HA7Net from Embedded Data Systems

[dBeau]

A few weeks back I received an HA7Net to use for monitoring my oil burner. At first I was quite pleased. I was able to poll all 12 sensors at a rate of about 1 per second. Not great, but mostly good enough. Then I noticed that after getting a few readings, the device would reboot itself and be unavailable for a couple of minutes.

A quick note to support at Embedded Data Systems got me a very quick response from someone who seemed quite interested in solving the problem. Some emails later, over the course of a couple of weeks, I received a new firmware version. Sadly, this did not fix the problem. My reply to EDS said as much. Since then they have been ignoring my emails. Not a great way to run a company.

My question to the group is... does anyone else run these things and do they work? Further tested shows that repeatedly hitting the device's home page will cause it to reboot. I guess I could be the only one, or perhaps nobody else polls it often enough to notice the reboot.

 

[ultrajones]

A few weeks back I received an HA7Net to use for monitoring my oil burner. At first I was quite pleased. I was able to poll all 12 sensors at a rate of about 1 per second. Not great, but mostly good enough. Then I noticed that after getting a few readings, the device would reboot itself and be unavailable for a couple of minutes.

A quick note to support at Embedded Data Systems got me a very quick response from someone who seemed quite interested in solving the problem. Some emails later, over the course of a couple of weeks, I received a new firmware version. Sadly, this did not fix the problem. My reply to EDS said as much. Since then they have been ignoring my emails. Not a great way to run a company.

My question to the group is... does anyone else run these things and do they work? Further tested shows that repeatedly hitting the device's home page will cause it to reboot. I guess I could be the only one, or perhaps nobody else polls it often enough to notice the reboot.

I have been polling my HA7Net (with 10 temp senosrs) once per minute for the past 2 years without any issues or reboots. Is a once per second poll rate giving the device enough time to respond?

Regards,
Ultrajones

 

[icellama21]

A few weeks back I received an HA7Net to use for monitoring my oil burner. At first I was quite pleased. I was able to poll all 12 sensors at a rate of about 1 per second. Not great, but mostly good enough. Then I noticed that after getting a few readings, the device would reboot itself and be unavailable for a couple of minutes.

I'm curious, what are you monitoring on your burner? Flue temperature, combustion chamber, oil flow?

 

[sda]

I don't have one, but I'll offer up this info.

1 wire temp sensors can take upto 3/4 second to sense the temp and respond. If you have several temp sensors and they're processed individually it could take several seconds to get data. There's also a way to send the "convert t" to the temp sensors all at once, then it could take less than a second for the sensors to respond.

I assume the device insulates you from the details so you don't know for sure what its doing. Maybe trying to read the sensors before its finished the prior command causes the device to get "confused".

Try reading the sensors every 15 seconds and see if you get better results.

 

[dBeau]

I have been polling my HA7Net (with 10 temp senosrs) once per minute for the past 2 years without any issues or reboots. Is a once per second poll rate giving the device enough time to respond?

I've asked a couple of times for access to older versions of the firmware. I've never gotten a reply to that particular request. Not even a "no". The version that came with the device was labeled "beta" which caused the support guy to think I had installed it myself! But from what you are saying, an older verison might help. The "alpha" version he sent certainly didnt.

The device takes as long as it needs to respond. I always wait for one request to complete before issuing the next. Doing this results in a rate of about one read per second.

Do you poll all of your sensors once per minute, or one sensor each minute? With a low enough poll rate, you might not be noticing reboots. At one per minute I could imagine that. At 10 per minute, maybe not.

 

[dBeau]

I'm curious, what are you monitoring on your burner? Flue temperature, combustion chamber, oil flow?

Im using CT switches to track the burner run time and circulator run time on the domestic hot water tank. Temperature sensors watch the hot water heat zone returns and hot water heat out of the boiler. I also track the temperature of the domestic hot water feed to the house and the cold water in. The actual heat calls are tracked by the thermostats so I dont use 1-wire for that.

 

[dBeau]

I don't have one, but I'll offer up this info.

1 wire temp sensors can take upto 3/4 second to sense the temp and respond. If you have several temp sensors and they're processed individually it could take several seconds to get data. There's also a way to send the "convert t" to the temp sensors all at once, then it could take less than a second for the sensors to respond.

I assume the device insulates you from the details so you don't know for sure what its doing. Maybe trying to read the sensors before its finished the prior command causes the device to get "confused".

Try reading the sensors every 15 seconds and see if you get better results.

The problem is with the HA7Net device itself, not the 1-wire network it's connect to. With no 1-wire network connected at all, just polling the HA7Net for it's home page will cause it to fallover and reboot.

The DS18B20's can take a while at 12 bit resolution. I'm reading them at 10. The DS2406 I use for reading the CT switches are much faster. When I switched to using the USB adapter (DS9490R) my poll rate improved greatly. I can now read 10 DS18B20's at 10bit resolution and the two DS2406's all in just under 4 seconds.

Even when the HA7Net is "working" it takes 1 second to respond regardless of the resolution or the device. Considering the form factor of the device and ease of setup, I'd consider this acceptable, but it's far from great. Considering that this thing costs a bit more than an NSLU2 plus a DS9490R you'd hope it would perform at least as well... but you'd be wrong. I purchased it hoping to avoid the hassle of setting up an NSLU2. I've spent as much time debugging the HA7Net as that would have taken.

 

[jaysonc]

I have three HA7Net's around the house. A weather station and a lot of temperature sensors.

Like utrajones, I have been polling all of mind once a minute. I have been doing this for about 6 months. I have not experienced any issues with them. They have been very consistent and my logs files do not show any read errors or unreachable devices.

--
jayson

 

[dBeau]

Like utrajones, I have been polling all of mind once a minute. I have been doing this for about 6 months. I have not experienced any issues with them. They have been very consistent and my logs files do not show any read errors or unreachable devices.

I'm encouraged to here that you guys are having luck with yours. For reference, the firmware shipped with mine is 1.0.0.22_Beta1. I'm currently running 1.0.0.23_Alpha_7, but it's no better. If it's not too much trouble, I'd love hear what versions are working.

 

[jaysonc]

All of mine have 1.0.0.22 Beta1

 

[ultrajones]

Like utrajones, I have been polling all of mind once a minute. I have been doing this for about 6 months. I have not experienced any issues with them. They have been very consistent and my logs files do not show any read errors or unreachable devices.

I'm encouraged to here that you guys are having luck with yours. For reference, the firmware shipped with mine is 1.0.0.22_Beta1. I'm currently running 1.0.0.23_Alpha_7, but it's no better. If it's not too much trouble, I'd love hear what versions are working.

I am running 1.0.0.22.