|
|
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Weather Station Update
I added extreme fault-tolerance to the WxService to compensate for the intrinsic unreliability of the 1-Wire MicroLan.
It had been running quite nicely on my laptop, although I had to lift the third wire ground from the battery charger to make
it work reliably. When I moved WxService to a desktop server machine (to allow my laptop to go mobile again after about a
year of being tied to the 1-Wire network), I was unable to get any decent data through the 1-Wire network using the new machine.
My real goal is to figure out what is causing the electrical problems on the net and clean them up, but that could take
a very long time, and as I said, 1-Wire networks are intrinsically unreliable and very touchy. It would be nice if you could
install the software on a marginal network, and it would "just work". So I decided to beef up the software instead. I now
detect any CRC errors in the data an initiate a re-try of the operation -- up to 100 times per sample -- and I also toss out
range errors in the data. Of course, on a "clean" network, the operation should be successful on the first try. The result
is now a weather server that can tolerate very unreliable communication, and still record high-quality data.
|
|
Contact Us
Use the form below to send comments about this site.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Welcome!
This site is dedicated to my interest in engineering. I use it as a place to just put stuff "out there" for anyone who
might be interested, as well as a job search tool. This page contains my engineering web log (to your left). Anything that
seems timeless enough, or too involved for a log entry may get it's own page as a full-blown article. And, of course, my resume
is here for anyone who might be considering hiring me to do something. Email me.
About Me
I have worked as a broadcast engineer, electronics designer (analog and digital) and software developer. I especially
enjoy audio engineering, although I've been writing software for the last several years, since that's where the opportunities
are in the Pacific Northwest (this is Microsoft country after all). I'm currently working as a Senior Staff Engineer -- Resume at another large independent software vendor in Washington State.
I majored in mathematics and physics in college. Other interests include music appreciation (baroque, classical and early
romantic, ragtime, and 60's and 70's rock & roll), high fidelity audio electronics, meteorology and of course, computing
hardware and software. I tend to think a lot like this guy.
|
|
|
|
|
