When building IoT applications for a simple application space, it pays to build on top of already working systems. That’s the case for the hardware we’re showing today, the Aludel Lute Relay.
This design started as an experiment for a new form factor to plug into our Aludel Elixir Board. The unit has 4 relays capable of switching 20 amps AC or DC. This unit could be useful in remote physical access (i.e. locks), lighting control, or the application that inspired this design: smart lockers. Let’s dive into how this is built and how someone could use this latest Golioth Solutions Marketplace design to build a business.
New form factor
The Aludel platform generally assumes that you will have a somewhat tall case that can fit two different Mikroelektronika Click Boards into the case and then cover it with our Open Source board called the Aludel Ostentus. The Aludel Elixir is the main processing board and contains an nRF9160 primary processor and cellular modem and an ESP32-C3 secondary modem for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
If I wanted to build custom hardware to work with the Elixir board, I would probably need to make a Click board of my own. But that is somewhat space constrained. Instead, I decided to take the idea of using a PCB as a cover for this form factor (as is the case for the Ostentus) and instead put the customized components on this new ‘front panel’. The result is the Lute form factor, which can be extended beyond the current implementation. Relays are a great proving ground for large industrial-style components that can control large industrial sized machines.
Control Power from Anywhere
This hardware is a great fit for applications where you want to remotely control power. The 4 relays on board and the large 5.08 mm pitch terminal blocks means you can safely pass high currents through the board. The traces on the relay are configured for creepage and clearance required for 240V. The relays being used are marked for 120V, but the datasheet says they are capable of 240V.
This application draws on my own experience building a simple smart locker using Golioth. I built it using an nRF9160-based dev board and then point-to-point wired a bunch of off-the-shelf power controls. It worked great, as the control requirements are low: nothing more than a GPIO is required for output. However, from a manufacturing capability and scaling to a larger fleet of devices, the wiring would have been a horrendous experience. The Lute Relay board codifies the ability to switch power and enables it in a much more compact package. In my case, I was passing 12V through the relays to a set of LED lamps inside the locker and to the solenoid controlling the door latch.
The relays truly are the easy part. The important piece in the system starts from the GPIO (controlling the relays) and goes all the way back to the cloud. The firmware is built on top of Golioth’s Reference Design Template. We trigger the various GPIOs within app_settings.c, which is triggered from the Golioth Settings Service. When we change the relay setting on the console, it gets pushed out from the Golioth service down to the device over CoAP, and then the Golioth Firmware SDK translates the packet and triggers the proper GPIO.
Made for extensibility, not durability
The Lute Form factor, like most of the devices in the Solutions Marketplace, is a starting point, not an off-the-shelf product. We intend for you to take these devices to prove an idea and then modify them for the specifics of your business. You can hire Golioth Solutions Services to help you with that, tap one of our wonderful Design Partners, or take on the task yourself.
What about future Lute boards? Well, the testing of this board has created a great starting point for future designs and applications. If you have one in mind, get in touch via our forum and let us know what you’d like to see us build next.
Today we are highlighting the AL2LOG, a cellular data logger by Golioth Design Partner AL2TECH. This is the latest entry into the Golioth Solutions Marketplace, announced last week. This device is a great way to capture a wide range of input data from an industrial setting, especially when you don’t know every type of measurement you want to take at the start of your project. You can deploy an AL2LOG to your factory floor or rugged environment and start monitoring signals and processing data on the cloud.
The AL2LOG is a general purpose logger
Let’s take a look at some of the specifications and use cases for the AL2LOG.
The case and PCB of the AL2LOG cellular data logger
A range of input options
The name of the game with the AL2LOG is flexiblility. That’s why you can interface it with the following signals from all types of sensors
GPIO
Digital Input
Dry Contact
Pulse Counter
CAN
RS-485
4-20 mA
0-10 V
Industrial users will recognize many of those signal types. Golioth has some Reference Designs that include more bespoke monitors targeted at specific verticals, like the CAN Asset Tracker and the MODBUS (RS-485) Monitor.
When you need to send control signals out into the world, you can do so with a programmable
power output (5 to 12V) for devices downrange of the logger, open drain outputs, as well as a 220VAC smart switch.
The device is powered off of two massive D-cell batteries for a 10 year battery life, but can also be powered from external sources when you want an even longer lifetime (or higher power utilization).
Built for speed, but not high power drain
While this design is based around the nRF9160 LTE-M / GPS / NB-IoT modem, it also relies on a higher speed ADC for advanced data capture. This Ultra Low Power acquisition and logging subsystem utilizes a true 14 bit ADC, and can efficiently capture high resolution data and cache it before sending it back to the Golioth Cloud. Utilizing Golioth’s new Batch Pipeline Destination, it’s super easy to bundle up a slug of readings and send them to the cloud to be unpacked later. Read about how Mike showcased sending data in batches.
Some key points from that case study include how quickly they were able to get up and running using Golioth, and how they get to continually offer new services to their clients by utilizing Golioth Pipelines and OTA.
More Solutions Coming Soon
This is only the second of many solutions in our Golioth Solutions Marketplace. We are excited to share additional work of our Design Partners and Golioth Reference Designs. If you have a solution you’d like to share with Golioth and the world, please get in touch!
https://blog.golioth.io/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/BUILT-ON-GOLIOTH-A-Cellular-Data-Logger-by-AL2TECH.png10801920Chris Gammellhttps://blog.golioth.io/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Golioth_Logo_CoralWhite_RGB-1-320x127.pngChris Gammell2024-09-17 07:27:302024-09-16 17:13:34Built on Golioth: A Cellular Data Logger by AL2TECH
Goiloth is excited to announce Golioth Solutions. Two new capabilities will help businesses to deploy IoT devices in a short period of time:
Golioth Solutions Services
Golioth Solutions Marketplace
A New Service Offering
Golioth Solutions Services solves many of the difficult problems at the beginning of developing an IoT product, namely pushing a fully formed idea out into the world. Golioth Solutions Engineers will help to identify how companies can best deploy the Golioth platform to solve their business needs and deliver a product that captures real-world data and provides consistent insight and control of your devices.
Our Solutions Engineers will work with you to formulate what is required for your particular business use-case and what kind of solution will get you there fastest. This includes hardware, firmware, cloud capabilities, fleet management, and application development. Our Solutions Engineers fill in the gaps where your team needs help. Perhaps you are a cloud software company looking to deploy a hardware device? Solutions Engineers will utilize existing hardware and firmware Solutions to send data up to Golioth and out to the platform of your choosing using Pipelines. What if you’re on the other spectrum and are a hardware company looking to connect custom hardware to the cloud? Our Solutions Engineers can set you up with known working hardware and firmware that you can use as reference while you develop your own custom hardware, while Solution Engineers consult on how data should be hitting the cloud and routing to outside services.
A Marketplace of Solutions
We are also launching Golioth Solutions Marketplace where customers can view existing solutions. These form the basis of “starting points” for many custom projects that Golioth Solutions Services will deliver.
In order to deliver IoT solutions in a short amount of time, we want our Solutions Engineers to have an arsenal of ready-made designs that can be customized to customers needs. This will include our internal Reference Designs as well as designs from Partners. We will continue to add to these designs and highlight them here on the blog when we have a new one available.
Designs from our Partners
The Golioth Solutions Marketplace includes production-grade hardware that has been produced by our Design Partners. The Solution also includes custom firmware and cloud capabilities that are targeted at a particular solution space and vertical application. Each of these designs are built on the Golioth platform and are customizable to specific business needs.
Many of these designs can also be repurposed towards a different vertical, based on the capability contained within the Solution. Our Solutions Engineers know how each of these technologies might fit a new, custom application. Since these solutions are developed by our Design Partners, the same creators of the hardware can also enhance and customize the product to your needs. As customers decide to scale, our Design Partners are well prepared to guide customers through production and productization.
Are you a product development shop interested in having your hardware listed in our Solutions Marketplace? Submit your designs now to start the process.
Introducing the Glassboard Shunt
One of our first Solutions comes from our design partner Glassboard, based out of Indianapolis in the US. The IoT Power Monitoring for Micromobility Solution includes a cellular-connected current shunt. This design is intended to measure battery currents on small vehicles. It works in both directions; measuring current being sourced to motors during motion, as well as charging currents going back into the battery. We recorded a video about this design and how it fits in with Golioth Solutions:
While this is initially targeted at micromobility applications, it’s easy to imagine how this device and starter firmware could be retargeted at a different vertical. One example could be monitoring a DC power source that powers LED lighting for a construction application.
How Golioth Solutions Engineers use designs
Solutions Engineers take input from customers and determine if any of our existing designs (like the Glassboard current shunt) are a good fit for the application at hand. Perhaps there is a new DC current measurement that could benefit from the existing hardware, but it needs to be tweaked to better fit the application space. Our Solutions Engineers first modify and test the firmware to fit the device needs, and then work with the customer to determine where the resulting data will go, and if there are additional needs around visualization or control of the fleet of devices. If the hardware requires some kind of modification, our Solutions Engineers will connect customers with the original designers to discuss the logistics of creating a custom version of the existing hardware.
Golioth Reference Designs
Another source of Golioth Solutions includes our range of Reference Designs, which can be customized and delivered by Golioth Solutions Services. We have been working on and refining Reference Designs for a few years now. These are end-to-end demonstrations of Golioth, built on top of custom hardware.
What about licensing? Well, all Golioth Reference Design Hardware is open source with a very permissive license. Customers can take the underlying hardware to one of our Design Partners and have them modify and extend the capabilities and refine it for production. You will be starting from a solution that is continually tested and can be easily extended using off-the-shelf sensor breakouts. Our Solutions Engineers can get you started extra quickly using the Follow Along Hardware version of these designs, which includes firmware that targets off-the-shelf development boards, in addition to the sensors. You can get started quickly, with no custom hardware required.
New Services + New Marketplace = Quicker time to market
Golioth Solutions and our associated marketplace exists to help users that need an IoT solution for their business, but don’t necessarily have the time or capabilities to build it themselves. We can bootstrap your solution from a sketch on a page to a working IoT device backed by a powerful IoT platform that handles all your data. Once the idea is proven out, we have a well-defined handoff to our Design Partners who can assist building that first device into a fleet of production-ready hardware that you can deploy to the field. You will be prototyping and testing using an IoT platform that is built for scale.
