UltraDMM Software Project

[BThunderW]

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of the issues have been fixed in the work-in-progress version here: http://www.ultradmm.com/release/wip/UltraDMMPatch.7z

It would also be super useful to have a sort of value history... maybe let me see below the digit gauge, the previous 10 measurements different and ignore the readings that repeat in that list.

There is a window under Tools called Meter Log that displays all meter activity that you can even export to Excel

I'll work on the usability issues over time.

Tom

ok... some feedback:

windows 7 64 bit , ran from c:\programs\ultradmm  , ut61e , using some serial to usb adapter (prolific clone, windows driver installed automatically)

ran for the first time the application without anything connected. 

Edit meters , click on icon,  defaulted to first meter model, COM 1 , 2400 baud
Close app. Plugged the serial to usb adapter, Windows installed it as COM3. Connected meter and turned it on

Start app , edit meters, click on new, now defaulted to COM3 but still first meter from menu. Does it default to last com port or it somehow detected activity on the port?
Selected UT61E and changed automatically to 19200.  Clicked Test button and said "Unknown model name". After saving the meter, if I click edit, it still says unknown model name when I press on Test.
The window is bad usability wise.. when hovering over buttons it should say add, edit, delete, close ... I actually stopped and wondered if i should click on the right button with the arrow. I wasn't sure if it's "Close and use" or just close.

Add gauge > digital gauge...  it's nice but not really very useful when the meter refreshes so often. I had it on volts and just touching the probes with fingers and first thing I noted is that it switches to uV, mV and V ... I hate it that it switches , I'd rather have more digits and have a fixed decimal point somewhere. Why shift my eyes left and right to chase the value?  In the worst case, maybe have [ auto / uv /mv / v ] selectable option.

It would also be super useful to have a sort of value history... maybe let me see below the digit gauge, the previous 10 measurements different and ignore the readings that repeat in that list.

Graph was nice. Right when I started the window was saying with a big red text error but then the graph was drawn.

I like that the graph stops and resumes without errors if I turn off the meter and start it again. But I'd rather have the graph pause or at least throw a warning and change to proper indicators when I switch from V to mV.
When on V it works fine showing 0, -0.018v etc but when you switch to mV it now hovers at around 100-150mV depending on how I hold the probes, so the graph gets messy ... picture me doing graph of a 1.8v source and with the device turned off I see 10-20 mV then flipping to mV and scale now jumps to 200 mV - the graph doesn't make sense anymore.
When pressing to switch to Hz or % the digital gauge shows Hz or %, but the graph shows mV and pV on the scale.

Other than that, I like it that at least it clears the graph when I switch to resistance measurement but I'd probably like to be able to have several graphs on screen that pause and resume when going into the proper setting, instead of clearing the graph.

Very nice so far, I like it.

ok .. strange... turned the app off, and started the uni-t software to compare... turned it off. Started the app again and went straight to meters and clicked connect ... got an exception. Closed it before I saw what it said out of reflex, but i went to meters > edit meters and there's no saved meter there. I saved it before i closed the app the previous time. Now file > exit doesn't work, it asks if I want to save and if I say No, it doesn't close. 
I said Yes, tried to save to c:\temp\a.xml and there's an error message saying requested registry access is not allowed. Second time File > Exit , Do you want to save , yes > straight to the registry error message popup. So I have to kill the process to get out.

Restart > edit meters > no meters saved... added meter again , everything works.  Exit , start app, edit meters .. list gone. So meters are not saved  ... maybe as its running from c:\programs\ultradmm it doesn't have rights to registry or wherever it saves the list?

[Monkeh]

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of the issues have been fixed in the work-in-progress version here: http://www.ultradmm.com/release/wip/UltraDMMPatch.7z

That hasn't been updated.

[BThunderW]

I meant the decimal gauge and Unknown Model's been fix in the patch.

Tom

[Monkeh]

I meant the decimal gauge and Unknown Model's been fix in the patch.

Tom

The file didn't change when you last asked me to try it.

[David_AVD]

The downloads are very slow for me too.  I just assumed it was hosted on a home connection.

[T4P]

Which says.. what?

my ut71a uses this cable with infrared led on the end, no direct physical contact with DMM hardware, its just detected as usb to serial converter by winxp. since its not showing up in the "create digital gauge" option when i hit continue from exception box, i guess its not supported? attached is the exception box message...
ps: i also did install and run the dmm.exe posted by B@W on the other thread which detected my DMM and reading correctly.

You have to go into right click computer into 'manage' or computer management and look for the device manager
after that go into Ports (COM&LPT)
then assign your USB to Serial Converter as COM1 if it's there even anyway.
Just in case you don't know

did install the 7zip version. i guess the app doesnt like my UT71A which use usb to serial converter connection

Well what chipset is it?

i dont know doesnt matter, the app doesnt even show the COM1 connection in the list. keep showing JIT debugger long message.

Not gonna help if you don't know what chipset it uses ...

[Monkeh]

Which says.. what?

my ut71a uses this cable with infrared led on the end, no direct physical contact with DMM hardware, its just detected as usb to serial converter by winxp. since its not showing up in the "create digital gauge" option when i hit continue from exception box, i guess its not supported? attached is the exception box message...
ps: i also did install and run the dmm.exe posted by B@W on the other thread which detected my DMM and reading correctly.

You have to go into right click computer into 'manage' or computer management and look for the device manager
after that go into Ports (COM&LPT)
then assign your USB to Serial Converter as COM1 if it's there even anyway.
Just in case you don't know

Or you just use whatever COM port it gets assigned..

[T4P]

Which says.. what?

my ut71a uses this cable with infrared led on the end, no direct physical contact with DMM hardware, its just detected as usb to serial converter by winxp. since its not showing up in the "create digital gauge" option when i hit continue from exception box, i guess its not supported? attached is the exception box message...
ps: i also did install and run the dmm.exe posted by B@W on the other thread which detected my DMM and reading correctly.

You have to go into right click computer into 'manage' or computer management and look for the device manager
after that go into Ports (COM&LPT)
then assign your USB to Serial Converter as COM1 if it's there even anyway.
Just in case you don't know

Or you just use whatever COM port it gets assigned..

In my situation at first my USB Serial Port Emulator had to be configured it wouldn't show anything without changing it to COM1

[mariush]

Tested the patch version linked here.

Yes, the meter gets saved.  Yes, the gauge is now fixed with decimals after, cool. BUT  the test button still says unknown model name.

However, there's still something preventing the soft from closing properly. 

Started meter, connect , show gauge, close gauge, disconnect, file > exit , no, not closing.   Yes, popup saved ok, exit.

and spotted the following bug with the chart, just by switching between v and mV :

http://youtu.be/1X0qitgQ7fw

If you pay attention at some points it also pops the "line chart error" red text at several points.

[Monkeh]

In my situation at first my USB Serial Port Emulator had to be configured it wouldn't show anything without changing it to COM1

That's abnormal. It should not matter.

[BThunderW]

I'll work on the mentioned items. Will have a new update soon. I gotta look into the web server performance issues.

Cheers,

Tom

Tested the patch version linked here.

Yes, the meter gets saved.  Yes, the gauge is now fixed with decimals after, cool. BUT  the test button still says unknown model name.

However, there's still something preventing the soft from closing properly. 

Started meter, connect , show gauge, close gauge, disconnect, file > exit , no, not closing.   Yes, popup saved ok, exit.

and spotted the following bug with the chart, just by switching between v and mV :

http://youtu.be/1X0qitgQ7fw

If you pay attention at some points it also pops the "line chart error" red text at several points.

[David_AVD]

Keep up the good work Tom.  Remember to take the feedback as constructive criticism.   

I've written a few free software tools over the years and I know what it can be like.   

[BThunderW]

Lol. I'm a consultant, I always deal with picky, finicky clients

I really do appreciate the feedback, regardless of the tone.

[BThunderW]

New update deployed.

Took another stab at getting FS9922 Working. Please give that a try.
Graph rewritten. The jitter/errors were due to cross-thread issues and rendering times once the graph was populated with over 150 or so values. It now only displays last 50 values and you can use the track bar to scroll to older values. This is still a work in progress, but feedback on this appreciated.
Implemented the new Icon from "jucole". Thank You!
Fixed whole bunch of small bugs.

http://www.ultradmm.com/release/wip/UltraDMMPatch.7z

Regarding the server slowness, I'll contact the data center tomorrow to see if we can figure out what the issue is.

Cheers,

Tom

[Monkeh]

2012-09-03 21:23:07 : Error: Meter 1:Insufficient Data: '+3474 41

It would help a lot to be able to see the code.

[BThunderW]

"+3474 41" is not what the meter is expecting. Is it not showing the values in the raw output?

I have no idea what format that is, as this is not what is documented in the spec. It's expecting something like "2B30303030203111000080000D0A".

From Document:

13.12 RS232 Output Format
2D-30-30-30-30-20-31-11-00-00-80-80-0D-0A

(my code will accept either dashes, spaces or no spaces)


Tom

[Monkeh]

"+3474 41" is not what the meter is expecting. Is it not showing the values in the raw output?

I have no idea what format that is, as this is not what is documented in the spec. It's expecting something like "2B30303030203111000080000D0A".

Tom

That is what I'm seeing in the app log and the raw log.

I gave you a sample of actual meter output up a few posts, in spaced hex and nibble format. The output is, with the exception of one small difference in the decimal place byte, as in the datasheet.

There are no spaces or dashes in the actual data. They are only present in the datasheet and the output I provided to make it easy to read. The output is to be interpreted as hex, it is not ASCII data displaying hex values.

[mariush]

Nice, test button works now, the icon is a checkbox which sends the message "ok" to me, so it's all good.

The only things that bug me are just cosmetics more or less at this point:

* tooltips when hovering over buttons
* would love to have a statusbar / resize gliph on the corner of the graph window - feels like I might accidentally click on the button when I try to resize window
* when selecting add graph, if there's a single meter added, maybe it should default on pre-selecting that meter instead of me having to keep doing 2 clicks do open the combo box and select the only meter.
* those black arrows seem maybe a bit too thick in the graph window but it may just be a personal taste.

other notes

* when changing the graph from voltage to resistance or capacitance, the graph continues on and shows on the left  MV  when on resistance and pV when on Capacitance (as i keep the probes in air it's the default 70ish pF)

* what's the point of the alerts window if it's constantly minimized there and doing nothing ?

*shouldn't raw log actually output the bytes in hexadecimal or something like that? it seems it outputs two numbers ?  It's not really "raw" if you pre-process it

[BThunderW]

I got this from you:
2B 30 30 30 30 20 31 11 00 00 80 00 0D 0A
0010.1011 0011.0000 0011.0000 0011.0000 0011.0000 0010.0000 0011.0001 0001.0001 0000.0000 0000.0000 1000.0000 0000.0000 0000.1101 0000.1

I assumed the first line was the actual plaintext output.

I think I got it now. Try this:

http://www.ultradmm.com/release/wip/UltraDMMPatch.7z

Tom

"+3474 41" is not what the meter is expecting. Is it not showing the values in the raw output?

I have no idea what format that is, as this is not what is documented in the spec. It's expecting something like "2B30303030203111000080000D0A".

Tom

That is what I'm seeing in the app log and the raw log.

I gave you a sample of actual meter output up a few posts, in spaced hex and nibble format.

[Monkeh]

I got this from you:
2B 30 30 30 30 20 31 11 00 00 80 00 0D 0A
0010.1011 0011.0000 0011.0000 0011.0000 0011.0000 0010.0000 0011.0001 0001.0001 0000.0000 0000.0000 1000.0000 0000.0000 0000.1101 0000.1

I assumed the first line was the actual plaintext output.

Yeah, it's not text, it's 14-byte hex.

No difference.

[BThunderW]

Still working on usability issues.

Raw output is just that. There's no processing on it. What are you seeing? Can you post screenshot.

Tom

Nice, test button works now, the icon is a checkbox which sends the message "ok" to me, so it's all good.

The only things that bug me are just cosmetics more or less at this point:

* tooltips when hovering over buttons
* would love to have a statusbar / resize gliph on the corner of the graph window - feels like I might accidentally click on the button when I try to resize window
* when selecting add graph, if there's a single meter added, maybe it should default on pre-selecting that meter instead of me having to keep doing 2 clicks do open the combo box and select the only meter.
* those black arrows seem maybe a bit too thick in the graph window but it may just be a personal taste.

other notes

* when changing the graph from voltage to resistance or capacitance, the graph continues on and shows on the left  MV  when on resistance and pV when on Capacitance (as i keep the probes in air it's the default 70ish pF)

* what's the point of the alerts window if it's constantly minimized there and doing nothing ?

*shouldn't raw log actually output the bytes in hexadecimal or something like that? it seems it outputs two numbers ?  It's not really "raw" if you pre-process it

[Monkeh]

That's not raw, that's being interpreted as ASCII by something.

[BThunderW]

Ok. Obviously there's something more being sent than what my code is expecting. Unless I actually get my hands on actual output from the meter,  I'll have to get the meter in question myself and try it on my own.

Here's a chunk of code that's processing this:

Code: [Select]


char[] bytes;
   if (buf.Length == 14)
                bytes = buf.ToCharArray();
else
               throw new ApplicationException(String.Format("Insufficient Data: '{0}'", buf));

    Sing = Convert.ToByte(bytes[0]);
                Data1 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[1]);
                Data2 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[2]);
                Data3 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[3]);
                Data4 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[4]);

                Point = Convert.ToByte(bytes[6]);
                SB1 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[7]);
                SB2 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[8]);
                SB3 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[9]);
                SB4 = Convert.ToByte(bytes[10]);



Tom

I got this from you:
2B 30 30 30 30 20 31 11 00 00 80 00 0D 0A
0010.1011 0011.0000 0011.0000 0011.0000 0011.0000 0010.0000 0011.0001 0001.0001 0000.0000 0000.0000 1000.0000 0000.0000 0000.1101 0000.1

I assumed the first line was the actual plaintext output.

Yeah, it's not text, it's 14-byte hex.

No difference.

[BThunderW]

It's definitely raw. I simply add the buffer contents to the listbox control. My guess is that the listbox control converts it to ascii.

That's not raw, that's being interpreted as ASCII by something.

[BThunderW]

Hmm. If you can humor me and try the latest patch. I'm wondering if the newline character is being excluded from the buffer. That would make the buffer length 13 characters and not 14.

Tom