Page 1 of 1

Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Sat 23 Feb 2013 4:53 am
by johndavidson
I've been experimenting with putting a WMR200 (a USB device) on the network. The idea is to separate the station from the server running Cumulus.

I looked at various USB to Network devices. The one I settled on was this:

http://www.welland.com.tw/html/usbip/204.html

This is a more generic device than Belkins, etc, as it was not restricted to just printers and/or storage devices. These devices either did not see the station at all, or threw an error message. The Welland device saw the station, and appeared to recognise it as the correct type of USB device. The station appeared in the server's device list as expected.

Cumulus would start, see the station, recognise it correctly, but would not read any values. Attached is the log file. I believe the issue may be the CRC error at the end of this section:

23/02/2013 15:30:05.505 : 3:30:05 PM EWUSB Form Create
23/02/2013 15:30:05.597 : 3:30:05 PM Initialising WMR200
23/02/2013 15:30:05.597 : 3:30:05 PM WMR200: Looking for station...
23/02/2013 15:30:05.707 : 3:30:05 PM WMR200: Found station
23/02/2013 15:30:05.708 : 3:30:05 PM Sending reset
23/02/2013 15:30:05.711 : Loading last N hour data from data logs: 22/02/2013 4:03:00 PM
23/02/2013 15:30:05.716 : Loaded 57 entries to last hour data list
23/02/2013 15:30:05.722 : Loaded 70 entries to last 3 hour data list
23/02/2013 15:30:05.728 : Loaded 717 entries to last 24 hour data list
23/02/2013 15:30:05.743 : Loaded 717 entries to recent data list
23/02/2013 15:30:05.743 : Getting logger entries
23/02/2013 15:30:05.750 : Drawing initial graphs from data logs
23/02/2013 15:30:05.756 : Finished drawing initial graphs from data logs
23/02/2013 15:30:06.020 : HISTORY_AVAILABLE_PACKET_TYPE
23/02/2013 15:30:06.020 : Sending DA response
23/02/2013 15:30:11.809 : WMR200: Invalid CRC

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Everything is fine if the station is directly connected to the PC running Cumulus.

Re: Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Sat 23 Feb 2013 9:49 am
by steve
Yes, it looks like the data is being corrupted. If you edit cumulus.ini and put logging=1 into the [Station] section, it will turn on the debug log at startup. You can then see the data being received in the debug.log file, and compare it with the expected format, as described here: http://www.bashewa.com/wmr200-protocol.php

Re: Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Sat 23 Feb 2013 11:35 am
by johndavidson
Thanks for the info. USB data seems very different for the two situations. Attached is data captures for Cumulus with the station plugged in directly, and plugged in to the USB network device.

As a comparison, I've included a data capture from another program that does seem to work OK if the station is plugged into the network device.

Re: Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Sat 23 Feb 2013 12:03 pm
by steve
It looks like there's a string of 16 spurious zero bytes inserted into the packet not far from the beginning which throws everything out.

Note that Cumulus is reading logger packets, whereas your other software is reading live packets. The logger packets are much longer than live packets, which may be something to do with the problem. As an experiment, you could try turning off 'use data logger' in Cumulus to see if the live packets are being received OK. That may not work, though, given the way these stations work and what's happening to the data.

Re: Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Sat 23 Feb 2013 12:30 pm
by johndavidson
Turned off using the data logger and everything appeared to come good.

Re: Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Sat 23 Feb 2013 12:38 pm
by steve
I guess it's something to do with the long logger packets, then. They're getting corrupted somewhere.

Re: Putting a WMR200 on the network

Posted: Tue 17 May 2016 12:12 pm
by nemobrasil
johndavidson wrote:I've been experimenting with putting a WMR200 (a USB device) on the network. The idea is to separate the station from the server running Cumulus.

I looked at various USB to Network devices. The one I settled on was this:

http://www.welland.com.tw/html/usbip/204.html
John,

I bought the Device Server above (NH-204), but I had no success. The device didn't recognize the WMR200A. Let me ask you if get it from first or was necessary some tip...

Thanks in advance

Nestor