"Watchdog" or "Lifebeat" - LED?

[CaughtMoments]

Hi, my feeder is now online since wed last week. Works fine. As it is running 24/7, is there a possibility to connect a LED on a GPIO to get a fast feedback from the pi in case the feeder does not work? This would be perfect for a quick check.

Thx
Chris

[LindLarsh]

Hey Chris, thank you so much for posting this! I was actually looking for the answer to the same question. A friend of mine got me into Flightradar 24 a couple of years ago, and it has been one of my biggest passions ever since! It's such a shame that your question is yet to be answered. At least I know I'm not alone, lol. Cheers!

[CaughtMoments]

Hey LindLarsh. I am a noob in the Flyghtradar24 community, :-) I work as a sales manager at Becker Avionics. As I have a technical background, I thought it would be perfect to build an ADS-B Groundstation to understand what the products do I am selling there. I work on a Python-Script to monitor the feed and to inform the user in case it doesn't work. I will leave a note when it works. However, it would be easy for the programmer of the pi24 image to implement a function like this. They have only the mail notification you can set. BR Chris.

[wiedehopf]

You should consider something that gives you access to very detailed data: https://github.com/wiedehopf/adsb-wi...ADS-B-receiver
The fr24 pi image is not sufficient for good details on the data.

It's not an LED, but checking the graphs is a very quick check if the receiver is working (and has been working for the last day or whatever time range you view).

[Oblivian]

Hrm.

dubious

[CaughtMoments]

@ Oblivian indeed it is

[wiedehopf]

I'm not a bot though, i promise!

There is plenty of guides around how to control a LED with an RPi, you'd just make it depend on some console command.
If you really want to make it depend on fr24 feeding, you can make it depend on fr24feed-status.

You could also take over of the LEDs built into the RPi, the adsbexchange image actually has an option to do that.
It blinks green at different frequencies depending on aircraft count and red if there are no aircraft or other issues are present.

https://github.com/dstreufert/adsbx-webconfig/blob/master/leds.sh

[CaughtMoments]

Thank you very much. I will implement this on the system :-) I love to test things like that. I have modified a py-script by danlarsson. It stopped after about two hours on my pi3b+. Now it works (since about 48h) fine.

BR Chris

[CaughtMoments]

Hi,

finally i have managed to write a Python script, that monitors the function and send me a Status Mail with a text file attached. If traffic is seen on Port 30003, an blue LED on the front signals this.

This mail is sent when:

• The CPU temperature rises above 90°C before the Pi is shut down.
• In response to a received mail with the subject "status" from a defined sender address.
• A push-button on the front panel of the ground station is pressed.
• Further "triggers" if necessary...

File attachments can also be sent

Content of the text-file:

• Timestamp
• CPU temperature,GPU-Temperature
• CPU voltage, Voltage of the SRAM-Banks
• Time since restart
• Status of the FR24 feeder (output of "fr24feed-status")
• Last 10 "buffers" received on port 30003
• Overview of the IP settings
• to be continued...

Further additional functions, which are implemented:

• Display of existing aircraft in the reception area via an LED on the front panel of the ground station
• Fan control via PWM with emergency shutdown in case of overheating. Characteristic curve completely parameterizable.
• Reboot and shutdown as reaction to a received mail with the subject "shutdown" or "reboot" from a defined sender address

Still working on the final version. If something like a "final version" can exist... :-) So far it works fine.

Link to the Project: https://stripf-elektronik.jimdofree....e/flightradar/

IMG_20220712_140454667_HDR.jpgIMG_20220712_112622691_HDR.jpg

BR Chris