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Boltwood OneLine Log Output

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Andrewt81
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue 04 Jul 2017 11:40 am
Weather Station: Wh-1080
Operating System: Windows 7

Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by Andrewt81 »

Dear Sirs,
i'm planning to integrate a WH1080 weather Station into my Remote Observatory.

I already used cumulus v1 to log data from my home Weather station and i really like the web interface of Cumulus MX.
Actually ASCOM is a standard interface for comkunications between astronomy equipment and for weather equipment there are a few and expensive choices> AAG Cloud Watcher (with optional weather module) and Boltwood Cloud Watcher.

After a lot of googling i understand there is a lack of an ascom driver to connect weather stations, and i understand it's probably too fragmented to hope in specific device drivers.

But maybe there could be a chance. Currently there is a free ASCOM driver that uses Boltwood File format to communicate weather parameters to ASCOM. (could be downloaded here: http://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/Ob ... rivers.htm)

The OneLine protocol is public and is well documented here: https://diffractionlimited.com/wp-conte ... Manual.pdf

It could be interesting if Cumulus could write his Realtime.txt file (or maybe to translate in realtime) into this format. This could open the door to any Astronomy related use because after the conversion all the "dirty work" will be done from monitors and tools inside ASCOM enviroment.

Hope someone could be interested in developing such a tool because something like this is really missing.

Thanks. Andrea
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mcrossley
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Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by mcrossley »

Andrea, can you post the file format required, then we can see if Cumulus can generate that file for you.
Andrewt81
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue 04 Jul 2017 11:40 am
Weather Station: Wh-1080
Operating System: Windows 7

Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by Andrewt81 »

Here it is directly from documentation (page 44)

Correct format should be the new. Missing informations such sky temperature is not a problem because it could be excluded in ascom observing conditions hub

Thanks in advance for prompt reply:

Code: Select all

There are two formats available for the line in the file, selected by the radio buttons underneath the “Data 
File” command button in the Setup window: 
17.1.1 New Format 
This recommended format gives access to all of the data Cloud Sensor II can provide. The data is similar 
to the display fields in the Clarity II window. The format has been split across two lines to make it fit on 
this page: 
Date Time T V SkyT AmbT SenT Wind Hum DewPt Hea 
2005-06-03 02:07:23.34 C K -28.5 18.7 22.5 45.3 75 10.3 3 
R W Since Now() Day's c w r d C A 
0 0 00004 038506.08846 1 2 1 0 0 0 
The header line is here just for illustration. It does not actually appear anywhere. 
The fields mean: 
 Heading Col’s Meaning 
 Date 1-10 local date yyyy-mm-dd 
 Time 12-22 local time hh:mm:ss.ss (24 hour clock) 
 T 24 temperature units displayed and in this data, 'C' for Celsius or 'F' for Fahrenheit 
 V 26 wind velocity units displayed and in this data, ‘K’ for km/hr or ‘M’ for mph or 
'm' for m/s 
 SkyT 28-33 sky-ambient temperature, 999. for saturated hot, -999. for saturated cold, or –998. 
for wet 
 AmbT 35-40 ambient temperature 
 SenT 41-47 sensor case temperature, 999. for saturated hot, -999. for saturated cold. Neither 
saturated condition should ever occur. 
 Wind 49-54 wind speed or: 
-1. if still heating up, 
-2. if wet, 
-3. if the A/D from the wind probe is bad (firmware <V56 only) , 
-4. if the probe is not heating (a failure condition), 
-5. if the A/D from the wind probe is low (shorted, a failure condition) (firmware 
>=V56 only), 
-6. if the A/D from the wind probe is high (no probe plugged in or a failure) 
(firmware >=V56 only). 
 Hum 56-58 relative humidity in % 
 DewPt 60-65 dew point temperature 
 Hea 67-69 heater setting in % 
 R 71 rain flag, =0 for dry, =1 for rain in the last minute, =2 for rain right now 
 W 73 wet flag, =0 for dry, =1 for wet in the last minute, =2 for wet right now 
 Since 75-79 seconds since the last valid data 
 Now() Day's 81-92 date/time given as the VB6 Now() function result (in days) when Clarity II last 
wrote this file 
 c 94 cloud condition (see the Cloudcond enum in section 20)
 
 w 96 wind condition (see the Windcond enum in section 20) 
 r 98 rain condition (see the Raincond enum in section 20) 
 d 100 daylight condition (see the Daycond enum in section 20) 
 C 102 roof close, =0 not requested, =1 if roof close was requested on this cycle 
 A 104 alert, =0 when not alerting, =1 when alerting 
17.1.2 Old Format 
This format is provided for compatibility with software written to use the original Cloud Sensor product. 
The format is: 
Date Time U SkyT AmbT SenT Hea W Since Now() Day's S 
2005-06-03 02:07:23 C -28.5 18.7 22.5 3 0 00004 038506.08846 1 
The immediately above line is an example of the only line in the file. 
The header line is here just for illustration. It does not actually appear anywhere. 
The fields mean: 
 
 Date local date yyyy-mm-dd 
 Time local time hh:mm:ss (24 hour clock) 
 U temperature units, 'C' for Celsius or 'F' for Fahrenheit 
 SkyT sky-ambient temperature 
 AmbT ambient temperature 
 SenT sensor case temperature 
 Hea heater setting in % 
 W wet flag, =0 for dry, =1 for wet 
 Since seconds since last valid data 
 Now() Day's date/time given as the VB6 Now() function result (in days) when Clarity II last wrote this 
file 
 S sky condition (see the SkyCond enum below). 
Public Enum SkyCond 
 skyUnknown = 0 
 skyClear = 1 
 skyCloudy = 2 
 skyVeryCloudy = 3 
 skyWet = 4 
End Enum
Andrewt81
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue 04 Jul 2017 11:40 am
Weather Station: Wh-1080
Operating System: Windows 7

Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by Andrewt81 »

Forget to say format should use fixed columns layout or space as divider
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mcrossley
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Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by mcrossley »

There are two problematic fields in there - "Since" and "Now", Cumulus cannot generate those fields for you. So you would be looking at using something like PHP on your web server to generate them and create the data file, or a local script that takes to Cumulus data and generates the data file.
Andrewt81
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue 04 Jul 2017 11:40 am
Weather Station: Wh-1080
Operating System: Windows 7

Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by Andrewt81 »

I didn't noticed those 2 fields

I ll try to ask boltwood if are strictly necessary or simply related to cloud/rain sensor (not managed from cumulus so no problem) because "time since last valid read" seems to be a duplicate of first fields (date/time)

Probably are only related to Rain/Cloud sensor and should not be a problem if left blank. Probably it's just a timer to count how many minutes since it clouds/rain begun and to report if safe/unsafe
Andrewt81
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue 04 Jul 2017 11:40 am
Weather Station: Wh-1080
Operating System: Windows 7

Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by Andrewt81 »

Those 2 fields are "service" fields for Clarity which is the service that wrote the logs to prevent write flooding or to check if system is alive.

So for our purposes should be 0.

I paste the answer from boltwood support:

Code: Select all

These fields are used to assure that the other data is current/fresh. If seconds since last data is "too long" it means the unit is not providing new data,l yet Clarity is writing the file. The automation date number tells you if Clarity is writing the file. Consider what you would get if you just shut down Clarity then depended on that file for your weather input
User avatar
mcrossley
Posts: 12697
Joined: Thu 07 Jan 2010 9:44 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
Operating System: Bullseye Lite rPi
Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK
Contact:

Re: Boltwood OneLine Log Output

Post by mcrossley »

As a starter for the "new format" try something like...

Code: Select all

<#date format="yyyy-MM-dd"> <#timehhmmss> <#tempunitnodeg> M 0 <#temp> 0 <#wspeed> <#hum> <#dew> 0 <#IsRaining> <#IsRaining> 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
You will have to change the windspeed unit manually, and I have no idea what those enum values are at the end.

Over to you (and the Wiki)...
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