Cumulus Support

mcrossley wrote:Oh for a good old fashioned physical serial port

But that's what laulau's using with his push button test.

just tried putting water into the tip bucket and checking the log. strange results on low rate tips always two ons before off.on higher rate of tips always just on/off.
so low rain fall would read higher but high rain fall would read ok. could be the reed is held closed longer for the lower rate as the bucket moves the magnet over the reed switch.
is it worth continuing with this testing with out a rg11 connected?

bruce45 wrote:is it worth continuing with this testing with out a rg11 connected?

I suspect not. It looks like this is only going to work with a real RG-11, and fortunately that does seem to work, as Alan has shown.

so tip bucket on direct rs232 port not a good idea due to not been accurate.
just have to wait till my RG11 arrives and then test it on the port to see if it shows double tips.

have we proved anything with these tests or is it we just like playing with gadgets and causing Steve a few headaches

steve wrote:

mcrossley wrote:Oh for a good old fashioned physical serial port

But that's what laulau's using with his push button test.

Ah missed that.

One thing, as far as I can see the relay is just connecting DTR to DSR during a tip creating a +ve signal. RS232 normally requires a -ve signal to register the 'low', this relay connection is just leaving open circuit and floating is it not? - you need a pull down resistor in there.

If Cumulus set the port to have RTS low, could you not use that as your pull down voltage?

Edit: Come on England!

mcrossley wrote:this relay connection is just leaving open circuit and floating is it not? - you need a pull down resistor in there.

Good point.

If Cumulus set the port to have RTS low, could you not use that as your pull down voltage?

I can easily explicitly set it low - it might be low by default anyway.

steve wrote: it might be low by default anyway.

Hi,

Yes I'm fairly sure it is, and the lack of a pull-down is a good point (although it does seem to work without).

BTW, rather than having to use a second COM port for the "It's Raining" and "Rain Bucket Tip" signals, would it be possible to use two of the input handshake pins to the PC on one port? I believe that DCD, CTS and RI are all inputs (in addition to DSR), but don't know which are supported, particularly with USB-serial adapters. But I've always considered CTS to be the "normal" handshake pin and it appears that DCD is more normally paired with DTR in null modem apps.

Cheers, Alan.

steve wrote:

mcrossley wrote:this relay connection is just leaving open circuit and floating is it not? - you need a pull down resistor in there.

Good point.

So, for a non techy like me, how do you calculate the size of the resistor and what pins would you connect to?

Duke

AllyCat wrote:would it be possible to use two of the input handshake pins to the PC on one port?

Yes, good idea; I can add that as a configuration option.

this is the pinout for rs232

this is the pinout for usb

how this work with a usb to rs232 converter listed before

not sure

how the rs232 conditions relate to usb date no idea

but may be someone out there can help and then Steve might be able to use that info to sort this out

duke wrote: how do you calculate the size of the resistor and what pins would you connect to?

Hi,

The value won't be critical, perhaps 22k ohms but anything between say 10k and 100k should be fine. Not much power so a normal "1/4 (quarter) watt" or less will be OK.

Connect between pins 6 and 7, 6 being the first pin on the lower row (of 4) which is currently being used and 7 is next to it on the same row (Ah, Bruce has given us a picture).

Cheers, Alan.

still think until we can get tests done on direct rs232 port with the rg11

after some testing of the fo tip bucket reed switch with the swinging arm in the lower position either left or right the reed is closed as it moves the reed goes open and then closed

this could explain when i had it connected to the rs232 port i was getting a rain fall on start up but it does seem to dismiss the timing that the contact is closed for causing more on's than off's

any thoughts about this

bruce45 wrote:not sure

how the rs232 conditions relate to usb date no idea

but may be someone out there can help and then Steve might be able to use that info to sort this out

They're not related in any way. The hardware converts the serial data into USB, and the driver software converts it back again. Cumulus has no idea that USB is involved at all; conceptually it's just the same as a real serial port.

thanks for that Steve i supose the use of the usb interface is only as that is what most pc's / laptops have unlike the older ones with both serial and parallel ports no usb.

nothing to do with this but i had to get rid of my printer the other day it was a parallel printer epson 620 only had it for 15 years but got to the point that could not get cheap inks for it, many waste ink resets done. it might have been slow and noisy but dont think i can really complain for the work it has done.
maybe someone has a printer still working thats older would it be worth starting a topic about how long hardware can last.

bruce45 wrote: either left or right the reed is closed as it moves the reed goes open and then closed

Hi,

Are you sure? I don't think it's supposed to work that way; the reed should close when the see-saw tips.

In principle, it could work either way, but if normally closed it will produce "false rain" whenever the cable is unplugged (and drain a little more power from the batteries). I've just tried unplugging the rain cable from my "test" unit several times and the rain count hasn't increased, indicating that the reed must be open.

Cheers, Alan.