Reading Data From USB

[ardentcrest]

To start off Im a 50+ novice whose programming skills never passed programming on the ZX Spectrum back in the 80's/90's

I have been given a weather station whose software has not been updated in over 9 years.

So looking for a way to read the data coming from the station I search and found,

1 ) libusb  licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License.
and
2 ) fowsr (Fine Offset Wireless Weather Station Reader) ..... GNU General Public License as published by

the Free Software Foundation .....

I am looking for help/pointers on how to convert github.com/ajauberg/fowsr/blob/master/fowsr.src/fowsr.c in to LB
any help would be appreciated.


If anything the libusb could be very useful to the LB community.

[zxrportugal]

hi
i´m a novice , this a example program that i used to receive data from my siemens s200 plc by usb (using a chinese ppi to usb converter ).
if no connection to the right port a error ocours (no error handling for that made....this is an example)
'SETUP THE GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
BackgroundColor$ = "blue"
ForegroundColor$ = "red"

WindowWidth = DisplayWidth
WindowHeight = DisplayHeight - 5
UpperLeftX = 0
UpperLeftY = 0
STATICTEXT #main.Label1, "Dados Recebidos", 4, 200, 100, 20

TEXTBOX #main.DataReceived, 4, 240, 150, 20
STATICTEXT #main.Label1, "Mensagem a enviar" , 4, 80, 100, 20
TEXTBOX #main.DataToSend, 4,100, 150, 20

BUTTON #main.send, "Enviar >>", [SendData],ul, 170, 100 ,200, 25
button #main.botao1, "botao1", [Botao1] ,ul, 400, 250 ,100, 75
BUTTON #main.botao2, "botao2", [Botao2] ,ul, 650, 250 ,100, 75
BUTTON #main.botao3, "botao3", [Botao3] ,ul, 900, 250 ,100, 75
BUTTON #main.botao4, "botao4", [Botao4] ,ul, 1150, 250 ,100, 75
BUTTON #main.botao5, "sequenciador 123", [Botao5] ,ul, 400, 550 ,100, 75
BUTTON #main.botao4, "reset sequenciador", [Botao6] ,ul, 525, 550 ,100, 75

STATICTEXT #main.credit, "By SPD ", 4, 160*2+30, 200, 30
graphicbox #main.0, 400, 50, 100, 100
graphicbox #main.1, 650, 50, 100, 100
graphicbox #main.2, 900, 50, 100, 100
graphicbox #main.3, 1150, 50, 100, 100
open "comunicação porta Serie" for window as #main


print #main, "trapclose [close]"
print #main.DataReceived, "Dados a receber aparecem aqui..."
print #main.DataToSend, "escreva a mensagem a enviar..."
print #main.0, "home"       'center the pen
print #main.0, "down"       'ready to draw
print #main.0, "fill black"   'fill the graphics area black
print #main.1, "home"       'center the pen
print #main.1, "down"       'ready to draw
print #main.1, "fill black"   'fill the graphics area black
print #main.2, "home"       'center the pen
print #main.2, "down"       'ready to draw
print #main.2, "fill black"   'fill the graphics area black
print #main.3, "home"       'center the pen
print #main.3, "down"       'ready to draw
print #main.3, "fill black"   'fill the graphics area black

PROMPT "Escreva o numero da porta serie"; portnumber$      'ask the user to enter the number of the com port they want to use

if portnumber$="" then portnumber$="1"                  'invalid numbers will result in an error

'OPEN THE SERIAL PORT
oncomerror [myComErrorHandler]

open "COM";portnumber$;":9600,N,8,1,ds0,cs0" for random as #commsport
x=0
z=0

'MAIN PROGRAM LOOP
[start]
scan

calldll #kernel32,"Sleep",50 as ulong,r as void  'sleep for 2ms
datalength=lof(#commsport)
if datalength>0 then RXdata$ = (input$(#commsport, datalength)) 'read the contents of the receive buffer
RXdata$ (3)=dados$
print #main.DataReceived, RXdata$
print RXdata$ : print time$()

z=z+1



                            'show the result on screen
if x>0 then goto [Botao5]
goto [start]

'GET DATA FROM THE TEXTBOX AND SEND IT OUT OF THE SERIAL PORT WHEN THE 'SEND' BUTTON IS PRESSED
[SendData]
print #main.DataToSend, "!contents? TXdata$"
print #commsport, TXdata$
goto [start]

[Botao1]
s$="s0@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s0@" then  print #main.0, "fill red"

scan
if  s$<> "s0@" then  print #main.0, "fill black"
s$="0"
scan
if  s$<> "s0@" then  print #main.0, "fill black"
goto [start]

[Botao2]
s$="s1@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill red"
scan
for t=1 to 200
next t
if  s$= "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill red"
scan
if  s$<> "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill black"

s$="1"
scan
if  s$<> "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill black"
goto [start]

[Botao3]
s$="s2@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s2@" then  print #main.2, "fill red"

for t=1 to 200
next t

s$="2"
if  s$<> "s2@" then  print #main.2, "fill black"
goto [start]

[Botao4]
s$="s3@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s3@" then  print #main.3, "fill red"

for t=1 to 200
next t

s$="3"
if  s$<> "s3@" then  print #main.3, "fill black"
goto [start]

[Botao5]
x=x+1

s$="s3@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s3@" then  print #main.3, "fill red"
for y=0 to 500



next y
s$="3"
gosub [estadosaídas]
s$="s0@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s0@" then  print #main.0, "fill red"
for y=0 to 500


next y
s$="0"
gosub [estadosaídas]
s$="s1@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill red"
for y=0 to 500


next y
s$="1"
gosub [estadosaídas]
s$="s2@"
print #commsport, s$
if  s$= "s2@" then  print #main.2, "fill red"
for y=0 to 500


next y
s$="2"
gosub [estadosaídas]
goto [start]



[Botao6]
x=0
s$="reset sequenciador"
gosub [estadosaídas]
goto [start]

[estadosaídas]
if  s$= "s0@" then  print #main.0, "fill red"
if  s$<> "s0@" then  print #main.0, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s0r@" then  print #main.0, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s0s@" then  print #main.0, "fill red"

if  s$= "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill red"

if  s$<> "s1@" then  print #main.1, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s1r@" then  print #main.1, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s1rs@" then  print #main.1, "fill red"
if  s$= "s2@" then  print #main.2, "fill red"
if  s$<> "s2@" then  print #main.2, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s2r@" then  print #main.2, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s2s@" then  print #main.2, "fill red"
if  s$= "s3@" then  print #main.3, "fill red"
if  s$<> "s3@" then  print #main.3, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s3r@" then  print #main.3, "fill black"
if RXdata$= "s3s@" then  print #main.3, "fill red"
return

'HANDLE THE COMMS ERROR AND GIVE DETAILS OF THE PROBLEM

[myComErrorHandler]
oncomerror
NOTICE "Error: "; ComError$; chr$(13) ;"Port number: "; ComPortNumber; chr$(13) ;"Error code: ";ComErrorNumbe

'TIDY UP AND END THE PROGRAM
[close]
close #commsport
close #main


[Rod]

Ok, we are missing a few steps here. First off is the assumption that rs232 serial is involved at all. The weather station is linked to the PC by a USB lead. That means it MIGHT use rs232. But it also might just use its own USB coms, we need that info.

So the very first step is to know the weather station make and model number and to find it’s online support pages. That may tell us how it communicates and may offer .dll support for communicating. It may also confirm that it is a proprietary usb based coms system.

We can’t just pick ANY usb .dll unless the weather station is know to communicate in a standard format. So have you chosen the dll you have because it is proven to work with the weather station?

So first questions

Make and model of the weather station?

Is there a documented coms standard you know it uses?

If you plug the weather station into a live PC does a new serial port appear under devices?

Edit, both those links look like very hard work. If we can get to a support page it might be a whole lot simpler than those pages suggest.

[tenochtitlanuk]

Have you looked at CumulusMX? Free software that has been reading my USB weather station for years, updating its on-line display, and saves the data as csv files easily read with LB. See

cumuluswiki.org/a/Software

www.diga.me.uk/weather/index.htm
www.diga.me.uk/weatherAnalysis.html
www.diga.me.uk/weather/LBweather.html

So powerful and comprehensive I've never even investigated the data format thee weather station uses, and instead had fun using LB to PROCESS the data!

[Rod]

I see in a earlier post you sent the .dll that ships with the weather station. That might be useful. But to be useful we need to see the support documentation. It may still exist on line. I cant see any clues in the .dll about where it came from.

So we have the .dll driver but we don't know how it works. The really hard way to do this is to monitor the link and watch how it converses with the weather station. Then we might work out the data transmission protocol. Even if the transmission is rs232 it can still be a heck of a job working out what messages to send and how to interpret the response. Given we actually have a .dll I don't think the transmission will be rs232. But you can confirm that by looking to see if it establishes a com port when you plug it in.

Look at devices, serial ports before and after it is plugged in.

Documentation will be the key to opening this.

[ardentcrest]

At work at the moment.

tenochtitlanuk CumulusMX is good but it gives me some wrong info on its page.

data transmission is usb to usb cable.

the station is an Elecsa AstroTouch 6975,same one as tenochtitlanuk  ,online support pages are gone.

the Weather station memory map is at www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/weather/mm/

there is also some python code at github.com/jim-easterbrook/pywws which also get the data from the station (usb to usb)

[ardentcrest]

Here is some more info I could find

Attachments:

ws_1080_2080_protocol.zip (50.27 KB)

[Rod]

John is showing us that he can get access to the devices data history via an ASC based CSV file. Is that a solution for you? I assume John does some manual file exporting or reading.

[ardentcrest]

I could but I would have to have the CumulusMX exe running in the background. Is there a way to start and stop an external exe from with in LB?

[Rod]

I posted this a few weeks ago. Others posted alternative methods to close a .exe / file. So you would use run to start the weather program, but I don't know how you would automate the export of the data within the weather program.. Taskkill will close the program but it is quite a brutal way to end a program. A bit like Task Manager's kill program.

nomainwin
run "notepad.exe"
timer 5000,[done]
wait
[done]
timer 0
run "taskkill /im notepad.exe"
end


[ardentcrest]

ty