How to use the Histogram with two measures correctly?

[yankee]

Hi,

I am trying to visualize the electricity production from my photovoltaic generator and the electricity consumption of my house using a histogram. Here is what I got:

screenshot-openwb-rong.png

The idea is quite simple: Display electricity I produce and consume myself in yellow, electricity I produce and feed into the grid in green and electricity I consume from the grid in red. It seems, that the histogram is the perfect fit.

In the image above, the current production is 712W, the current consumption is 1072W. So I am clearly in the area where I consume more electricity than I produce, so I should not see any green, but should see some red. Also while these values do change of course, in the time frame shown in the histogram, I believe production was always lower than consumption.

While I am writing this electricity generation increases and with the moment that production becomes greater than consumption, suddenly the colors all changed and it looks better now:

screenshot-openwb-better.png

But why?

Here is my skin:

Code: Select all

; General
; =======

[Rainmeter]
Update=10000
BackgroundMode=2
SolidColor=000000

[Metadata]
Name=MqttPlugin Basic Example
Author=yankee
Information=PV Consumption & Production with data from OpenWB
License=MIT License
Version=0.0.1

[Variables]
colorExport=0,128,0
colorImport=255,0,0
colorSelfConsumption=255,255,0
barWidth=120
maxProduction=75000
maxConsumption=4000

[mqttServer]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=MqttClient
Server=MY_MQTT_SERVER
OnMessage=[!Update][!Redraw]

; Measures
; ========

[powerImport]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=MqttClient
ParentName=mqttServer
Topic=openWB/evu/W

[pvConsumption]
Measure=Plugin
Plugin=MqttClient
ParentName=mqttServer
Topic=openWB/pv/W

[powerProduction]
Measure=Calc
Formula=pvConsumption * -1
MinValue=0
MaxValue=#maxProduction#

[powerConsumption]
Measure=Calc
Formula=powerImport + powerProduction
MinValue=0
MaxValue=#maxConsumption#

[isImport]
Measure=Calc
Formula=powerConsumption < powerProduction ? 0 : 1
IfBelowValue=1
IfBelowAction=[!SetOption consumptionBar BarColor #colorExport#][!Redraw]
IfAboveValue=0
IfAboveAction=[!SetOption consumptionBar BarColor #colorImport#][!Redraw]


; Meters
; ======

[background]
Meter=Shape
Shape=Rectangle 0,0,130,200 | Fill Color 0,0,0

[graph]
Meter=Histogram
AutoScale=1
MeasureName=powerProduction
MeasureName2=powerConsumption
PrimaryColor=#colorExport#
SecondaryColor=#colorImport#
BothColor=#colorSelfConsumption#
X=5
Y=0
W=#barWidth#
H=100

[productionLabel]
Meter=STRING
MeasureName=powerProduction
X=5
Y=110
H=10
W=#barWidth#
FontColor=FFFFFF
Text="Produktion: %1 W"

[productionBar]
Meter=BAR
MeasureName=powerProduction
X=5
Y=130
W=#barWidth#
H=10
BarOrientation=Horizontal
BarColor=#colorExport#
SolidColor=150,150,150,255

[consumptionLabel]
Meter=STRING
MeasureName=powerConsumption
X=5
Y=150
H=10
W=#barWidth#
FontColor=FFFFFF
Text="Verbrauch: %1 W"

[consumptionBar]
Meter=BAR
MeasureName=powerConsumption
X=5
Y=170
H=10
W=#barWidth#
BarOrientation=Horizontal
BarColor=#colorImport#
SolidColor=150,150,150,255

So the manual for histogram unfortunately does not really explain how this graph works. But I noticed that it says:

The measure(s) used must be able to return percentual values.

So maybe it does not work with absolute values and actually just the scaling is all wrong. So I added:

Code: Select all

[powerConsumptionRelativeToProduction]
Measure=Calc
Formula=powerConsumption
MinValue=0
MaxValue=#maxProduction#

and then used that as "MeasureName2" for the histogram, so that both values will have the same min&max values. But this does not seem to have any effect at all. Then I wonder, why the measures need to be able to return percentual values, if these are not used?