Cumulus communication over virtual com port - not working

[jrichert]

Hi Steve

Let me discribe, what I have and wan't to do and if it is possible.
A own a Davis Pro2 with serial datalogger, which is serial connected with a moxa 5410 which is running in TCP server mode. This means, all data could be broadcasted into the LAN up to 4 clients. My main wx station is a Windows XP Pro running vws 14.100 on my VMware esxi 4 as a virtual PC. Later I wan't to use a second virtual PC(xp or win7) and run Cumulus 1.8 or 2.x to use the cool realtime options. I installed vws on my main Win7 x64 PC and connected via LAN on port 4001 to the moxa and can read parallel the data which is generated by the serial data logger. So data is read by VWS XP and my main W7x64 pc with vws 14.100. If I start 1.8.8/9, the green Status LED is blinking but it won't receive data. Sometimes the green LED is not blinking. If I start 2.x, it won't connect via the LAN when the VMware XP is running, error message, HOST unknown. It will only connect, if I stop the MAIN VWS program on my VMware and then start cumulus on windows7. If I start after that my MAIN VWS program, both programs are simutaneusly communication, but suddenly, cumulus stops to show data.
Any idea if this could get working?

Many thanks
Joe, HB9DRT

[steve]

I don't fully understand what you're trying to do, but it sounds like basically you're trying to connect two programs to the same station at the same time. You can't do this unless you use something like Virtual VP, because it's a two-way protocol.

[jrichert]

Hi Steve
That's correct. I wan't to connect two programs to one data logger which is connected to the moxa n5410. Believe me, it is working with two vws 14.100 running on two different pc's. That's why I also thought, it should work with cumulus.
You may have a look here to the moxa web site http://www.moxa.com/zones/serial_to_eth ... _Modes.htm. Com1 on my moxa, which is connected with serial data logger is running in TCP server mode.
Is it probably only working because I use the same programs?

Best regards

Joe

[steve]

Is it probably only working because I use the same programs?

I guess it must be. Something about the way VWS works that means you're getting away with it. Maybe the Moxa thing does something intelligent that happens to fit with the way VWS works, but not Cumulus?

[jrichert]

Hi Steve

Done another test. I installed cumulus on VM XP PC and started it, working. Started the second cumulus on my W7 no data. If I stop cumulus on VM, data just arrives on W7 PC and vice versa. Probably cumulus sends a request and awaits a answer, until the answer is not received, it won't decode data? Is there an easy way to put cumulus in a kind of "listen only" mode?

Greetings
Joe

[TNETWeather]

As Steve mentioned, communicating with the data logger is a two way protocol.

However, There is already a product that lets you obtain multiple streams from a Davis Weather station that works for hundreds of sites.

http://www.softwx.com/weather/virtualvp.html

You can use it as both a virtual Port and via a network port.

I have 4 different weather station products feeding off the same feed and two additional network obtained feeds all at the same time using this tool. They all think, they are accessing their own direct connection to the station.

Highly recommended.

Nothing to workout, works with VWS, VPLive, Weather Display, Cumulus, Cumulus2, WeatherLink and a host of other custom applications. I even had it working with a Perl script on a Unix box over network Port for a while.

[steve]

Is there an easy way to put cumulus in a kind of "listen only" mode?

I'm afraid not; it's all handled by the Davis DLL. Cumulus calls the DLL for data, and the call doesn't return until the data is available. There's no way of just listening.

Cumulus 2 doesn't use the DLL, so I may be able to do a listen only mode for that at some point.

[jrichert]

OK sounds good. There is no hurry for me, if you have time and fun to implement it, I would like to test it. The reason why I want to use 2 sw parallel is, because I also use vwqsl which needs the data.csv from vws to write the data into a mysql db.
If you have a test version, you could just reply to this thread..

Many thanks for now...

Joe