raspberry pi related projects
I’m here to share my extensive electronics and technical experience working with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, sensors, motors, lighting, and finishing with CNC machining and 3D Printing.
What would you like to make? Leave your comment and let’s get started!
There are two important sections of The Inventory Management System that need to be backup and/or restore. The system stores images that are uploaded in a directory within the source-code. Backup this directory or the entire application to a folder on your file system.
Example:
sudo cp -R /var/www/html/warehouse-inventory-system /home/pi/Downloads/
To Export a database, open up terminal, making sure that you are not logged into MySQL and type,
mysqldump -u [username] -p [database name] > [database name].sql
mysqldump -u'root' -p'password' oswa_inv > /path/to/oswa_inv.sql
The database that selected in the command will now be exported to a file.
Log into mysql command-line interface:
mysql -u'username' -p'password'
If you are having difficulty logging into mysql please see the section below, How to Reset Your Password
WARNING! You are about to permanently delete ALL of your data.
DROP DATABASE oswa_inv;
CREATE DATABASE oswa_inv;
source oswa_inv < /path/to/oswa_inv.sql
Exit mysql.
When you first install MySQL, you have to set up your root password. However, should you forget it at any point, you can still recover it.
In terminal, stop the MySQL process
/etc/init.d/mysql stop
In safe mode, you will be able to make changes within the MySQL system with a root password alone, without the need for MySQL root password.
sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
Once safe mode has started up, log into MySQL and when prompted, use your standard root password.
mysql -u root mysql
Finally, set up the new MySQL root password by typing the command below. Replace “newpassword” with the password of your choice.
update user set password=PASSWORD("newpassword") where User='root';
Be sure to reload everything:
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
and you now have a new root password.
Using a Raspberry Pi for your own inventory management system.
An open-source, inventory management system written in PHP with a MySQL database has no problem operating on a Raspberry Pi. Initially, you’ll only have local network access, but if you want to allow remote web access, you can.
In order to setup a web interface to access, view, and manage the content of your inventory management system you’ll need to set up a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack on your Raspberry Pi and configure it to work as a web server and set up a basic website which you can access on any device on the same network as your Pi. This is a link to a nice tutorial for setting-up a L.A.M.P. server on your Pi, the WordPress portion is optional, you can stop after installing PHP.
If you plan on having access to your Raspberry Pi through the Internet, you’ll need to configure your router and DDNS settings, or use a service such as dataplicity.io to wormhole to your pi through the web.
Next step is to use an open-source project found on GitHub to start your basic inventory management system.
“OSWA-Inv is a web based Inventory System, that will allow you to keep tracking of the quantity buying and selling price of the products existing in your warehouse or business. When creating a new products, you can set a quantity, buying and selling price.”
Included Features:
After updating the Raspberry Pi and setting up the LAMP stack, installation of the inventory application is relatively painless.
Download the source-code package and then you’ll need to extract the contents to the folder. Either rename the folder to the base name now or after you move it to the web root for Apache Web Server found at /var/www/html/
Use the MySQL command line to import the database schema. Create a database named oswa_inv and import the schema included in the project directory oswa_inv.sql If you haven’t done so, installation is as easy as:
sudo mysql -uroot mysql> CREATE DATABASE oswa_inv; mysql> USE oswa_inv; mysql> source /var/www/html/inventory/oswa_inv.sql
The directory containing the project, especially, the uploads directory, must have write permissions on the system and let the web application be run using the www-data account by executing the following commands from the project directory:
sudo chmod -R 775 uploads/ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data *
Edit the header.php file to suit the needs of your organization. e.g. change to logo
[project folder on server]/layouts/header.php
Same folder also contains the various menus used by the system.
Edit the CSS to reflect the needs of your organization. e.g. change background colors
[project folder on server]/libs/css/main.css
These are the improvements I’ve added for my own system
I’ve spent a great deal of time searching for the right inventory management system for my work. I want the system to be relatively simple, straightforward, with only the necessary bells and whistles. Perhaps, even more important to me is the ability to modify the system to suit my needs. It’s rare to find an off-the-shelf product that can be modified or enhanced to suit needs. Fortunately, there are several open-source projects on GitHub related to Inventory Management System projects. I need to be able to customize the project to suit my needs. Similar to WordPress, the project I have selected is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database.
https://github.com/siamon123/warehouse-inventory-system
“OSWA-Inv is a web based Inventory System, that will allow you to keep tracking of the quantity buying and selling price of the products existing in your warehouse or business. When creating a new products, you can set a quantity, buying and selling price.”
Want more? Check-out the improvements I’ve made:
Electricity replaces the sun, wind, and some natural processes as the dependency for plants to grow indoors.
Starting a Smart Indoor Garden
The first glaring problem with the typical indoor garden is that extension wires are annoying and a potential safety hazard. On the other hand, wireless communications can lack the reliability of the wired variant. Going further, should the system be available to the local network or should it be connected to the Internet?
Since plants do not need Internet access in order to grow then we are potentially creating an additional dependency that the plant doesn’t want. The Internet is useful for providing access to your system, but security is questionable, how much control or data should be available? A connection to the Internet can become another dependency if the system cannot operate without communication to a cloud-based or otherwise remote server. If something can fail; we should plan for the eventual occurrence of that possibility as best as possible. If a long electrical outage were to occur it would be prudent to have a backup generator, or solar rechargeable battery storage system. If we can have better reliability with a wired connection, then it makes sense to use a combination of wired and wireless.
Communication options such as i2c, which is great for communicating with another microcontroller or Raspberry Pi and the many wireless options: WiFi, bluetooth, etc.
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You value the project because you are able to customize and experience the process of its creation, both physically and mentally.
Practical Reasons:
Many items can be purchased locally or sourced from the Worldwide market through the Internet. I don’t know about you, but I rarely have money to spend on projects and whenever possible reusing and re-purposing junk is ideal. Many of my projects contain parts I’ve purchased at local dollar stores and items found through eBay online vendors. Online researching, reviewing, and sourcing materials
It takes time to learn how to use tools and equipment successfully, let alone, have the time to actually make the project meet your expectations. Will you take the time to safely use the equipment necessary to complete the project? Are you able and willing to troubleshoot problems as they arise?
Time used for the project is time that could be spent with family, friends, learning something more important, etc.
Even though it may pain me to swallow my pride, I try not reinvent the wheel. If I don’t have direct experience performing a task, I take the time to research how others have approached similar problems. It is best to learn from others before making a serious mistake simply because I don’t want to appear stupid. Practice makes permanent. We cannot expect to become experts on a subject overnight, it’s okay not to know how to do something, try to find someone who can help, take small simple steps towards achieving the goal.
For electronics projects, reliably wiring the hardware and designing the software to operate using an Arduino variant or Raspberry Pi, is a challenge. Hacking Electronics – Simon Monk ( link to Amazon ). Regardless of your experience level, this book is an excellent resource, what tools are needed, when and how to solder, and many basic fundamentals of working with modern electronics. The second edition, includes Raspberry Pi.
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