/x-firmware" -H "X-Reboot: true" 0. Or you can host the .fw file on your pc using a webserver ie npm install serve and download it from the pi.This should be ran ON THE PI ITSELF Downloader.download_and_install_update("http://<DEV_PC_IP_ADDRESS>/WHEREVER YOUR FILE IS")

Building for production

Major version change

you will have to do one of two things: 0. Do a fresh clone of this repo. (prefered) 0. Clean everything out with something along the lines of rm -rf _build deps _images rel/fw

Then follow these steps then follow the steps for a minor version.

export MIX_ENV=prod
mix deps.get

this will generate a .fw file in the images dir. this will be an update file. A raw image file is then generated from this file

Minor Version

export MIX_ENV=prod
mix firmware
cd _images/rpi3/
fwup -a -d firmware.img -i fw.fw -t complete

These two files should be put into the github release. If someone would like to write a Mix Task for this it'd be much appreciated.

Want to Help?

Low Hanging Fruit