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temperature logging using VFP
- Thread starter Nifrabar
- Start date
Mike Lewis
Programmer
I don't have any personal experience in this area. But if you do a search in Google (or Amazon), you wll see dozens of products that do what you want. Try searching for "USB temperature sensor".
One name that stands out is Acurite. They have a product called PC Connect for Weather Stations. Here's an extract from the description:
But that's just one example. I've noticed several similar products in my search.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
One name that stands out is Acurite. They have a product called PC Connect for Weather Stations. Here's an extract from the description:
Source:
But that's just one example. I've noticed several similar products in my search.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Koen Piller
Programmer
Bart,
and to show the temperature of your pc you can implent an api:
Regards,
Jockey(2)
and to show the temperature of your pc you can implent an api:
Regards,
Jockey(2)
- Thread starter
- #4
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Bart,
Just out of curiosity, what temperature do you want to measure? The temperature of the air? Or the internal temperature of the computer?
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
Just out of curiosity, what temperature do you want to measure? The temperature of the air? Or the internal temperature of the computer?
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
- Thread starter
- #6
Mike,
To be honoust I consider to design a home temp regulation.
Most off the shelve systems don't do fully what is desired.
E.g. a simple human interface, numerous switch moments for several temperatures and trending/loggong facilities.
For making the program a next step is to overthink how to proportional control the gasvalve of the central heaters burner.
So what I do now is a bit investigation about the interfacing.
Why uswing VFP for this? Well it's the language I can tailor most easily for this application.
-Bart
To be honoust I consider to design a home temp regulation.
Most off the shelve systems don't do fully what is desired.
E.g. a simple human interface, numerous switch moments for several temperatures and trending/loggong facilities.
For making the program a next step is to overthink how to proportional control the gasvalve of the central heaters burner.
So what I do now is a bit investigation about the interfacing.
Why uswing VFP for this? Well it's the language I can tailor most easily for this application.
-Bart
Ah,
Go to Maplin and get their USB experimentation board, you get a number of digital inputs and outputs and the
API is really sumple. You can buy the board made up or put it together yourself.
Regards
Griff
Keep [Smile]ing
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Go to Maplin and get their USB experimentation board, you get a number of digital inputs and outputs and the
API is really sumple. You can buy the board made up or put it together yourself.
Regards
Griff
Keep [Smile]ing
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
- Thread starter
- #9
Olaf Doschke
Programmer
Home automation has industry standards. You should really start looking at how you may control your central heating, if it offer such an interface at all, you may have to modernise this.
What is easier to control is thermostats at each radiator. I use a standalone thermostat, which can be programmed with a time schedule for each day and that saved money already, without any more effort than to schedule and replace the manually operated thermostats.
I can see why this is a fascinating system, you can do a lot more, learn and and even save a lot of money. You can control lights and heating depending on your location (determined by your smartphone, perhaps or via movement detectors). I'd rather do that with a dedicated small PC; like a raspberry pi, that's cheap, can be always on and still only uses 5Watts at max all the time. You just have to go Linux and most probably c++, but I think you get more libraries in C/C++ to use the home automation buses, than anything offered as USB devices.
Bye, Olaf.
What is easier to control is thermostats at each radiator. I use a standalone thermostat, which can be programmed with a time schedule for each day and that saved money already, without any more effort than to schedule and replace the manually operated thermostats.
I can see why this is a fascinating system, you can do a lot more, learn and and even save a lot of money. You can control lights and heating depending on your location (determined by your smartphone, perhaps or via movement detectors). I'd rather do that with a dedicated small PC; like a raspberry pi, that's cheap, can be always on and still only uses 5Watts at max all the time. You just have to go Linux and most probably c++, but I think you get more libraries in C/C++ to use the home automation buses, than anything offered as USB devices.
Bye, Olaf.
Mike Lewis
Programmer
Bart,
It sounds like an interesting project. I wish you luck with it.
We installed a new heating system last year. The controller has a large number of functions. You can set the on/off times on daily or weekly cycles, with automatic overrides for holidays and longer periods when the house is empty; you can specify a "frost" temperature (a threshold below which the heating always comes on, regardless of the time setting); and lots more.
The problem is that the whole thing is controlled by a small wi-fi device about the size of a pack of playing cards. There are only four small buttons, and a tiny screen. To access any of the settings, you have to navigate a complex set of menus, which involves constantly changing the "mode", and working through long sequences of prompts.
I've always wondered why the manufacturers can't use that same physical device, as at present, to sense the temperature, keep track of the time, and send commands to the boiler and radiators. But to delegate the user interface to software running on a desktop PC or tablet. That way, the user could control the system through a full GUI interface, complete with drop-down calendars and the like (not to mention a help system). The physical device could communicate with the UI either via wi-fi (which it already has) or USB (you would use a standard cable to connect the device to the PC).
If you're looking for something to keep you busy over the next few weeks, consider building such a system. Then let me know when you need a beta tester.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
It sounds like an interesting project. I wish you luck with it.
We installed a new heating system last year. The controller has a large number of functions. You can set the on/off times on daily or weekly cycles, with automatic overrides for holidays and longer periods when the house is empty; you can specify a "frost" temperature (a threshold below which the heating always comes on, regardless of the time setting); and lots more.
The problem is that the whole thing is controlled by a small wi-fi device about the size of a pack of playing cards. There are only four small buttons, and a tiny screen. To access any of the settings, you have to navigate a complex set of menus, which involves constantly changing the "mode", and working through long sequences of prompts.
I've always wondered why the manufacturers can't use that same physical device, as at present, to sense the temperature, keep track of the time, and send commands to the boiler and radiators. But to delegate the user interface to software running on a desktop PC or tablet. That way, the user could control the system through a full GUI interface, complete with drop-down calendars and the like (not to mention a help system). The physical device could communicate with the UI either via wi-fi (which it already has) or USB (you would use a standard cable to connect the device to the PC).
If you're looking for something to keep you busy over the next few weeks, consider building such a system. Then let me know when you need a beta tester.
Mike
__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads
You might want to look into the Eng-Tips ( -- the cousin to Tek-Tips) Control Systems Engineering forum.
One thing I found there is:
PID Control of a motorized valve:
thread830-142659
Since most modern-day thermostats do the room temperature regulation relatively well, you might want to think about - Are you, by trying to regulate the gas flow with a Proportional Valve (proportional-integral-derivative controller a.k.a. PID) , attempting to re-invent the wheel?
Regardless, I think your best resource will be in the Control Engineering realm.
Once you have your devices selected, then controlling and logging the data within a VFP application should be relatively easy.
Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr
One thing I found there is:
PID Control of a motorized valve:
thread830-142659
Since most modern-day thermostats do the room temperature regulation relatively well, you might want to think about - Are you, by trying to regulate the gas flow with a Proportional Valve (proportional-integral-derivative controller a.k.a. PID) , attempting to re-invent the wheel?
Regardless, I think your best resource will be in the Control Engineering realm.
Once you have your devices selected, then controlling and logging the data within a VFP application should be relatively easy.
Good Luck,
JRB-Bldr
- Thread starter
- #13
JRB-Bldr,
I am having a heater which has possibility to control gas-valve proportional.
The thing is that the manufacturer (Vaillant) must be willing to release technical data about that.
This might be my bottleneck alternative I must do some investigations eg by using an osciloscope to observe the control signal....
-Bart
I am having a heater which has possibility to control gas-valve proportional.
The thing is that the manufacturer (Vaillant) must be willing to release technical data about that.
This might be my bottleneck alternative I must do some investigations eg by using an osciloscope to observe the control signal....
-Bart
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