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Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

From build 3044 the development baton passed to Mark Crossley. Mark has been responsible for all the Builds since. He has made the code available on GitHub. It is Mark's hope that others will join in this development, but at the very least he welcomes your ideas for future developments (see Cumulus MX Development suggestions).

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philhalldron
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Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

I am attempting to get Cumulus MX to talk to an Instromet weather station.

I originally had it working on a Windows PC but when the hard drive failed I decided to try running on a Raspberry PI instead.

I have managed to install Mono and CumulusMX and can get it to run.

I can also get to the web front end (Dashboard, Gauges etc) but no data seems to be coming from the Instromet logger into the app.

I have zipped up the contents of the MXdiags folder and attached it to the post.

Any assistance or advice will be greatly appreciated!
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by mcrossley »

Are you sure the COM port is ttyUSB0?

There appears to be an error in your config file...
Error, the value for ImetOptions.ImetBaudRate in the ini file 0 is not valid, using default 19200
Is 19,200 bps the correct speed for your device?

This those are correct, please switch on debug and data logging, then restart CMX and upload the latest log file after it has run for 5 mins or so.
philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

Thanks for getting back to me- apologies for the delay as I have been rather busy of late.

There only seems to be one "USB" device in the /dev directory, /dev/ttyUSB0, there appears to be no other device relating to USB connectivity present.

I cannot see a parameter for ImetOptions.ImetBaudRate within the cumulus.ini file. Under the station settings page the implication is that the baud rate is saved under the DavisBaudRate setting.

Changing to the higher baud rate I am told that the value has been saved, but returning to the station settings I am then presented with an error message in red stating that the value is now invalid because it is zero. The software does not seem to be saving the settings, or it is losing them.
philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

saving issues might be down to that good 'ol unix chestnut- permissions. I can feel a chmod coming on.

Not sure what the COM port would be on a Pi. As I say I can only see what seems to be one possible file in the /dev directory.
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by freddie »

What does "lsusb" show you?
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philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0781:5567 SanDisk Corp. Cruzer Blade
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 Serial (UART) IC
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:2113 Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 413c:301a Dell Computer Corp.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:3431 VIA Labs, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The SanDisk Cruzer Blade is a USB memory key on which the Cumulus software has been installed.
The "Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 Serial (UART) IC" is the adaptor into which the lead from the Instromet Datalogger is plugged.
The devices identified as "Dell Computer Corp" are likely to be the keyboard and mouse.
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by freddie »

Okay, so it's listed. What does the following show you?

Code: Select all

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*
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philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

Hi Freddie,

last time I did a ls -l in the /dev directory only ttyUSB0 was listed. I've mentioned this before. I will have another look today and double check to make sure.

I bet it's possible to create one that corresponds to the correct bus/device ID. Any ideas how? I've got a feeling there's a "mkdev" command if the murky depths of my memory serve me well...

Phil
philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

The ls command shows:

crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 Aug 14 14:48 ttyUSB0

So only ttyUSB0 exists.
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by freddie »

I would try a reboot. That will enumerate all attached devices, so no need to try to do it manually.
Have you resolved your settings savings issue? Using the incorrect baud rate will certainly prevent you downloading data. Does the process that runs MX have write permissions on the Cumulus.ini file? And does the process that runs MX have write permission to the directory in which MX is stored? I'm not 100% sure but it may recreate the Cumulus.ini file on saving.
Are you running the latest version of MX and have a suitably up-to-date version of mono-complete (V6+) installed?
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by mcrossley »

You could try connecting a command line to the Imet logger.

If you do not already have screen installed...
> sudo apt install screen

Then...

> screen /dev/ttySUSB0 19200,cs8

or

>screen /dev/ttySUSB0 115200,cs8

Then type "RDTM<enter>" and see if you get a response. You should get the logger date/time back as a response.
philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

mcrossley,

RDTM returned rdtm,20210907,183312,253

Incidentally "screen /dev/ttyUSB0 19200,cs8" resulted in gibberish appearing on the screen when I typed, whereas "screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200,cs8" actually worked.

So that tells me the baud rate of the logger is 115200.

p.s. how does one exit "screen"? I tried "exit", "bye", "quit" but nothing worked :D
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by freddie »

philhalldron wrote: Tue 07 Sep 2021 6:45 pmhow does one exit "screen"? I tried "exit", "bye", "quit" but nothing worked :D
CTRL+A then CTRL+\ although exit should work too.
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philhalldron
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by philhalldron »

I originally installed the software on the memory card with the operating system then copied it onto a USB memory stick. I wondered if that might be causing issues so I have tried running it on the memory card instead.

The cumulus.ini file will not save no matter what I do.

I have tried chmod 666. I have also tried chgrp and chown to pi as it was "root" for both owner and group.

I am still unable to change the baud rate.

Moreover when I exit cumulus with ctrl-C it hangs.

I will try upgrading to a later build to see if that helps.
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Re: Difficulties getting MX on PI to talk to Instromet

Post by mcrossley »

Hmm, the version shouldn't make any difference, but it's worth a try

You could edit cumulus.ini with MX stopped, and set the imet port speed to 115200
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