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Corey Thompson edited this page Oct 2, 2022 · 2 revisions

Get started with the Vfdctl APIs

To get started using the Vfdctl endpoints there are a few steps of setup before the endpoints will be monitored.

Setup the connected devices

  1. Prepare the configuration file
  2. Download a copy of the config.txt from the application's repo on GitHub to use as a template
  3. Place the config.txt at the root of a micro SD card
  4. Setup an MQTT Broker (via Docker)
  5. Install Docker
  6. Ensure the Docker daemon is running the Docker desktop app
  7. Open a terminal / command prompt
  8. Run the command docker run -it --name mqtt --restart unless-stopped -p 1883:1883 eclipse-mosquitto mosquitto -c /mosquitto-no-auth.conf
  9. Find the ip address of your device, this is the IP address of your MQTT Broker Within config.txt update the broker_url to the IP address of your MQTT Broker

Network the devices

  1. Using a managed switch or router, connect the controller via ethernet
  2. On the same network, connect your machine running the MQTT broker
  3. Assign a static IP address to the controller on the same subnet as your MQTT Broker

Set up the Vfdctl controller device

P1AM-100ETH

vfdctl_p1am100_system_overview.pdf

  1. Load the image onto the P1AM-100ETH
  2. Power up the P1AM-100ETH controller via 24V
  3. Clone the git repo to a machine running Arduino IDE
  4. Connect to the P1AM-100ETH controller via micro usb on the machine
  5. Open the app.ino project in Arduino IDE
  6. Select your connected device and download the app to the controller
  7. Load the configuration onto the controller
  8. Within config.txt update the device_mac to your controller's ethernet MAC address (this can be usually be found on a sticker on the controller or its packaging)
  9. Ensure config.txt is located at the root of the micro SD card
  10. Insert the micro SD card into the controller
  11. Power cycle the controller

Important Resources

Platform updates

Please make sure to bookmark the following pages, as they will provide you with important details on API outages, updates, and other news relevant to developers on the platform. Check out our releases to find the latest binaries and a history of all released binaries. Visit the Tulsa Software Repositories to find related open-source codebases. In case of any document conflicts, assume the Vfdctl readme is most accurate.

MQTT reference material

MQTT is extremely flexible and not as rigidly enforced as communications such as RPC or REST communications. This leaves lots of room for one-off implementations if systems are not intentionally designed. For our communications architecture, we have based our topic and payload structures off of the AWS best practices to ensure ultimate usability.

  • Even if not using AWS IoT cloud communications, their MQTT communication patterns are widely applicable
  • A good client GUI like MQTTX or MQTT Explorer makes troubleshooting your system much easier but any app supporting MQTT 3.1.1 communications will suffice
  • Using a IoT Rules Engine such as Node Red, AWS IoT Core, etc is essential to utilizing data with minimal coupling and maximal scalability

Still have questions?

For the questions not covered here or to learn what we're currently working on, visit the Tulsa Software slack channel to review topics, ask questions and learn from others.

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