mcstemperature5147 thermostat devices

[piever]

Hello

I installed homeseer HS2 and the plug-in mcstemeprature 5147 on my laptop for testing. There are 1-wire DS18B20 and DS2406 sensors connected to it. I want to use the program for my new home to control heating on all rooms. I use the manual 4.23.4 of the plug-in. It comes with the plug-in 5147.
I have problems to setup virtual thermostat values and temperature Action settings and to let it work.
The charting and readings of the temp sensors are correct.
I use the plug-in device codes [ and \ as adviced.
The temperture of the roomfloor must be 30 degrees, 2 degrees control band and set a DS2406 switch to on/off.

Is there an up to date manual?
Is there somebody that uses this setup to verify these settings?

[Michael McSharry]

From mcsTemperature Interfaces Page: Set Enable temperature control triggers

From HS event page
Add Event
Name: RoomControl
Trigger: Manual
Action: Temperature Actions
Turn Device [1
On When \1
Off When \1
On Device is Below Lower Limit
Off Device is Above Upper Limit
and Continue Forever
Lower Limit 29
Upper Limit 31

The version 5 manual was lost and I am not motivated to rewrite it.
The setup above assumes [1 is the output device DS2406 being controlled and \1 is the temperature sensor. There are more sophisticated way of using a setpoint device for easy control, but for what you asked the above should do it.

The event is manually triggered one time. There will be a virtual device created when the upper or lower limit is reached so you may want to accelerate it for testing. The use of [ and \ is not required or recommended. It is any pair of house codes that HS allocated to the plugin. It will show up on the Devices-Files setup page of mcsTetmperature.

[piever]

Hello Michael,

Thanks for your answer. I have put in all your settings and the temperature raise above 35 degress. Its never stops!! The relay (DS2406) goes on and stay on. I created a small box with a DS18B20 and DS2406 to simulate a room to control.

Can you give me examples of the thermostat settings? The creating goes ok (15-35 delta 1 degrees) I also want to lower the setting at the evening with 5 degrees for all thermostats. (15x)
Thermstat setting LL=\38 UL=2+\38 ???2+"\38" ??? both will not work.

Can you post a file with examples of all these settings please?

Thanks

[Michael McSharry]

The limits are specified in any of 4 formats with the following precedence
1. Null will be treated as 0
2. A number if the entire input is numeric
3. An scripting expression if the first character is a number
4. An expression where the contents of the device strings, stripped of HTML, are used for device code symbols

The manual on page 35 where it describes the virtual thermostat give the following
Based upon the above 4 techniques I think you should also be able to use #40+2 for the UL to achieve 2 degree above the contents of the #40 device string.

If you have gone through a UL or LL threshold then a virtual device will have been created to track the status of the control. It will have the same name as the event name. If you still have problems then you can enable the general debug checkbox and collect data at the limit device's DeviceString value goes through a limit. You should also confirm that your DeviceString has the value and not the DeviceValue that is being used as your threshold trigger.

[piever]

Hello Michael,

I see no improvements with your advice. I see a Expression [1/31,4 on line 320 Syntaxis error in het log.
I also miss 2x .gif files ControlInactive.gif and ControlOn.gif. see logging.

Can you check what is goning one and post the 2 gif files please if possible?
I send you some attachments to look at.

Thanks.

[Michael McSharry]

The debug log shows that the expression being evaluated is "[1/31,4" which should be what is at the start of the \38 DeviceString. I could not tell from the other attachements how \38 is being populated.

If \38 has the desired number in the DeviceValue then you could use the expressions 0+hs.DeviceValue("\38") and 2+hs.DeviceValue("\38"). If the DeviceValue is a number that is scaled so it fit into an integer then something like 2+hs.DeviceValue("\38")/100 would work if it is scaled by 100.

It would also be better to see a segment of the actual log file rather than an image of a portion of it. Homeseer.log can be edited to extract the area of interest and store it in .txt format which can then be attached.

The control .gif files reference were added by user request and they provided their own .gif files. You can do something like copy the On.gif and Off.gif to the new filenames or anything else you believe is appropriate for your particular application.

[piever]

hello Michael,

When I put in the values 0+hs.DeviceValue("\38") LL and 2+hs.DeviceValue("\38") UL and I start the event the floor1 relay1 goes on and stays on. The floor1 temp goes over the 30,8 degrees.
When tou look at the screendump its give Control Active [1 Limits [11 to 13] !!! See also the setup of the thermstat (15 to 35 degrees in fix 1 degrees steps). The start of floor1 temp is 22,9 degrees and goes up if started. At the end of the log I turn the floor1 relay1 off and shutdown homeseer. (when I use \38 LL and \38+2 UH the Control Active [1 Limits [26 to 28] and is depended of the thermostat settings =ok,but the relays goes also not off)
What going wrong here?
Also no ControlInactive.gif and ControlOn.gif files

Regards piever

[Michael McSharry]

Your HS log shows the following
21-4-2009 9:20:54 ~!~mcsTemperature~!~Expression [1/31,9 on line 320 Syntaxisfout

[1/31,9 is what is being evaluated and it is not a valid expression. This may relate to regional settings such as . vs , or something else.

RoomControl status device shows [1 being the sensor being used
It shows at the time you took the snapshot that your lower limit evaluated to 11 and upper limit evaluated to 13
It shows output that is controlled via device \2
It shows that \2 has been on for 5 minutes and 18 seconds.

I will assume that [1 is your device named temp and it looks to be populated by the mcsTemperature plugin since it shows the graphic and formatting that looks like what mcsTemperture uses. This means that the DeviceValue is also being populated and should be 31 at this time.

When the plugin goes to evaluate it picks up [1/31,9 from somewhere. This is why you are having a problem. Each time it evaluates it fails because this is not a valid sensor input. It looks as if the [1/ should not be part of this. I'm guesing that the sensor house code looks to be an expression operator of something in the device string makes it look like an operator. My operator list is +-/*(). To take the next step we need to see what exactly is in the DeviceString of the sensor you are using. If you run the one-liner event &hs.writelog "Test",hs.DeviceString("[1") then you will get the contents of the DeviceString into the HS log. This log output can then be attached to your reply. Dont past it because it will have HTML tags that will be interpreted by the browser.

If there are any mistakes I made above about the virtual devices you are using then make the appropriate corrections.

[piever]

Hello michael,

I agree that the problem is [1/31,9 on line 320 Syntaxisfout!!!somewhere!

The temp sensor is [1 and the realy is \2. My regional settings is Amsterdam,Netherland. I use the dutch Windows XP and the dutch Microsoft.NET Framework 2.0.
The plug-in picks the [1/31,9 value becaurse the temp is realy 31,9 degrees.

I have no idee how to set a one-liner event. (a script ?)I am just a beginner of Homeseer and the trial time is left 12 days!
Still its seems to be a nice program to use for my sensors and relays.
Maybe its better to install windows xp Englisch version and Microsoft.NET Framework 2.0. also.
Also can you point out how to get a one-liner event and do I have to switch to all englisch?

Regards Piever

[Michael McSharry]

Homeseer Event Page
New Event
Name: TestString
Trigger: Manual
Action: Run Script
Advanced View
OR Script Statement: &hs.writelog "Test",hs.DeviceString("[1")
Update
Save
Run

[piever]

Hello Michael,

The output of the script is 23,1

See logging. This seems to be a good output.

Regards piever

[Michael McSharry]

It looks as if HS strips all the HTML out of its log outputs. I saw in your previous screen shots that you have icons showing with the temperature and this is not shown in your last log output.

Change the one-liner script in the event to the following to ouptut to a text file rather than the HS log

&CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject").CreateTextFile(" C:\mcsTempTest.txt").writeline hs.DeviceString("[1")

This will create a file C:\mcsTempTest.txt and write the output to it. This file should not exist before running the event. If this is not a good path for your computer then change it appropriately.

[piever]

Hello Michael,

To be sure I un-installed chart-dir,mcstemp 5.13 and homeserr HS2 and installed these again. installed plug-in mcs 5.13 and copied the 5.14.7 mcs in the home dir HS2. All devices are now R.., ok
R2 is the floor1 relay1
R3 is the floor1 temp
I used the same setup as you adviced. I also run your new script now.
The floor1 temp goes to over the 30 degrees and keeps going up. see the graphic_f2 file.
In the logging_homeseer there are still Expression R3/30,4 on line 320 Syntaxisfout messages. The script gives in the file after cooling down 24,2.
In the display-tab I have no check on the Virtual Device Format.
I hope that you can check what is goning on with the Syntaxiserror.

I think we are almost there.
piever

[piever]

The last graphic after 1 hr. The 26-27 degrees settings are not met!!!

[Michael McSharry]

This probably has do do with the comma rather than period. I'm guessing that it is looking for 308 degree limit (or similiar). If you are collecting your sensor with mcsTemperature then I think you can specify that 0 signficant digits are used. If testing confirms that this is the problem then I can do something about it.