Arlec PCTH01HA - Bunnings - CB3S BK7231N

359r 993 11

Reply Cool? Ranking DIY | New topic

Notify about new articles

Helpful post? (+1)

#1 06 Jan 2023 21:37

First post, hope this is useful, see topic here also as ByteMangler added some i2c info

https://github.com/openshwprojects/OpenBK7231T_App/issues/584

Unit is from Bunnings here in Aus, has power monitoring and temp/humidity, more on that later, first some pics:

https://grid-connect.com.au/smart-home-products/climate/

Seems to be welded shut mainly in corners, few bashes with rubber mallet (ok gentle whacks!) and spudger and case came open, no damage, just go easy is my input

Board and chips:

In terms of flashing, tried a few times with windows version before reading comments that for the N version, python is the better way.

Loaded up ras pi with spare sd card, raspbian lite installed and using python method, worked straight away. No desoldering any chips needed, just directly soldered jumpers to the chip vcc, gnd, rx and tx - all to cheap generic usb to serial dongle.

My command was this, renamed the downloaded firmware to file.bin for easier typing:

sudo python3 uartprogram /home/pi/file.bin --unprotect --startaddr 0x0 -d /dev/ttyUSB0 -w

That's it, bang straight away it came up with open access point, added wifi credentials, up and running in web ui, fantastic!

P8 Relay
P7 Button_n
P6 LED
P9 SCL
P14 SDA

P26 BL0937 CF1
P24 BL0937 CF
ADC3 BL0937SEL

Linked up to HA via mqtt and works great for relay and power readings from 937 chip.

Outstanding is only the i2c CHT8305 chip data to get linked up for temp/hum

See the above github link for more chatter or any posts after this.

Edit: The temp/hum sensor sits in a nice, somewhat isolated compartment so it might be useful!..

Hope this helps, thanks to the OpenBk team

Cool? Ranking DIY
About Author
359r 359r

Level 2
Offline

Joined: 28 Dec 2022

Posts: 2

Posts rating: 1

Points: 125
359r wrote 2 posts with rating 1. Been with us since 2022 year.
#2 06 Jan 2023 23:22

p.kaczmarek2 p.kaczmarek2

Moderator Smart Home

Helpful post? (0)

#2 06 Jan 2023 23:22

Nice, I didn't even know there such kinds of devices. This is also interesting:
359r wrote:

P9 SCL
P14 SDA

BK7231 has two hardware I2C ports and they are already working in OpenBeken.
I2C1 is P20/P21:

I2C2 is P0/P1:

P9 is not a hardware I2C..

That means we need a software I2C... of course assuming that the target chip is using a non-modified I2C protocol... I will check this soon
#3 07 Jan 2023 00:48

359r 359r

Level 2

Topic author Helpful post? (0)

#3 07 Jan 2023 00:48

Awesome, thanks for the reply. The plug is currently monitoring the dishwasher, once it finishes, I'll unplug and double check the pins with meter. Will update this post in around an hour or so, cheers

Edit time, confirmed, P9 SCL and P14 SDA

Added after 1 [hours] 21 [minutes]:
#4 10 Jan 2023 01:52

p.kaczmarek2 p.kaczmarek2

Moderator Smart Home

Helpful post? (0)

#4 10 Jan 2023 01:52

Thanks to our contributor, a simple CHT8305 driver has been added.
USAGE:
- select CLK pin
- select data pin
- save pins
- for data pin, select two channels to store temperature and humidity (not the same channel! Two different ones...):

Please try it out.
#5 07 Apr 2023 11:59

tonyb62 tonyb62

Level 6

Helpful post? (+1)

#5 07 Apr 2023 11:59

I found the information for this plug-in switch to be buried, so.
This is the current working config i have running as of April 2023, on the latest release of OpenBK; 1.15.638

P6 - LED_n - 0
P7 - Btn - 0
P8 - Rel - 0
P9 - CHT8305_SCK
P14 - CHT8305_SDA - 1 - 2
P23 - BL0937SEL
P24 - BL0937CF
P26 - BL0937CF1

Cheers for the effort involved it making it work.
#6 07 Apr 2023 12:21

p.kaczmarek2 p.kaczmarek2

Moderator Smart Home

Helpful post? (0)

#6 07 Apr 2023 12:21

Thank you, I will paste it into the online templates list, but please provide it in JSON format (copy template from Web Application)
#7 07 Apr 2023 13:39

tonyb62 tonyb62

Level 6

Helpful post? (0)

#7 07 Apr 2023 13:39

Complete Noob to this but (i'm assuming here) what do you need to add to the home assistant config to have the temp and humidity sensors show in home assistant?
Currently have;

Code: yaml
Log in, to see the code

Cheers.

Added after 2 [minutes]:

>>20529048
Code: json
Log in, to see the code

Will remember for next time.
#8 17 May 2023 13:31

tonyb62 tonyb62

Level 6

Helpful post? (0)

#8 17 May 2023 13:31

Spent some time on this device and have found this mqtt config to display the temp and humidity sensors in home assistant, contained in this device.
If you see any issues please let me know, I dont' know yaml and this is a copy and past that i have found works.

Code: yaml
Log in, to see the code
#9 17 May 2023 14:01

p.kaczmarek2 p.kaczmarek2

Moderator Smart Home

Helpful post? (+1)

#9 17 May 2023 14:01

Hey @tonyb62 , I apologize for the slow reply. It's hard to check entire forum when I'm also working on OBK firmware and on our youtube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/@elektrodacom

Good job figuring that out, but I will add one more note here: you can also use home assistant discovery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkcspey25V4&ab_channel=Elektrodacom
This will work as long as you set channel type of given channel to, for example, temperature, or humidity, etc.
For simple devices and drivers, for Relays, etc, it also works even without setting channel type.
You can do it on Web App:

That way you can, for example, use DHT11 with OpenBeken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEjOPuYd3CE&ab_channel=Elektrodacom

So, in general, your YAML method is of course good, but we also have Hass Discovery, as I said above.

Let me know if you have any other questions or feature requests, I'll be happy to help
#10 23 May 2023 15:11

tonyb62 tonyb62

Level 6

Helpful post? (0)

#10 23 May 2023 15:11

p.kaczmarek2 wrote:
Hey @tonyb62 , I apologize for the slow reply. It's hard to check entire forum when I'm also working on OBK firmware and on our youtube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/@elektrodacom

Good job figuring that out, but I will add one more note here: you can also use home assistant discovery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkcspey25V4&ab_channel=Elektrodacom
This will work as long as you set channel type of given channel to, for example, temperature, or humidity, etc.
For simple devices and drivers, for Relays, etc, it also works even without setting channel type.
You can do it on Web App:

That way you can, for example, use DHT11 with OpenBeken:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEjOPuYd3CE&ab_channel=Elektrodacom

So, in general, your YAML method is of course good, but we also have Hass Discovery, as I said above.

Let me know if you have any other questions or feature requests, I'll be happy to help

Yes I need to watch more of your youtube videos.

I've found the yaml method doesn't stay in the Homeassistant tab and needs to be entered each time additionally, which is an issues when fiddling with the device, but thankyou for pointing out the HASS discovery method.
Im now using it on this device because of its persistence and easy of use.

Cheers.
#11 23 May 2023 17:07

p.kaczmarek2 p.kaczmarek2

Moderator Smart Home

Helpful post? (0)

#11 23 May 2023 17:07

tonyb62 wrote:

I've found the yaml method doesn't stay in the Homeassistant tab and needs to be entered each time additionally, which is an issues when fiddling with the device

Do you mean the autogenerated YAML code in OBK? Well, it should just give you a quick start, not a final config. You should fiddle with code in Home Assistant configuration.yaml, which is kept as long as you don't delete it.
#12 23 May 2023 23:03

tonyb62 tonyb62

Level 6

Helpful post? (0)

#12 23 May 2023 23:03

p.kaczmarek2 wrote:

tonyb62 wrote:

I've found the yaml method doesn't stay in the Homeassistant tab and needs to be entered each time additionally, which is an issues when fiddling with the device

Do you mean the autogenerated YAML code in OBK? Well, it should just give you a quick start, not a final config. You should fiddle with code in Home Assistant configuration.yaml, which is kept as long as you don't delete it.

Yes, I was adding to yaml code in OBK, I see the error of my ways
Create an account, log in and become active in a forum and ads will not appear. You will receive points by participating in discussions.
Join this discussion.

Log in with Google

Reply Cool? Ranking DIY | New topic

Notify about new articles

Home page
/
Forum
/
Smart Home IoT
/
Smart Home Devices Teardowns
/
Arlec PCTH01HA - Bunnings - CB3S BK7231N