WebControl: $35 Web- and email-enabled data acquisition and control

[tparvais]

Hello

I wonder if CAI Network plans to support more 1-wire sensors in future release (wind, baro, counter...)

Would be the best control board ever !

I don't to use homeseer to manage my 1-wire network / weather station (too complex/expensive)

Thomas

 

[pete_c]

Thomas,

I manage a number of 1-Wire devices with MM's Xap applications. They are stand alone. I currently have two running on a separate computer. He's also written a stand alone Xap application for this device.

 

[tparvais]

Thomas,

I manage a number of 1-Wire devices with MM's Xap applications. They are stand alone. I currently have two running on a separate computer. He's also written a stand alone Xap application for this device.

sorry my stupid question, what is "MM's XAP" application ? And which device are you talking about ?

Tx

 

[pete_c]

Michael McSharry

XaP

 

[tparvais]

well, indeed. Sorry

any idea who should I contact to ask if they plan to make the webcontrol evolve to more extra 1-Wire sensors ? They didn't reply

Thomas

 

[Michael McSharry]

The WebControl unit is targeted for control applications and not data collection ones. They have A/D, DO and DI already covered so most of the other 1-wire interfaces would not have added benefit. Most of these also have support circuits for a specific application such as wind speed or baro pressure and the WebControl has not provisions for application-specific interface setup. They recently went from 8 bit to 12 bit temp sensor. I expect that to be their last step with 1-wire devices. For a general purpose 1-wire interface with IP backend you want TINI or HA7Net. The price point for these units are several times that of the WebControl.

 

[tparvais]

The WebControl unit is targeted for control applications and not data collection ones. They have A/D, DO and DI already covered so most of the other 1-wire interfaces would not have added benefit. Most of these also have support circuits for a specific application such as wind speed or baro pressure and the WebControl has not provisions for application-specific interface setup. They recently went from 8 bit to 12 bit temp sensor. I expect that to be their last step with 1-wire devices. For a general purpose 1-wire interface with IP backend you want TINI or HA7Net. The price point for these units are several times that of the WebControl.

Hello

I've been in contact with CAI Network yesterday to ask some more info about future release of the WebControl.

In 1-2 years time frame, they will propose a new hardware/firmware evolution, based on 32 bit CPU, including more capabilities to handle more 1-wire.

Today, I'll mix Webcontrol and others hardware control to capture/manage all my planned sensors

Best,

 

[*ZX81*]

Hello,

even if this thread is old, I wanted him to push up for good news.

I've also bought a WebControl with PLC firmware V03.00.09, HW Rev. V2.0.2

As many others before, first I also got very unstable readings from the DS18B20.
But if I use the 5V Pin of the humidity sensor input, the DALLAS DS18B20 works pretty stable and now I got permanently accurate temperatur values since 2 hours.
Currently he's still connected directly on the WebControl's terminal block, but I guess, some meters of cable should not make any difference.

PS
My DS18B20's are very cheap ones from a poland ebay dealer (ZYSCOM)

@Micheal McSharry
I'm not a programmer, but searching for a tool like yours to get a long time temperature histogram with readings of 2 temp sensors.
How did you made your pretty chart? is it an Excel chart?

Best regards,
Harry

 

[pete_c]

Harry,

Have a look at the Homeseer site; specfically under the XAP WebControl section of Michaels relating to graphing.

WebControl

 

[*ZX81*]

thank you

 

[*ZX81*]

... did a look there, but unfortunately xapmcsWebControl is not for the PLC variant. Maybe in the future.

 

[pete_c]

I've not seen the new PLC firmware. I'm wondering how different it is from the BRE firmware other that what's posted in their new user guide.

Do you have to send it back to them to upgrade the firmware? They were pleasant when I wrote to them.

 

[Efried]

Hello

I've been in contact with CAI Network yesterday to ask some more info about future release of the WebControl.

In 1-2 years time frame, they will propose a new hardware/firmware evolution, based on 32 bit CPU, including more capabilities to handle more 1-wire.

Today, I'll mix Webcontrol and others hardware control to capture/manage all my planned sensors

Best,

Could you please reveal more about your hardware fusion environment.
We have a photovoltaics applications which is critical in power demand but should be capable of controlling shutters in real time on the basis of light measurements.
The calculations could be on a server, but I don't see a way that the webcontrol my query external intelligence?
So in order to be productive the central server should poll the webcontrol very often in order to allow real time control - this is not feasible.
We would need a device which becomes active based on its own measurements and querying external servers for doing more complex calculations in order to save local CPU time.

many thanks


PS: is there an extended documentation? I don't know whether the IP settings are persistent.

 

[linuxha]

... is there an extended documentation? I don't know whether the IP settings are persistent.

If you set the device up for static addressing the IP is persistent. Here's what I found: webcontrol-20110121.tgz. It contains several files but the one you're most interesting in is the WebControlUserGuide2-03-03.pdf (note 3.03 is the firmware I have on my Webcontrol board). Winzip can handle the tgz file (it's a unix tar.gz file).

 

[Efried]

Hello

I wonder if CAI Network plans to support more 1-wire sensors in future release (wind, baro, counter...)

It would indeed be helpful if all existing DS18B20 would work.
I'm encountering much lower voltages on pin 1 than expected namely 2.7V

Also I do wonder when the device may put into sleep reducing the 170mA...

Is there some easy possibility for a wireless connection?

thanks