Pellet bag counter

Trapezz · March 11, 2019, 5:39pm

Hello,

I am building a simple arduino device that will help me count the amount of pellets that I used for my heating. Pellets are packed in bags of 15kg.

On the device I choose how many bags I loaded into my fornace - it can be an integer between -10 and +10 (negative values just to enable the user to correct mistaken previous input).
And then after confirming the number is sent via mqtt… So far so good…

Now I have a question, how to consume this number in Home Assisstant and then how to count the total consumption over month/year…

I have already discovered the Utility meter that could do the second part of the job, but it needs some sort of sensor that consumes this numbers… But among mqtt components I haven’t found the right one.

Thanks for suggestions.

manouille49 · November 25, 2020, 12:26pm

Hi Trapezz

I have the same problem.
Currently I store pellets bags and load them 1 by 1 into my stove.
To track bags used, for the moment I have created a counter of bags left in stock like this:

configuration.yaml

counter:
  compteur_sacs_pellets:
    name: Nbre de sacs en stock
    icon: mdi:bag-personal
    initial: 79
    step: 1

and a button in Lovelace

type: button
entity: counter.compteur_sacs_pellets
show_icon: true
icon_height: 30px
show_name: true
show_state: false
name: +1 sac consommé
hold_action:
  action: none
tap_action:
  action: call-service
  service: counter.decrement
  service_data:
    entity_id: counter.compteur_sacs_pellets

Next step, I’m trying to calculate an average of bags used over 10 or 15 sliding days and then calculate the date until which I could heat up.
For example:
10 bags used between November 1st and November 15th.
That’s 0.66 bags per day.
So if I have 70 bags in stock, I could heat for another 106 days and thus until about the end of February.

If you have ideas to create this…

manouille49 · November 26, 2020, 9:15pm

I worked on this :

screenshot

You must create a button for decreament the counter of bags :

type: button
entity: counter.counter_number_of_bags_in_stock
show_icon: true
icon_height: 30px
show_name: true
show_state: false
name: +1 bag used
tap_action:
  action: call-service
  service: counter.decrement
  service_data:
    entity_id: counter.counter_number_of_bags_in_stock

Next, in configuration.yaml an imput date for the date when you power ON the stove.
I calculate the average of bags since stove power On:

input_datetime:
  stove_start_date:
    name: Start date of MCZ stove
    has_date: true
    has_time: false
    initial: '2020-10-01'

A counter for bags (indicate as initial your pellet bags in stock) :

counter:
  counter_number_of_bags_in_stock:
    name: Number of bags in stock
    icon: mdi:bag-personal
    initial: 79
    step: 1

and sensors :

average_used_bags:
        friendly_name: Average used bags
        value_template: "{{ ((state_attr('counter.counter_number_of_bags_in_stock', 'initial')|float - states('counter.counter_number_of_bags_in_stock')|float) / states('sensor.counter_days_since_power')|float)|round(3) }}"
      number_of_remaining_minutes_of_heat:
        friendly_name: Number of_remaining minutes of heat
        value_template: "{{ ((states('counter.counter_number_of_bags_in_stock')|float / states('sensor.average_used_bags')|float) * 1440)|round(0) }}"
      counter_days_since_power:
        friendly_name: Days since power On
        value_template: '{{ ((as_timestamp(now())-(states.input_datetime.stove_start_date.attributes.timestamp)) | int /60/1440) | round(0) }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'Days'
        entity_id: input_datetime.stove_start_date,sensor.time
      bags_days_left:
        friendly_name: 'Time Remaining'
        value_template: >-
          {%- set time  = states.sensor.number_of_remaining_minutes_of_heat.state | round -%}
          {%- set sep   = '  ' -%}
          {%- set TIME_MAP = {
             'month': (time / 43800) % 12,
              'week': (time / 10080) % 4,
               'day': (time / 1440) % 7,
              'hour': (time / 60) % 24,
          }
          -%}

          {%- for unit, duration in TIME_MAP.items() if duration >= 1 -%}
            {%- if not loop.first -%}
              {{ sep }}
            {%- endif -%}
              
            {{ (duration | string).split('.')[0] }} {{ unit }}

            {%- if duration >= 2 -%}
              s
            {%- endif -%}
          {%- endfor -%}

          {%- if time < 1 -%}
            no stock
          {%- endif -%}

I will check this code during few days.
If you have any improvements to make…

Trapezz · February 5, 2021, 10:37pm

Hello,

sorry for late reply and thank you for your information. Since last post unfortunately I didn’t really managed to tinker with this pellet counter.

The basic Idea I had was not to use Home Assistant directly (on the phone) to click when loading bags into the furnace but to have a dedicated interface near to the furnace that anybody can use when filling up the pellets.

So I built an arduino based device that:

trough display and rotary encoder you can select the number of bags that were loaded -> the value is transmitted via mqtt to HA
monitors the automatic pellet loader to calculate the consumtion - basically it measures voltage on pellet loader and counts miliseconds when the loader is ON. This is regulary send to HA via mqtt too. Here I had hard times to determine the average miliseconds per bag, have to finish this.
monitors the temperature of the water and chimney to determine the furnace status (sometimes it does not turn on properly and goes in alarm state -> so I created HA notification that I have to do a manual intervention)
drives the pumps

I have to properly use the received numbers to properly count pellets useds and pellets still in the furnace.
I will check your implementation if I can use it on my case…

Joao-Sousa-71 · November 29, 2021, 1:32am

@manouille49 Thanks for sharing. I’ve implemented this but made some changes in the sensors mainly on the calculations and added a button that call a script to refill the stock and keeping cumulative calculations.
Here is the sensors code:

        icon_template: mdi:bag-personal-outline
        friendly_name: Used Bags (Total)
        value_template: "{{ state_attr('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock', 'initial') | int - states('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock') | int + 1}}"
      counter_days_since_power:
        icon_template: mdi:hours-24
        friendly_name: Total Usage (days)
        value_template: '{{ (((as_timestamp(now())-(states.input_datetime.stove_start_date.attributes.timestamp)) | int /60/1440)) | round(0,default=none) + 1 }}'
        unit_of_measurement: 'Days'
      average_used_bags:
        icon_template: mdi:bag-personal-off-outline
        friendly_name: Used Bags Usados (Average)
        value_template: "{{ (states('sensor.total_used_bags') | float(0) / states('sensor.counter_days_since_power') | float(0)) | round(3,default=none) }}"
      number_of_remaining_hours_of_heat:
        icon_template: mdi:hours-24
        friendly_name: Remaining time of_heat (hours)
        value_template: "{{ (states('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock') | float(0) / states('sensor.average_used_bags') | float(0) *24) | round(0,default=none) }}"
      bags_days_left:
        icon_template: mdi:timetable
        friendly_name: 'Stock forecast'
        value_template: >-
          {%- set time  = states.sensor.number_of_remaining_hours_of_heat.state | round(0,default=none) -%}
          {%- set sep   = '  ' -%}
          {%- set TIME_MAP = {
             'month': (time // 730), 
             'week': (time % 730) // 168,
             'day': ((time % 730) % 168) // 24,
             'hours': ((time % 730) % 168) % 24,
          } 
          -%}
          {%- if state_attr('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock', 'initial') | int !=  states('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock')| int -%}
            {%- for unit, duration in TIME_MAP.items() if duration >= 1 -%}
              {%- if not loop.first -%}
                {{ sep }}
              {%- endif -%} 
              {{ (duration | string).split('.')[0] }} {{ unit }}
              {%- if duration >= 2 -%}
                s
              {%- endif -%}
            {%- endfor -%}
          {%- endif -%}  
          {%- if state_attr('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock', 'initial') | int ==  states('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock') | int -%}
            No bags used yet to provide forecast
          {%- endif -%}  
          {%- if time < 1 or states('counter.number_of_bags_in_stock') == 0 -%}
            Nao bags in stock
          {%- endif -%}