Raingauge example

Author: micw

examples/raingauge.md

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+# Calculating interval deltas for a rain gauge (and other counters)
+
+This script calculates deltas on each value from my rain gauge. The gauge behaves in the following way:
+- if it rained a certain amount (0.45mm), a counter is increased and the total value is sent via mqtt
+- the total value is also published every 30 seconds
+- if the device is restarted, the total value starts at zero
+- the topic where the total value is published is /sensor/SENSORID/rain
+
+This script calculates the delta between two total value changes and handles some special situations:
+- a zero delta is ignored (so no unnecessary updates if it's not raining)
+- a delta is ignored when its negative (that happens when the device is restarted)
+- a delta is ignored when the previous value is more than 10 minutes old (happens when the script did not run for a while, so the rain cannot be assigned to the correct timestamp)
+- a delta is ignored when it's >10mm (that should not happen because a delta should be sent every 0.45mm or at least every 30 seconds - it's just a sanity check)
+
+The result is published via /sensor/SENSORID/rainDelta and can directly be stored to a time series database and then aggregated.
+
+This script can easily be used/modified to do the same calculations for any kind of counter that runs over or is reset from time to time.
+
+The script:
+
+```javascript
+subscribe('sensor/+/rain', function (topic,val,obj,prev,msg) {
+	var sensorId=topic.split("/")[1]
+	var lastValueTopic='sensor/'+sensorId+'/rainLastValue';
+	var oldValue=getValue(lastValueTopic)
+	if (oldValue!==undefined) {
+		var delta=Math.round((val-oldValue.v)*1000)/1000;
+
+		if (now()-oldValue.t>1800000) {
+			log.info("sensor ",sensorId,", delta ",delta,"- delta older than 30 minutes ignored");
+		} else if (delta<0) {
+			log.info("sensor ",sensorId,", delta ",delta,"- negative delta ignored");
+		} else if (delta>10) {
+			log.info("sensor ",sensorId,", delta ",delta,"- very large delta ignored");
+		} else if (delta==0) {
+			log.debug("sensor ",sensorId,", delta ",delta,"- zero delta ignored");
+		} else {
+			log.debug("sensor ",sensorId,", delta ",delta);
+			publish('sensor/'+sensorId+'/rainDelta',delta);
+		}
+	}
+	publish(lastValueTopic,{v:val,t:now()},{retain:true});
+});
+```