Confused, what a mess

[EL34]

I got the Hobby boards master hub and just one sensor to check out one wire network before I go and add more sensors. I have the temp, humidity and solar sensor from hobby boards.

I wish someone would do a simple how to hook this stuff up and set it up in say Weather display. This would be a huge help to people just trying to figure this out from scratch. It's very confusing and I am not getting good results so far.

Without any guide on the hobby board web site I have no idea if I am doing any of this correctly and it's very frustrating.

Here's where I am at.
I downloaded the one wire drivers at maxim.
I am viewing the one wire network using the java one wire viewer.
The viewer shows 3 couplers, a DS18S20 and a smart battery monitor?

What is a battery monitor?

I see tabs for temp, humidity, AD, time whatever.
Temp reads fine and so does humidity.
Where is the solar reading?

This all took several hours last night to get this far without any sort of guide.
Sifting through tons of post here and only getting bits and pieces here and there. Seems like a setup guide could have given me the information in less than 10 minutes.

Am I crazy or does it seem like a good idea for a company selling hardware to show their customers how to set it up. I don't just mean how to plug it all together.

Sorry for the rant, you have to realize how confusing this all is when you are starting from scratch.

I haven't even gotten to how confusing weather station is and how to set up a one wire station. I finally got weather station to read the one wire network. Then the next time I start up weather station, it's not reading it. I have to go play around with the one wire setups every time to get it to read temp and humidity.

Sometimes it finds the one wire sensors and then the next time it doesn't.

The hub is lit up properly and the java viewer reads everything but weather station will not start reading it untill I mess with wind sensor settings, which I don't even have.

Is there a better/simpler piece of weather software out there?
Do I have the drivers for the Hobby boards stuff set up properly?
Why the heck is something that is supposed to be simple like a one wire, not simple?

 

[EL34]

Is this correct for a 6 channel master hub 6CMH1-R1-A and a temp/hum/solar HTS3-R1-A?

 

[ericvic]

EL34,

Sorry you are having so much trouble. Not sure if you have looked at our How-To pages but they may be able to provide some assistance. They are not as detailed as I would like them to be but they are a start.

We don't have much is the way of software setup help on our site because there are so many different applications out there and the authors and users of those applications are much better at explaining how to setup and use them than we are.

The OneWireViewer is a good tool to determine if your 1-Wire network is working but it does not do a good job is showing things with a weather slant. Most of the 1-Wire chips were designed for other functions (that is why you see a Smart Battery Monitor) but have been used in designs that for weather devices.

For help with Weather Display you can go to their forum at www.weather-watch.com. There are some helpful users that can get you going. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help with Weather Display because that is not the software I use.

If Weather Display doesn't fit your need you can find some other software solutions on our Links page.

From the picture you posted you seem to have any drivers need installed correctly.

Eric

 

[EL34]

Thanks Eric,
Yes I read the how to's on your web page 3 times in the last week or so.
Your page was helpful as far as plugging things in and assembling them.

It needs a simple how to on the one wire viewer since this seems to be the next step after getting the harware turned on.

Do you need the driver even if you are not using USB?
Which driver version? There area couple?
Which .net do you need or do you.
Which java version. (This one got me good)
How come I see a battery monitor?
Where is the solar sensor and how do I see measurements from it (I still don't know this one)
How come it shows two temp sensors, are there two. Can I use both?
Do the lights on the master hub need to be switched on to see readings? Some of the software I tested did and some of it switched the hub lights off, how come?

See how confusing it is even to someone who writes software and owns a vaccum tube amplifiers company? Not bragging here but I am not a dummmy.

I took screen shots of all the one wire screens if you would like them.
It seems like any question here in this forum would reference the one wire viewer and so it would be nice to have a small setup section on that tool.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been to the weather display forum several times also this week.
No setup guide there either. I was waiting to ask questions until I had the hardware set up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I downloaded 3 of the windows software packages you have linked on your web site. One guy does not seem to be around anymore, some software won't read your sensors and there is no way to figure out how to make them read the humidity sensor. I get, unknown sensor errors.

Weather display - the only one that will read all your sensors
Wserver - will not read the humidty sensor
Logtemp - will not read the humidity sensor
------------------------------------------------------------

How do I read the solar snsor? where does the data appear in one wire viewer?

 

[ericvic]

Thanks Eric,
Yes I read the how to's on your web page 3 times in the last week or so.
Your page was helpful as far as plugging things in and assembling them.

It needs a simple how to on the one wire viewer since this seems to be the next step after getting the harware turned on.

I agree and we are working on more How-Tos to help new users out but I'm not sure when they will be ready.

Do you need the driver even if you are not using USB?

You wouldn't need the USB driver but for most of the software out there you would need the TMEX "driver" which is part of what is installed in the 1-Wire drivers package.

Which driver version? There area couple?
Which .net do you need or do you.
Which java version. (This one got me good)

I would use version 4 of the driver. The version of .NET or Java depends on the software you are going to use. I don't use any .NET software and I use version 5 of Java.

How come I see a battery monitor?

You see a battery monitor because that is what the DS2438 1-Wire chip that is used in the Humidity/Temp/Solar is. If you go to the View menu and turn off the Show Device Alternate Names menu item then you will see the chip number (like DS2438).

Where is the solar sensor and how do I see measurements from it (I still don't know this one)
How come it shows two temp sensors, are there two. Can I use both?
Do the lights on the master hub need to be switched on to see readings? Some of the software I tested did and some of it switched the hub lights off, how come?

The DS18S20 is a 1-Wire temperature sensor but the DS2438 (Smart Battery Monitor) also has a temperature sensor built-in. You can use both but they are on the same board and the DS18S20 is usually more accurate.

The lights on the Hub will come on when the main branch of the DS2409 is on. The software you use will take care of turning on and off the correct branches but you can turn them on in the OneWireViewer by choosing the coupler and then choosing the switch tab and then turning on either the main or aux branch. The light for that branch will come on when the main branch it turned on.

See how confusing it is even to someone who writes software and owns a vaccum tube amplifiers company? Not bragging here but I am not a dummmy.

I took screen shots of all the one wire screens if you would like them.
It seems like any question here in this forum would reference the one wire viewer and so it would be nice to have a small setup section on that tool.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been to the weather display forum several times also this week.
No setup guide there either. I was waiting to ask questions until I had the hardware set up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weather Display can be very confusing to setup because it supports many different weather stations, not just 1-Wire.

I downloaded 3 of the windows software packages you have linked on your web site. One guy does not seem to be around anymore, some software won't read your sensors and there is no way to figure out how to make them read the humidity sensor. I get, unknown sensor errors.

Weather display - the only one that will read all your sensors
Wserver - will not read the humidty sensor
Logtemp - will not read the humidity sensor
------------------------------------------------------------

WServer does support the humidity sensor but it doesn't support the solar sensor.
LogTemp should support both the humidity and the solar.

How do I read the solar snsor? where does the data appear in one wire viewer?

To see the value of the solar sensor in the OneWireViewer you can click on the Smart Battery Monitor then choose the A toD tab. The solar values will show up in the Channel 2 AtoD Voltage.

Eric

 

[EL34]

Thanks Eric,
I got it all going now.
Sorry to be a pain, it was just a lot of info in a very short amount of time.
Brain was overloaded.

Good idea, a set up guide of at least the one wire viewer would help your new customers quite a bit,

My java version needed to be updated on this computer before one wire would work properly.

 

[ericvic]

No problem, I'm here to help.

I completely agree on more setup guides, its just a matter of time :unsure:

Eric