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Software for monitoring Dallas MicroLan / 1-Wire sensors.

This program has been in development for more than ten years. In May 2012, I did a major re-write... This improved many things, but introduced an annoying bug. Even after hours and hours of bug hunting during August 2012, the program still throws up an error message, and stops taking measurements until restarted. However, the program is much more robust than in was, thanks to the many things that have been fixed in the quest for the bug. I apologise if you tried the program between May and September 2012. Please give it a second chance? It is much better now. Worst problem (that I know about!) is the situation described above. Not everyone sees it, and it doesn't usually happen very often... but I am still on the trail of that bug at 28 August 2012. I myself run DS025 "for real" in two locations. It does need restarting from time to time, but generally works.

The program will run in demo mode with one temperature sensor... you can "try before you buy". If you like what you see, you can upgrade to a more capable license without having to reinstall the program.

Especially if you already have Dallas 1-Wire (aka MicroLan) weather sensors deployed please give this product, DS025, a try? It won't upset your current software. (Though you won't be able to run both at the same time on the same Dallas sensors! I should also mention that DS025 is not hub friendly.) When DS025 installs, it doesn't make registry entries or require any .dlls beyond the free ones from Dallas, needed for any MicroLan.

The program displays graphs of the last 9 days' weather. It records the weather data in a text file for later use.

While throughout this I speak of "weather", the program can perfectly well display other data. It will collect data from various 1-Wire temperature sensors, counters and ADCs. (DS2423 counters, and the marvelous DS2438... analog to digital converter and temperature sensor.) If you are using the application for non-weather data, please let me know?

Here is an old screenshot of what the program produces. Today, it also produces two other windows. One for the error log, one with the current data in numerical form.

Screenshot of Sheepdogsoftware Weather Monitor DS025 in action

Note also: The text which is in color was added to the screenshot, to explain what different lines portray.

Remote monitoring: In conjunction with FarWatch, the display can be seen from any computer on the internet.

Since that screenshot was created, a new feature has been added to the program. Counter chips can be used to work no end of magic, for instance they can be set up to monitor a digital input continuously, catching brief events a polling program (like DS025) would miss. With some additional hardware, the program can monitor such "on/off" phenomena... e.g. the operation of a water pump, the opening of a door, the turning on of a heating system. A separate page with details is available.

The diagonal green line shows that the program had just been restarted. The data in the display had been reloaded from the data log. "Now" is always at the right hand edge. As time passes, the display scrolls to the left. (The green line is gradually lost.)

The circular icon at the upper right, between "Insert comment" and "Show Celsius" was displaying the current wind direction. Wind direction sensing is not part of the current version of the program. (Sorry).

As I said, the program is not confined to monitoring weather. It will collect and display data from various 1-Wire temperature sensors, counters and ADCs. (DS2423 counters, and the marvelous DS2438... analog to digital converter and temperature sensor.) Another user of Dallas chips amused his children by monitoring their hamster's exercise wheel, showing that the hamster was most active at night. This program could handle that. It can also monitor more than one temperature, so you could compare, say, house, greenhouse, pond and garden temperatures. I would love to hear about your use of the program.

The program as it stands is not well suited to monitoring rapidly changing parameters, although if you need something for, say, 4 parameters, checked, say, once a minute, let me know, I'll see what I can do!

The program does, at present, have rough edges, but it is not user un-friendly in all respects! To configure this program for your chips, you just edit a simple text file. (Notepad will do fine, though I prefer Textpad from www.textpad.com)

If you do not already have 1-Wire sensors deployed, you'll need a little hardware and software... but neither is too expensive in cash or hassle. See my "Setting up for 1-Wire".

Good news/ bad news. Three steps forward, one step back: On 24 Nov 13, I revised this page. I removed a link to a "more advanced" DS025... which, alas, seemed to be unreliable. I replaced it with this link to download DS025.zip. That .zip has the essentials, and a readme file telling you want to do with them, to get DS025 up and running. But there's no help file at the moment which is entirely right for the version in that archive.

One of the "rough edges" of DS025 is that it isn't entirely administrator friendly. (The following "set up" material is also given... perhaps better... in a ReadMe text file included in the zip file referenced above.)

The data log and error log files will be in the root of your C: drive. (They are created by the application if they aren't already present.) The exe file (DS025.exe), the ini file (DS025ini.txt), and an optional configuration file (DS025ini2.txt) should be put in a folder called DS025 which should be in the root of the C: drive. Sorry! I'm working on it, but more flexibility won't be present soon. (You might get away with putting them elsewhere... if they are all in the same folder... but no promises.) (You can use a simple shortcut to DS025.exe to start up the program, and the shortcut can be where you want it! Liberty Hall!)

Even when you've downloaded the .zip archive, extracted the files from it, and put them where they need to be, you're not quite ready to run DS025. (It works better than it sets up! I promise!)

The last hurdle to getting the software running is overcome as follows....

Use any simple text editor ("Notepad" from Windows, or, much better and free-to-try, Textpad) to open up DS025ini.txt, and...

Put your primary temperature sensing chip's id (obtain it with OneWireViewer) into the eleventh line, the line beginning with "k e" (K-space-E... that "e" or "d" at the start of each line is for "enabled/disabled", the "k" is just to identify the line. As it must be the 11th line of the file, you can call it redundant or a validity check, as you wish.) And put three z's on the end of the line. So... If your 1-wire chip's ID were 51000801041A5910, then your line "k" in your DS025ini.txt would be....

k e51000801041A5910zzz

Use upper case (capital) letters for any letters in the ID string of the Dallas chip, by the way.

Make the next line....

l e0000000000000000zzz

In each case, there will always be 16 characters between the "e" and the "zzz".

Depending on the 1-wire adapter you are using, and where it is plugged in, you may also need to change lines 8 and 9 (they start "h" and "i".) (If you get the "TKB Error 20/ Dallas Error 3..." message, suspect this. Close DS025, re-edit the ini file, re-save the ini file. Try starting DS025 again. It should run now... if you've got the right values in lines h and i! (If you are using a true USB 1-Wire interface, not just one creating a virtual serial port over a USB channel, the adapter type should be "6", and the software may moan that you have used something other than 1 or 5.

The program may "moan" a few times about not being able to read one or another sensor. If this happens, try clicking "okay" a few times. The hiccup should go away within 2 minutes of starting the program. (That doesn't happen to everyone, and if I were more commercially minded I wouldn't mention it, and, yes, I am working on removing it, or at least making the warnings non-modal.)

From time to time, the program may moan about not being able to create files, e.g. DS25DtLg.txt. This should be a rare and non-fatal event. Contact me if it arises frequently.

There is more you can do with the main and optional ini files, much more, to fine tune things and add features, but that's a story for another time, another place!

Save your modified DS025ini.txt file, and try running DS025. (The first time it runs to a certain point, you may see messages about the data-recording files being created.)


Updates

This page about DS025 has been around since 2004, and the program had been around a long time before that.

I did some major re-writes between 2010 and 2013... but apparently introduced some bugs. The program does not have a huge following, is not "a big seller". I will try to help you, on a one to one basis via email, if you are having trouble with the 1 Sept 10 version. If you have any of the various help files I've done over the years, be advised that they must be taken with a pinch of salt, as they may refer to things introduced, or modified, after September 2010. The September 2010 version does, however, work fine with my Farwatch system, and FarWatchWatcher. It also works with my scheme to turn "open" or "closed" into a stream of puluses, and then display the presence or absence of pulses with a simpler "on" / "off" display. (All of that moves the need to poll a sensor out of the concerns of DS025).

The "new" version works much like the old one... but it has been made more robust, (even!) more reliable. (See the "upgrades" page if you have an older version. No charge for this upgrade... or, usually, any Sheepdog Software application upgrade.)

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Enjoy!

I've had fun watching the weather with this program and antecedents since 1982. "Discovered" something I had not know about the wind despite a university degree and 8 years (by then) of teaching science.

My weather-watching hobby also gave me a good foundation for the meteorology elements of what I had to learn to pass a private pilot's license.


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