1Wire Startup

[nightwalker]

Well I'm off to play with 1wire networks, Right now my main focus is temperature sensors. I have a Hobby Boards 6 Channel Master Hub and a couple of DS18s20 sensors to test with. I've been over the Hobby Boards site forward and backward and darn if i see a how to section that is a real how to, It seems to mostly be explaining different products, but not so much what to do with them. I have several questions and a comment.

The comment first, C'mon guys even a one page step by step PDF to get started on the basics would be nice.

The section on the Master Hub itself is really skimpy and refers you to the 6 port hub for reference? The Master Hub has 6 RJ45 jacks on it, labeled 1 through 3 and AUX and Main for each. I'm guessing that adds up to the 6 Channels? The three split into two channels each?

I understand the Hardware part of the system, I think, though I have to be honest that information did not come from the Hobby Boards site. It's the software side I'm throughly confused with. At some point I'll interface this with HomeSeer but I'm not even far enough along to pick a plug-in for that yet.

Exactly what is it i need to install in order to get temperature data flowing through the com port. I assume a drive of some sort. I see several, Some type of preliminary software to read that data, or do you just read the raw data through the com port to assure yourself it's working? Depending on what article you read I may need to install 3 or 4 different pieces of software to get this working? I guess being a novice at this i was expecting an "install disk" with my purchase to get things going. Hell I'd settle for a concise instruction sheet.

I did read in some very old posts that Hobby Boards was working making their how to a little more clear and complete but that was a long time ago. Was that done and I missed it somewhere?

At any rate just a bit of help here if you don't mind.

 

[hucker]

Nightwalker:

This might help. was on my website but I'm having DNS problems.

 

[nightwalker]

Nightwalker:

This might help. was on my website but I'm having DNS problems.

That's more than I had, thank you very much. I only scanned the first page it it's already been more helpful than several websites i've been to combined.

 

[nightwalker]

That was very helpfull now that I've read the whole thing. I installed the drivers, plugged in the Master Hub, brought up the 1wire viewer, told it what com port it was on and away it went. It wouldn't have taken them long to write those two lines on the Hobby Boards site.

Now to attach my couple of temp sensors and I guess this is where I need to choose software depending on what I want out of it?

 

[hucker]

Glad it helped!

 

[sda]

nightwalker,

C'mon guys even a one page step by step PDF to get started on the basics would be nice.

Maybe you didn't see the how to guide?

This page?
http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/howto_adaptors.php
says that you may need to "download and install drivers" and gives links to the drivers and various software packages.

Or this page?
http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/howto_6_channel_hub.php
Where the hub main/aux ports are explained and it says
(Please see your software documentation for further details on how to specify hub channels.)

I guess being a novice at this i was expecting an "install disk" with my purchase to get things going. Hell I'd settle for a concise instruction sheet.

I think your criticisms of Hobby-Boards not providing detailed enough information and/or software are misplaced.

My viewpoint:
Hobby-Boards sells semi-generic 1-wire hardware components. HB provides cabling diagrams and tells you how to connect the components. HB components are used with software that supports 1-wire networks. HB doesn't supply or support any software for the components. Its up to you to find suitable software for your situation and implement it. There's all kinds of software for Windows, Mac, Linux, HA systems, etc and HB provides links to some of that software. Whatever platform and software package you use will determine what needs to be installed and how the HB components will be accessed and operated. It just isn't possible for HB to provide a detailed step-by-step hold-your-handbook for every situation.

 

[nightwalker]

Perhaps you're correct, I was a little frustrated at the time I wrote it. Some of my Points are still valid though. Maybe the install disk was a bit over the top, sorry about that, however I not only read the guide, i printed it out. It honestly read more like a sales tool than a how to. It gave wonderful, glowing reports of what the equipment was capable of, but not exactly how to get there. I will be interfacing this with HomeSeer at some point but before I even get to that I really would like to see a clear concise page on how to get the basics working with any software, I don't even care, pick one.

hucker sent me a pdf file of a one wire guide that was wonderful, after I read that It took about two minutes to get the thing installed and at least seeing the adapter, maybe he would let you have it. I did a fair amount of research on one wire, both from the links you provided and through goggle searches to gather the information I needed.

Re-reading what I wrote I realize i may have been a bit harsh and for that I apologize, really, it wasn't meant that way. Hopefully I haven't put you off too much as I gather my next order together, you're shipping did a great job.

At any rate, is there software that that you recommend that gives the basics of temperature coming back from the master hub? So far the only thing I've installed is the one wire drivers from Maxim which included the one wire viewer. Unless I plan to get fancy with something is that all that's needed?

Since I will be interfacing this with HomeSeer at some point, I assume that other software will not really be necessary, as far as I know only one software package at a time can read from the com port?

Is it possible to open something like hyper terminal and see the raw data flowing without any thing else installed?

Thanks in advance and again sorry about the rant, we've all done it at one time or another, i just hate when I do it.

nightwalker,

C'mon guys even a one page step by step PDF to get started on the basics would be nice.

Maybe you didn't see the how to guide?

This page?
http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/howto_adaptors.php
says that you may need to "download and install drivers" and gives links to the drivers and various software packages.

Or this page?
http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/howto_6_channel_hub.php
Where the hub main/aux ports are explained and it says
(Please see your software documentation for further details on how to specify hub channels.)

I guess being a novice at this i was expecting an "install disk" with my purchase to get things going. Hell I'd settle for a concise instruction sheet.

I think your criticisms of Hobby-Boards not providing detailed enough information and/or software are misplaced.

My viewpoint:
Hobby-Boards sells semi-generic 1-wire hardware components. HB provides cabling diagrams and tells you how to connect the components. HB components are used with software that supports 1-wire networks. HB doesn't supply or support any software for the components. Its up to you to find suitable software for your situation and implement it. There's all kinds of software for Windows, Mac, Linux, HA systems, etc and HB provides links to some of that software. Whatever platform and software package you use will determine what needs to be installed and how the HB components will be accessed and operated. It just isn't possible for HB to provide a detailed step-by-step hold-your-handbook for every situation.

 

[ericvic]

Perhaps you're correct, I was a little frustrated at the time I wrote it. Some of my Points are still valid though. Maybe the install disk was a bit over the top, sorry about that, however I not only read the guide, i printed it out. It honestly read more like a sales tool than a how to. It gave wonderful, glowing reports of what the equipment was capable of, but not exactly how to get there. I will be interfacing this with HomeSeer at some point but before I even get to that I really would like to see a clear concise page on how to get the basics working with any software, I don't even care, pick one.

hucker sent me a pdf file of a one wire guide that was wonderful, after I read that It took about two minutes to get the thing installed and at least seeing the adapter, maybe he would let you have it. I did a fair amount of research on one wire, both from the links you provided and through goggle searches to gather the information I needed.

Re-reading what I wrote I realize i may have been a bit harsh and for that I apologize, really, it wasn't meant that way. Hopefully I haven't put you off too much as I gather my next order together, you're shipping did a great job.

At any rate, is there software that that you recommend that gives the basics of temperature coming back from the master hub? So far the only thing I've installed is the one wire drivers from Maxim which included the one wire viewer. Unless I plan to get fancy with something is that all that's needed?

Since I will be interfacing this with HomeSeer at some point, I assume that other software will not really be necessary, as far as I know only one software package at a time can read from the com port?

Is it possible to open something like hyper terminal and see the raw data flowing without any thing else installed?

Thanks in advance and again sorry about the rant, we've all done it at one time or another, i just hate when I do it.

No problem on the rant and I agree with most of what you said. Unfortunately writing is not one of my strong suites and being a very small company there are not many resources available to get better documentation.

When we started, most of the customers that bought from us had an understanding of what 1-Wire was and our documentation fit the bill for that type of customer. But as we have grown our customer base has expanded to include people who have no idea of what 1-Wire is and now our documentation is not servicing that customer as good as it should.

As for software there are many 1-Wire plug-ins for Homeseer, you will need to ask around on the Homeseer board because I am not a user of Homeseer so I have not kept up with which ones are the best. If you just want to get some temps going in the mean time there are several links to software packages on our links page and most of them are free.

One last thing, just so there is no misunderstanding, SDA has been very helpful in the forum (and I appreciate him helping out) but he is just a Hobby Boards customer and is not directly associated with Hobby Boards.

Eric

 

[nightwalker]

One last thing, just so there is no misunderstanding, SDA has been very helpful in the forum (and I appreciate him helping out) but he is just a Hobby Boards customer and is not directly associated with Hobby Boards.

Eric

I would have been nice to know that but it's ok, when you're right you're right, no matter where it comes from.

One other thing you didn't answer, if you don't mind.

Can I just pop up hyper terminal and capture the raw data coming from the temp sensors?

 

[sda]

One last thing, just so there is no misunderstanding ... but he is just a Hobby Boards customer and is not directly associated with Hobby Boards.

While I was typing I thought I was making that clear by stating "my viewpoint" and talking about HB as an entity.
And a very satisfied customer.

Can I just pop up hyper terminal and capture the raw data coming from the temp sensors?

Pretty much not possible. In order to read the temperature, the software sends a read request to the device, waits for the device to acquire the temperature (about 0.50 to 0.75 seconds), reads the raw data off the bus. And that's a very simplistic view of the process. For the most part, the data stream isn't typable or printable characters. The Maxim one wire viewer is the easiest thing to play with as it can identify and communicate with the devices. Beyond that, you're getting into actually using the devices for data logging or sense/react which requires software specific to the purpose.

Eric,
Maybe a "1-wire cookbook for Windows" web page similar to what hucker posted might make sense for people wanting to get started. Just the bare minimum to get a 1-wire network up and running.

 

[ericvic]

One other thing you didn't answer, if you don't mind.

Can I just pop up hyper terminal and capture the raw data coming from the temp sensors?

I knew I forgot to answer something but it looks like SDA got to it first.

The 1-Wire serial adapter doesn't talk in ASCII, it is a much lower protocol with some strange timings that have to be met, so like SDA said it is best to use the OneWireViewer or other 1-Wire software.

Eric

 

[nightwalker]

Thanks for the answers guys, I think I'm getting at least a small grip on how it works.

 

[midon]

Thanks for the answers guys, I think I'm getting at least a small grip on how it works.

I don't normally like to make pitches on this forum, but the TEMP08 does talk in simple ASCII to 1-Wire sensors, although, it does not talk through a 1-Wire hub such as Eric's.

Mitch

 

[nightwalker]

I expect that it's the HUB and how it works that adds to the complexity of things. I like the HUB idea, especially for trouble shooting should something happen to the network or a sensor etc. I guess you get the complexity at some point, at one end or the other.