DDEViewer from Roso Electric Supply, Venezuela: A simple software link to 1-Wire chips on MicroLan networks.
Absolutely brilliant... almost!
The good people at www.roso-control.com, in Venezuela, have released a wonderful program called DDEView. Not only that, but they have made it freeware!
I didn't encounter anything worrying while installing, though I did not check it thoroughly for spyware. I should add that I have not had extensive experience with this software... but initial tests are encouraging. If it proves robust and reliable, we owe Roso a huge vote of thanks.
DDE View takes away almost all of the hard stuff of working with 1-Wire chips on MicroLans. (If you have no idea of what they are, you can visit my introduction to 1-Wire and MicroLans.) DDEView is a DDE server. Don't Panic! All you have to do is start it up, and then use a DDE aware spreadsheet or programming language to supply a DDE client... It really is very easy, and explained below. But you should Be Glad you didn't have to create (or buy) the DDE server!
Download the DDE View software (Setup-type .exe, 3MB)
and download the spreadsheet & Delphi code samples (Zip archive, 2MB)
----- Set things up
The manual is excellent. To the point. Sensibly illustrated. Etc. This is especially laudable if as I suspect the author was working in a second language. Do read it! But ignore the now-irrelevant stuff in the installation section about the "Code Screen", and don't be alarmed that the Code Screen doesn't appear during the installation process. (There is a little footnote in the manual saying "Version 1.2 and later are registration free..." If you downloaded DDEViewer after late September 2005, then you downloaded ver 1.2 or later.)
Run the program which sets up the software. It lets you choose where to put the software. It provides an "Uninstall" shortcut. I saw no problems... and I am fussy about what goes on my system. (I'm using Win98SE.)
In a hurry? You can skip this paragraph 'til later: Use Winzip or similar to extract the samples. Be sure to "use" Winzip (or similar)... if you try some routes, you'll have problems because of multiple files called "unit1.pas". Winzip WILL sort them out into their respective sub folders, if you invoke it correctly.
You MAY have to install the Dallas TMEX software before DDEView will work. I didn't try it in a machine with no TMEX. Installing TMEX is always a good idea if you want to work with 1-Wire, if only for the neat little testing tool "iButtonViewer.exe". I like the nice, simple, low impact, runs quickly "legacy" software, version 3.20. It doesn't support some chips, notably the DS2408, but it is fine for getting started! I might try the ver 3.22 package if I were starting from scratch. iButtonViewer was replaced by something I like less well in more recent TMEX packages.
----- Make initial tests
Before you run DDEViewer for the first time, disconnect anything you have on your serial or parallel ports, except for a MicroLan adapter. That should be connected, and have some 1-Wire chips attached to it. Re- disconnecting other things, I am, perhaps, being over-cautious. Fear not. Once you have DDE View working, you WILL be able to use your other ports in the normal way.
Once the installer is done, run DDEView. You don't even have to restart the computer. When DDE View starts for the first time, you have to tell it your adapter's type and what port it is on. If you have a DS9097 adapter (fairly common), in DDEViewer's parlance it is an "OEM Serial Adapter type 5". Beware the "Serial type 1" alternative.
You SHOULD then "drop through" to what the manual illustrates and described as the "DDE View Software Main Window"... a tree of the hardware on your MicroLanWindows Explorer, (The tree is like the on in the folders pane of the Windows Device Manager, or Windows Explorer). The headings are:
THERMO
DPRAM
SSW
SWITCH
... etc...
After each heading, you will see a number which indicates how many devices from that family were discovered by DDView while initializing. If you change what is on the MicroLan, you have to restart DDE View, or use the "Add device" or "Remove device" item under the Setup menu item of the main window.
If you get the "Port and Adapter Selection" dialog again, shut DDEViewer down, and check with iButtonViewer or similar that your MicroLan is up and running okay. Try DDEView again. No joy? See "Why Almost", below.
Anyway, assuming you do get the DDE View Software Main Window: Congratulations! That's it! Your DDE server is up and running. You can use it directly to look at things and to plot graphs, record machine readable data log files.
And that's just the start of the Good Things available, once DDEView is up and running.
You can now have values from sensors on the MicroLan appear, automatically, in spreadsheets. You can access values from sensors, easily, from any program written with a language which can create DDE clients. I tested that assertion with Delphi, for example. The DDEView manual says you can also use C++, Intouch, TestPoint. I am sure there are many others, as DDE was a "must have" for quite a while. If anyone has used DDEView with Open Office, I'd be glad of an email. (The Open Office help pages suggest it should work... I just haven't had a chance to test it myself.)
Going back to the plotting option: That is achieved via the Options | Multiplot choice. It took me a moment to figure out what the DDE View programmers wanted me to with their "Channel select" and "Available variables" pull down lists. The system is actually pretty cool once you get the hang of it. It lets you assign any available thing-being-sensed by a 1-Wire chip on the Microlan to any of the channels (lines) provided for the graph.
----- See DDE View in action; Use it from other software
Here are my experiences while doing quick "does it work?" tests:
First, I tried the spreadsheet example in the user's guide. Starting DDEViewer and simply putting....
=DDEView|Value!THERMO1_ReadTF
... in an Open Office Calc spreadsheet cell was all it took to read the first temperature chip on the MicroLan. If the temperature changed, the value shown on the spreadsheet changed. Fantastic. (It worked with whats-his-name's spreadsheet, too.)
I also tested one of the Roso provided Delphi examples. I used Delphi 2 and Delphi 7, Personal (free from a magazine cover disc) to test DS1820S.exe, which reads values from a 1-Wire temperature chip, via the "magic" of DDEView, which had to be running before DS1820S was invoked. (N.B.: I'm not talking about the similarly named program "DS1820.exe" (no "S")) It seemed to work fine, in the short trial I gave it. N.B.: A Delphi program to read the data from a temperature sensing chip, via the DDE server ( DDEView), is trivial.... it only requires about three lines of code beyond the normal overhead needed for any Delphi application. I've posted a guide to DDE client programming in my Delphi Tutorials site.
----- What chips it can handle
The following chips are supported. And "supported" is something of an understatement. Many of the chips below have multiple functions and possible setups. While not every 1-Wire chip is supported, for the ones that are, they seem well supported. For example, the DS2450 can be set for two different input ranges. The DS2409 MicroLan coupler chip (used in hubs) doesn't seem to be supported. The only other thing I couldn't find was a way to read or write significant amounts of EEPROM. There are 1-Wire chips which permit this, but DDEView does not support them, as far as I know. (You can store or read 30 characters in a DS2438 or a DS2760)
For each chip, you tell DDEView how often you want it polled.
DS18x20/1822 (Temperature sensors)
DS2404S-001 (Real Time Clock and SRAM)
...Thank you Roso! I hadn't realized there was a 1-Wire RTC!
DS2405 (One bit of digital input or output)
DS2406/07 (One bit of DI or DI, with activity memory)
DS2408 (8 bits of digital input or output, with activity memories
DS2423 (Dual counter)
DS2438 (An amazing chip. See manual. ADCs, etc.)
DS2450 (Quad ADC)
DS2760 (A super 2438, for lithium ion batteries.)
DS2890 (DAC.. again: Thank you Roso...)
(A random bit of "I could do that...": With a DS2890, you should be able to adapt the controller for a radio controlled model to give a computer-over-radio-link-controlled anything-that-responds-to-two-servo-motors, e.g. something to tilt/ pan a webcam...)
----- So why the "Almost" in the page's title?
I'm having one little nuisance with the software. It's early days yet, I will fix it, but it is still a worrying nuisance.
Along the way to finding my work-around, I deleted all of the files named "irunin" in the DDEViewer folder. (There were three, of different types.) I don't know if that was a good idea or necessary... but I can now run DDEView, if....
Just before I run the program, I have to delete the DDEView.ini file which keeps getting re-stored in the folder.
Apparently because I have done this, the software scans all ports (well, at least COM1 and LPT1!) for a Dallas adapter. I'm not sure what the resultant signals would make a printer do... I have none plugged in. (Hence my "warning", up the page.) This DOES find the DS9097 I have on COM1, and the program runs fine.
Having a DS2409 (hub coupler switch) may interfere with the start up process... but it still falls over (on my system), even if there's no DS2409.
At the moment, if I don't delete the DDEView.ini file, DDEViewer asks me to specify my adapter and port, and then tells me it isn't there... when it IS! :-)
----- Final remark...
You know.. it really isn't fair. When I started with 1-Wire chips, you had to work really hard. With DDEView, 99% of the work is done for you!
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