mcsTemperature Problem Reports & Feature Requests V3.11 to V3.23.0

[Michael McSharry]

This is a continuation of problems/features that are now based upon V3.11 from the Updater and includes discussions through V3.23.0. Later versions are discussed at mcsTemperature Discussions starting at V3.23.1

[This message was edited by Michael McSharry on Sat, 22 March 2003 at 04:38 PM.]

[bdickhaus]

Michael,

I installed 3.11.1 and every 5 minutes (my log interval) I am getting a series of HS log entries that look like the values written to the database. Heres a sample:

2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~30.10~!~30.10
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~64~!~64
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~39~!~39
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~81.2~!~81.2
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~80.2~!~80.2
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~80.8~!~80.8
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~81.3~!~81.3
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~72~!~72
2/11/2003 8:37:18 PM~!~74~!~74

Bill

[Michael McSharry]

oops,
3.11.2 has a new radar image option and no checkout dump that you see.

[duncan_ellison]

Yep, that works.

Sorry to be picky, but could this be in a new child window ?

Duncan

[jpape]

Michael,

I just installed version 3.11.2 and the DS2405 support is working correctly. I will be running it for the next couple of days in a test environment and let you know if I come across any problems.

I did find one possible problem with the new HTML support. If you have the temperatures displayed as xx.x, the icons will not be displayed because they are only in whole numbers. You may want to default to "0" decimals after the temperature to avoid possible display problems.

[Michael McSharry]

V3.12.0 is posted at the top of the thread. There are few bug pickups, but the primary change is the implementation of SQL Server support.

General checkout shows it to work as expected. This is my very first experience with SQL Server so my confidence has not yet been built up. If anyone what to go that route then it is available for evaluation.

The Database tab has the controls to turn on SQL Server in lieu of Access as the database. The Access .mdb files, to my knowledge, cannot be used with SQL Server. New database names will need to be provided (without file type) and the tables and fields will be created after the "Update" and after a data collection cycle.

I believe it should improve the response time for drawing Temperature.asp since the big Jet engine does not need to be paged in.

There are a few other bug pickups. It should be safe for general users as well, but just in case keep the prior version nearby. v3.12.0 contains all prior features such as Relay evaluation support.

[Michael McSharry]

JeffCharger has a nice little animated avitar of a propeller blade. Makes for a good wind speed icon. To use it, assuming there are no rights issues, just replace \HTML\Images\Sensors\WindSpeed.gif

Most of the other gifs included recently came from the homeseer icon board accumulated by Paul Augusto. I think most of these were from Frank Pericone (Hunter).

[tgraham]

I use this code to correctly display a temperature icon: Note that it has support to check for non decimal numbers. I was fighting the problem of the script erroring and I thought it was from the ^ in the device string. However, it was actually the left function being called with a negative number (0-1).

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">
if instr(hs.Devicestring("^1"),".") &lt;&gt; 0 then
tmp1 = "degrees/t" & Left(hs.DeviceString("^1"), (Instr(hs.DeviceString("^1"), ".") -1)) & ".gif"
else
tmp1 = "degrees/t" & hs.DeviceString("^1") & ".gif"
end if

</pre>

Todd

[Michael McSharry]

Todd, thanks for the input. I've been burned before on string functions where the expected does not always exist. Its a shame that too many times 1 line of code ends up being 4 or 5 because of the error checking needed to validate data before a function is applied to it.

What I actually did in the the plugin in this area was to use the int function. This was after I knew I had strip all the prefixes and suffixes. In other situations I've used the Round function where the default is no decimal places.

CStr(Int(Value))
Cstr(Fix(Value))
Round(Value)

Actually when I went to the plugin to copy what I used I discovered I had used CInt rather than Int which I suspect may give a run time error when Cint sees the "."

[jpape]

Hi Michael,

I have been testing the DS2405 support and so far it has been right on.

I do have one observation which I think needs to be addressed. The DS2405, DS2406 and DS2407 devices can act as both input and output devices. When the plugin configured my DS2405 in Homeseer, it assumed it was going to be used as an Input device. There were no "On"/"Off" controls associated with the device. In my initial testing that was fine, but in testing a DS2405 as a control for a relay, I had no way of turning it On or Off.

I would suggest an option be available on the device tab similar to the "ASP" checkbox which would define the DS240x device as either an output or input device.

An example to the different functions that a DS240x can be used in is included in the TEMP05 FAQ page at http://www.midondesign.com/.

[Michael McSharry]

I was not aware of its output mode. Enabling the buttons on the homeseer GUI is the easy part.

I see the Temp05 OFA and ONA commands to support it. I need to manage the internal sensor indexes within the Temp05 to use these commands. That will require a little more work. My parser currently does not recognize a DIS output format. Since it is a stream of data I will need to distinguish this from other data streams such as any of the Temp or Switch readings. I will also need to issue a DIS command any time a new sensor is detected so I can capture its Temp05 index. Dont know what will happen when repeated DIS commands are sent on the very first startup when all sensors are being detected for the first time. It all should work, but just capturing some design considerations while I'm thinking about it.

As I understand the supporting circuit the DS2405 is actually a 1 bit input device and a separate 1 bit output device with the same 1-wire serial number. Or can it be only be one or the other, but not both? I do not see any setup needed with the Temp05 to tell it how the device is configured so I assume it can be both at the same time.

[bwawsc]

I was looking at the data stored in the Forecast table, and I noticed that the timestamps starting on February 6 don't show minutes and seconds. As far as I can tell, this doesn't have any bad consequences, but I wanted to check to see if this was an unintended change (similar to the problem we saw about that time in the Temperature table), or if it is WAD.

Also, I wanted to enquire whether it would be possible to include fields from the Forecast table in the list of items that can be charted on the Temperature.asp.

--Bill

[jpape]

I believe the DS2405 can be either an input or output device. It depends on the circuit built around it.

I think an option on the device page (Similar to where the "ASP" checkbox is" to select if the DS240x is either an Input or Output device is what is needed. If the DS240x is an Output device, enable the "On" "Off" buttons in Homeseer and issue ONA xx or OFA xx commands where xx is the Temp05 ID. If the device is selected as an Input device, do not create the "On" "Off" buttons and look for the "Switch" statements from the Temp05. This is just my idea on how it could be setup, I could be way off though.

[Midon]

The DS2405 can be either an input device, or an output device. If the DS2405 is in the OFF state, then the input mode can be used. If it is in the ON state, though, this is not true (as one of my users found out). If you change the plug-in to make use of the 2405 as an input device, care should be taken to ensure that an OFA command is sent to the 2405 so that no confusion occurs. These sensors don't appear to have a default power up state so you don't really know what state they are in until they change state, or you force them into a particular state.

Mitch

http://www.midondesign.com

[Michael McSharry]

1) As far as the plugin is concerned a DS2405 will be either an input or an output. Currently the plugin is setup to recognize devices when the Temp05 reports data from them. This scenario will not work for the DS2405 that is wired in an output configuration. The only way the plugin will know about that sensor is with the DIS command.
2) When the plugin sees the DS2405 from the DIS it will not know if it is in or out until the user specifies. I will assume it to be an input device and provide an OFA command when first detected. It will then also be ready to accept inputs should it really be an input device.
3) When the plugin starts it will send an OFA command to all DS2405 configured to be inputs. It will leave the ones configured as outputs in the same state last set by the Temp05. This will mean that homeseer will not know the state of the output since I am not aware of a means to query the Temp05 to ask for it. I will put in a startup state entry on the setup page should the user want a device to go to a specific state on startup.
4) Database tables will be created for the device and data stored any time a change of value is received or sent, depending if it is an input or output device. The database field can be cleared to prevent data recording.
5) The relay05 will have individual controls for database storage. I could do it like the other devices with setup for each database field or I could do it with 8 checkboxes and having all the Relay05 fields of predetermined names.
6) There will be alot more two-way traffic between the Temp05 and the mcsTemperature plugin. Like we learned with the RLY command there could be some timing issues involved.

Bill, it was very insightful of you to see this as a potential problem and split the command to make it work