StokerLog Version 5 Preview


 
This is where I am thinking, and it is probably way overboard.

Last week I was having a discussion with someone about process control. One of the things we discussed was the perception differences regarding performance of a control loop. If you are using a tool such as Stokerlog or anything that graphs the data and gives you the history, you have a very detailed picture of performance, including the times you were not actively viewing the data. Whereas if you are using a discrete interval method to view your process, (ie, walking outside looking at the thermometer, or an email every ten minutes) you are blind to what occurred between those discrete points.

So anyway, this weekend I was away from my cook quite a bit and I had the system setup to email me the values every ten minutes. Which was fine, but later that day I was thinking about the previously mentioned discussion and I thought how cool it would be to be able to view the graphs from my phone. Hence my "Stokerfeed" webcam. While this was fun to setup, it turned out to not be compatible with my phones browser. So along those lines I came up with the scenario of automatically saving the graphs at predefined intervals, I could then use a FTP application to check if there was a files change in the directory and then upload the new file to my Gallery which I could then browse to via my phone.

Its a pretty moot point with the graphs being able to be emailed by the Stokerlog, I just thought it would be a cool way to pseudo stream the graphs to an internet site.
 
Having StokerLog act as the web interface for the box is probably the ultimate thing to do but I think that will have to wait for the next re-write
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. But if we were there, then you could view the graph remotely. Not sure how performant it would be though, across a WAN interface.
 
So I am trying to get to closer on version 5.0
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. I just added the last feature which was to make the time delay for Lid Open programmable (under Advanced Menu). I also udpated with the documentation.

I cound not repro the bugs with updating the stoker and fields not updating correctly. But did fix the issue with graph not getting enclosed all the time.

Here it is: http://la.gg/upl/StokerLog5RC1.msi

Appreciate help making sure it works before I unleash it on everyone else!
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Just finished the cook. Regular emails went off without a hitch. Graph emails not so good. After having it set for 15 min, and not seeing one after 45 min, I shortend the graph interval to 4 min. Then I got one, and finally another one 30 minutes later by that point I had set the graph interval to 3 minutes.

Otherwise control and cooking seemed fine.

RC1
 
Thanks Andy. The graph setting is not in the number of minutes. But rather, how often the graph should be sent. So ifyou set it to 15, then it gets sent once every 15 times email is sent. And if email frequency is say, 5, then the graph is sent once every 75 minutes. Is this how you had it set?
 
Ohhhhh. Gotcha. Ok I will try that setting tomorrow and report back. BTW. Did you see that the buttons for the meat are in the wrong place.

Also btw. When the food was ready no alarm went off. I will test that feature again.
 
Man, I can't believe the labels are still in the wrong place. Can you confirm that you are running the latest and greates?
 
Never mind
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. Looks like I stopped my new text alignment technique after the temp fields. Please try this version. Hit Control-A to start the simulation and click the checkbox. That should run the program by itself without the stoker so that we can quickly see if the columns are alinged.

http://la.gg/upl/StokerLogRC1a.msi
 
Amir,

If you're looking for stuff to do with StokerLog, may I suggest finding a way to keep the settings after an upgrade. Granted, there aren't a lot of settings to change, but I still think it might make things a little easier (on us, but harder for you
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).

Bill
 
Ah Bill, don't say that
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. Because that is another re-write....

I do have an excuse for doing though in that I think it would be cool to have all the settings in a file and outside of registry. That way, you can save that and take it anywhere, say on a new PC and quickly have it know all of your favorite settings.

So why don't we make sure the current version is good to go so that people can use it, and then I will start working on that for version 5.1. Deal?
 
Originally posted by Amir:
Ah Bill, don't say that
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. Because that is another re-write....

I do have an excuse for doing though in that I think it would be cool to have all the settings in a file and outside of registry. That way, you can save that and take it anywhere, say on a new PC and quickly have it know all of your favorite settings.

So why don't we make sure the current version is good to go so that people can use it, and then I will start working on that for version 5.1. Deal?

Fair enough.

I'm gonna test the latest version this weekend to see if it still crashes when I try to update the temps.

Bill
 
Amir, I had that "Stoker is hung" message again, I checked and I was able to connect to the web page without any issues before I used Shift + Start to reconnect the Stokerlog.

Other than that one instance everything else is working correctly. The email are be sent with and without graphs correctly. The Auto lid detection is working as expected.



PS. just got it again. - Stoker is hung, cycle the power
 
I don't understand why it is doing that. I can try to put in a work-around for it but it is the part of the code I prefer to not touch
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.

As a way of background, there is a bug that causes stoker to hang on power up. When there, it generates this message with the word "java" in it. So anytime I see that, I assume the box is hung. I have email into the developer to see if there are legitimate times the message should come out. It is strange that all this time, none of us have seen this message.

I may add some diagnostics to help us understand the issue better.
 
OK, here is a new build where the stoker string is put in the status bar if it detects the hang condition. Can you please install and run this version and be sure to save the status string before restarting the program?

If the line is too long, please be sure to cut and paste all of it by dragging the mouse past the end of the status line (it will scroll to the left).

http://la.gg/upl/StokerlogPreview5B.msi
 

 

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