I have some microprocessors with temperature humidity sensors in out of the way locations.
My question is does anyone know of a good cheap mini computer to replace a pi that does not put the wireless to sleep or hang very often. The alternatives I have looked at are all way over specked and pricy and I have no experience of anything apart from the pi. It would be nice to have some GPIO pins so I could attach a sensor to it as well. If you need more information please read below.
Currently they connect wirelessly to a raspberry Pi every 10min, send the readings to the pi on command and go to sleep for 9min and the process is repeated.
The pi saves the data into a file using python and displays a webpage showing the results using php and Jquery.
The problem with this is the pi; it randomly goes to sleep and after a week or so tends to hang and needs re booting.
I was looking to cut the pi out of the loop and save the data on the microprocessor but this opens a can of worms as I need a time stamp. I was going to connect to a NTP server every time the microprossor took a reading but this could get my IP blocked for over using the NTP server. The microprocessor can not save the time in deep sleep mode but I could do some calculations and guesstimate the time. I could install a RTC and reset the time once a day from an NTP server but this is all getting a bit messy as I still have to get the file to store on the PC now.
I don’t know about alternatives, but we did find that the power adapters that come with the Pi are utter crap. Since we replaced them with new proper power adapters they got a lot more stable. Maybe that might help for you as well.
I have just checked the PSU I have on the website I brought it from and it is “no longer stocked”; is marked up for a Pi 1 & 2 and is 2A. I have a 3 and the one recommended on the site for a 3 is 2.5A They were not “official” Pi PSU’s but were linked to the Pi.
Although the pi is not currently in an enclosure I wonder if it is worth getting a heatsink kit?
When users started getting their Raspberry Pi 3 kits and trying them out, there many issues. Some of the devices began to heat up. Others froze or restarted in the middle of running a program. The wireless internet connections would have a weak signal or experience drop outs. Many brilliant minds puzzled over the problem to figure out what the issue could be. It turned out the solution was actually quite simple: People were using the wrong power supplies.
While the Raspberry Pi 2 might need up to 2A of current, the Pi3 always requires 2.5A. But this is not entirely correct. If you use a power supply designed for the Pi2, then your device will not work correctly.