21 replies to this topic

[Thomas Parvais]

Hello

I'm in contact with developers of Webcontrol.

http://www.cainetwor...trol/index.html

They are preparing the new version based on 32 bit controller with more features.

They are asking which extra 1-wire features they could investiguate to put on their roadmap.

I indicate i.e. all sensors made by Hobby board and by AAG, which are very commonly used on the market for weather/domotics

They want to know all the different sensors and commands they have to implement to be compatible

Can you help to get this list ?

Thank you

[ericvic]

Well here is a list of the 1-Wire chips we use in our devices.
Wind Speed - DS2423
Wind Direction - DS2438
Barometer - DS2438
Humidity - DS2438
Solar - DS2438
Temperature - DS18S20
Counter - DS2423
8 Channel I/O - DS2408
LCD Driver - DS2408
Lightning Detector - DS2423
UVI Meter - Custom 1-Wire Slave

Eric

[Thomas Parvais]

Do you know if only pass thru should be implementyed for this devices or if webcontrol should also foreseen some "set" commands to the device ?

[ericvic]

Not sure what you are asking?

[Thomas Parvais]

Not sure what you are asking?

The inventor of Webcontrol is askinf me a list of all commands that could be sent to the different devices to read/write the different value

Aim: integrate them into next webcontrol release.

Can you help me ?

[sic0048]

How about simply making the original model accurate? While I don't have one, from what I have read the original unit is very inaccurate. Temp readings might vary 10-20% from other known devices. That is why I never bought one. It just seems the original unit doesn't live up to expectations.

[Thomas Parvais]

How about simply making the original model accurate? While I don't have one, from what I have read the original unit is very inaccurate. Temp readings might vary 10-20% from other known devices. That is why I never bought one. It just seems the original unit doesn't live up to expectations.

why not of course ? Can you give elements to sustain your claim ? I'll transfer to webocntrol team

[Michael McSharry]

There have been long threads on this subject on both this message board and the Homeseer message board. The CAI position is that either the user is using an inadequate power supply or they have devices that were not manufactured/purchased from Maxim-IC. I had provided a known Dallas Semicoductor DS18B20 Circa 2000 for them to use with their testing. No report back from them in several months now. The engineering is done in England and the US office is for customer service calls. Mods on the board to change the voltage level used for the 1-wire circuit were also attempted with different failure modes, but still failures. The bottom line is that their design is not very robust. A continuation of the same design with different 1-wire devices will likely result in similar behavior. The product has good value without any 1-wire support, but it is blasted in this community because of the 1-wire weakness. It is a standalone programmable controller, but the masses seem to want to use it as a data collection device and place their intelligence in the PC or security panel.

[roussell]

I'd like the ability to read/write all of the digital inputs or outputs with one url. AS an example to set the state of the outputs it would be nice to simply have something like this: http://web_ip_address/setoutps.cgi?00110001 would turn OFF outputs 8,7,4,3,2 and turn ON outputs 6,5,and 1. Similarly, a 'getoutps.cgi' or getinps.cgi would return the status of the outputs and inputs in a similar fashion - simply return a string of 8 ones or zeros with no tables, images, html, etc... This could be extended for the analog IO and the temps as well, but you'd probably want a seperator between the data points for those...

Also, a XML or JSON status page for all devices would be nice - again, nothing fancy, just the data.

Terry

Edited by roussell, 26 July 2010 - 12:10 PM.

[ericvic]

The inventor of Webcontrol is askinf me a list of all commands that could be sent to the different devices to read/write the different value

Aim: integrate them into next webcontrol release.

Can you help me ?

All of the chips used are standard 1-Wire chips and the data sheets can be found at http://www.ibutton.com except for the UVI Meter and the programming information can be found in the user manual here.

Eric

[JumpZero]

Hi all

It would be nice to have the possibility to exchange some datas from the web to the board.
Example:
To enter set points for a heating system.
Using the PLC engine make possible to start the heating system when the temperataure is lower than a value and to stop it when the temperature is greater than a value.
But these values have to be hardcoded in the PLC program :-(
It would be nice to be able to set them from the web.
Also reading values from the board may be interesting.
A small memory area of some integers defined as an exchange area would do it

Thks
--
Jmp0

[RonX]

Sorry for the little off-topic. Is there a way with this board to sense the status of a LED? I'm not an electronic guy, but what would happen if I wire the LED in parallel with one of the WebControl analog input, along with the VDC signal that will turn on the LED? Does the LED will turn on and the same time I will receive a measure in that analog port?

Thanks in advance you for your opinions.

[Michael McSharry]

To enter set points for a heating system.

The current version of the WebControl can do this and xapmcsWebControl provides a browser front end to adjust a setpoint and have the WebControl reprogrammed based upon the new value.

Is there a way with this board to sense the status of a LED?

Yes it can be done by measuring the voltage through the A/D.

[roussell]

Fix the bug that causes "unexpected behavior" (as described in the manual) when using the Boolean run control engine along with the Momentary output delay.

As an example: I'm using a WebControl board as an irrigation controller. I wanted to use the momentary output delay along with the BRCE to insure that only one output was active at anytime and to ensure that the output wasn't active for longer than X minutes in case of a software controller failure. Using the two together is a disaster and causes the outputs to become active at random times for random durations.
Terry

[JumpZero]

Hello,

To enter set points for a heating system.

The current version of the WebControl can do this and xapmcsWebControl provides a browser front end to adjust a setpoint and have the WebControl reprogrammed based upon the new value.

Thank you Michael McSharry for your answer, I just read both BRE & PLC doc (in pdf) from CAI and didn't find anything about that.
I also read your doc xapmcsWebControl.pdf and I think I have the begining of the answer. Please can you confirm?

I read in your doc:
The OnAT or Lower Limit value defines the lower bound of a control limit. For the
temperature, humidity and analog sensors these values are transferred to the WebControl
hardware for use in the Boolean logic output control
Are lower & higger limits the thresholds associated with each measure in the Webcontrol board?
In my mind I wanted to keep these thresholds for trigger a low or high alarm and control the HVAC with a soft setpoint ( I mean a value stored in board memory, this value that I can change from web browser)
However control the HVAC with these thresholds is a good solution which I didn't though about.

Another point is: I read in your doc:
The Stage 2 control is implemented as a proportional-derivative (PD) control.
To achieve this it means a computer must be running xapmcsWebControl, because the WebControl board isn't able to do that. Correct?

In my project the board must be able to run alone.

One issue also is that you said here above about temperature accuracy. If 1-wire temperature measurement is not very accurate that's a problem. May be this can be solve by using another tempertaure sensor (such as PT100) on an analog input.

Anyway your xapmcsWebControl seems to be a very nice product.
Thanks for your answers.

--
Jmp0