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Can't connect to AQE V2

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@JoostWesseling If the LCD doesn't show the banner and the backlight doesn't turn on, it probably isn't getting power at all... I wonder if something got bumped in shipping and the USB connector got disconnected inside the Egg. The cable should be zip-tied down internally to a plastic "sled" to help prevent the connector from coming loose, but it's worth checking.

Does it come on if you plug it into the power supply and plug into the wall?


Can't connect to AQE V2

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@JoostWesseling Scratch that, I misread your response - you said the banner does show up. Please let me know if installing the drivers fixes it for you.

AQE v1 remains at 0 ppp for NO2 and CO

AQE v1 remains at 0 ppp for NO2 and CO

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@JoostWesseling if I look at the time series of your v1 Egg, it is true that most of the time it reports zero. But occasionally it does report non-zero values (at least for CO).

It's always been a problem with the v1 Egg that they are not calibrated and we do our best to make them report reasonable values before shipping, but their 'interpreted' response in context often has this problem of the settings not generalizing at a customer location. It's one of the main things that drove us to fundamentally different (electro-chemical rather than MOS) sensor technology in the v2 Egg.

There are a couple of things you can do. First, the "raw" values give you a clearer idea of what's going on in a relative sense. Have a look at your NO2 readings for example you can see that the raw measurements are varying even though the interpreted response is always zero. The reason is that the interpretation would yield a negative concentration, and we truncate that to zero in software.

.

If you are feeling more ambitious, you can tinker with the calibration setting using an Arduino sketch I wrote a while back called AQE_Calibrate. The whole point of this sketch is to let you set what R0 (which is the characteristic resistance of a given sensor). What we do is we let the Egg run for a while in our lab, and then type in the average resistance reported, and 0.15 for the R/R0 reading (which I believe corresponds to around 20ppb according to the datasheet). You can do the same sort of thing with AQE_Calibrate, but use your timeline data from Xively to set the resistance (i.e. skip the data collection period and just type in the values).

What's the button on the back of the Angular Clock for?

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What's the button next to the knob meant to be used for?

-ambanmba

Can't connect to AQE V2

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Hi,

Thanks for the help! After installing the suggested drivers on my Mac the Egg popped up as a serial device and further installation went quite smoothly.

The NO2 values reported by the Egg seem a bit high. We will compare the results of Egg to our own measurements later this summer.
Best regards,

Joost.

AQE v1 remains at 0 ppp for NO2 and CO

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Thanks for the feedback. Later this summer we will compare the results of our V1 and V2 eggs to results of reference measurements. I will try to adjust the calibration of the Egg in the way you suggested.

Can't connect to AQE V2

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Awesome, glad to hear that worked! I'll have to give FTDI support a call and see if they have any ideas on why it didn't happen automatically for you.


What's the button on the back of the Angular Clock for?

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It is a reset button.

What's the button on the back of the Angular Clock for?

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@ambanmba to add a bit to @Dirk's answer, you may need or want to reset the unit at run-time. For example, if you want to calibrate the meters using the Serial Monitor interface, it may be helpful to reset the unit.

Angular Clock bug at 56 minutes past the hour

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Whenever my Angular Clock hits 56 minutes past the hour, the minute needle goes back to 0. Then at 57 minutes, it goes to 1 then 58 minutes to 2 then 59 minutes to 3 then at the new hour it goes back to 0 and proceeds normally until it hits 56 minutes again.

I have performed the calibration function which seems to work fine.

I have not made any modifications to the clock, it is stock from the factory.

Any idea what's going on?

-ambanmba

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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My Angular Clock is part of a larger project controlled by an Arduino DUE. Since the DUE does not have a battery backup or real time clock, your board is very helpful.
I would like to send time information from the Angular Clock's RTC into the DUE board's sketch I wrote (am writing).
What would be the best way to do that?
Via your board's USB port? Via its ICSP programming header? Or some other way?

Is there a reference that could tell me about all the commands available for the RTC?

Thanks!
Steve

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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Interesting question! Generally speaking it sounds like you want to have to the Due be a master to the Angular Clock board acting as a proxy to the RTC. The easiest way to do that would be to have a serial port on the Due hooked up to a serial on the Angular Clock. It would be even easier if the I2C pins were broken out to header pins, as then you could talk directly to the RTC, but no such luck I'm afraid.

I don't think you can hook the Due's USB to the Angular Clock USB because the Due doesn't have a native USB host port. I could be wrong of course, I'm not super well-versed in the Due. So what I would probably do is write a bit of software for the Angular Clock that uses SoftwareSerial on two pins of your choosing. I wouldn't push too hard on baud rate with SoftwareSerial; 4800 would be an OK choice I think.

Hook up the pin you choose for the SoftwareSerial RX to the TX pin of a Due Hardware Serial port, hook up the pin you choose for the SoftwareSerial TX to the RX pin of the Due Hardware Serial port, and make sure you connect GND on the Angular Clock to GND on the Due, and they should be able to talk back and forth. You probably also want to connect 5V power from the Due to the Angular Clock board, and you can do that through the 6-pin ICSP header (top-most, right-most pin); GND is also on this header (bottom-most, right-most pin) if you wanted to separate "power" signals from "data" signals.

Assuming you're not wanting to drive panel meters, the easiest pins to commandeer for your SoftwareSerial interface are on the 6-pin METERS header. Top (closest to the rotary encoder) to bottom (closest to the 16MHz crystal) these pins (on the left side of the 6-pin header) are:

  • PD5 (top-left) (arduino digital 5)
  • PD6 (middle-left) (arduino digital 6)
  • PB1 (bottom-left) (arduino digital 9)

The 3 pins on the right side of that connector are all GND pins. If you do want to keep the panel meters functioning, the 5x2 header location in the middle of the board brings out all the unused pins from the microcontroller, and you can use this reference to map the "PXn" designations to "arduino digital" designations).

You can probably just modify the stock software for Angular Clock to suit your purposes. Lets say you want to use Arduino Digital 5 for Software Serial RX, and Arduino Digital 6 for Software Serial TX. You'd have to add a SoftwareSerial object to the code (e.g. at this line) like so:

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
SoftwareSerial mySerial(5, 6); // RX, TX

In setup, around here, you'd need to add code that looks like this:

mySerial.begin(4800);

Then you'd add some code to handle received messages from the Due in loop around here (after tm gets set). Up to you how sophisticated this bit is, but it could be as dumb as, anytime a character is received respond with the time, which would look something like this:

  if (mySerial.available()){
    mySerial.read(); // consume the input

    // respond in whatever format you prefer, 
    // the below is just a "CSV" response of the time
    mySerial.print(tm.Hour);
    mySerial.print(",");
    mySerial.print(tm.Minute);
    mySerial.print(",");
    mySerial.print(tm.Second);
    mySerial.println();
  }

You have to "invent" the format and protocol between the Due and the Angular Clock. The example I give here is just CSV of the hour, minute, and second with a new line termination. There's more available if you want to report it, namely: tm.Year, tm.Month, tm.Day, tm.WDay.

Bear in mind that on the Due side, you need to process the response from the Angular Clock. Hope that helps, let me know if anything needs clarification!

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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Hi Vic,
Thanks, that is a very helpful and informative reply! Yes, I will have the DUE be the master and the AC board just sending time info every minute, say, or upon request by the DUE.
Certainly I want to keep those panel meters, the coolest thing about the Angular Clock kit!
I have already used your ICSP header to power your board from my DUE's 5V supply from its SPI header.

I am not a DUE expert, so a lot of the specs on their page are greek to me, maybe not to you:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDue
It does have two USB ports, both with micro connectors.
begin paste
"The Native USB port is connected to the SAM3X. It allows for serial (CDC) communication over USB. This provides a serial connection to the Serial Monitor or other applications on your computer. It also enables the Due to emulate a USB mouse or keyboard to an attached computer. To use these features, see the Mouse and Keyboard library reference pages.
The Native USB port can also act as a USB host for connected peripherals such as mice, keyboards, and smartphones. To use these features, see the USBHost reference pages."
end paste

I can certainly handle the communication programming once I get the two boards talking to each other. I think that "Software Serial" is a library that does not work on the DUE, only Arduinos with ATMEL processors. But the DUE does have a ton of dedicated digital lines and ports that can be use for serial comm.
Here is a fantastic diagram of all the DUE's pinouts, by Rob Gray:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=132130.0
Maybe if you look at it, the best approach will be obvious to you.

Any extra insights you or other Forum readers may have are appreciated!
-Steve

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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Regarding the Due's second USB port, it might work, in particular since it can act as a USB Host as well, but the only way to know is to dive in and try it. Even if you can do it USB to USB, doing it as I suggested (Software UART to Hardware UART) might be more straightforward from a software perspective, and not much more difficult from a wiring perspective. I was only suggesting you use the SoftwareSerial library on the Angular Clock board. On the Due you can wire to any of the 3 "extra" hardware UARTs and use Serial1, Serial2, or Serial3 in software just like you use Serial (so no need for SoftwareSerial on the Due side).

That's a good point re: the ICSP header, you can use those pins just as well as the METERS pins. Here's a mapping of those pins to Arduino signals.

I would use DIG12 and DIG13 for SoftwareSerial, as DIG11 is also connected to the red LED on the Angular Clock. Just replace SoftwareSerial mySerial(5, 6); with SoftwareSerial mySerial(12, 13); in my previous post.

In summary, my recommendation (admittedly biased by my know-how) would be:

  • Use SoftwareSerial on the AngularClock board on DIG12 and DIG13
  • Use Serial1, Serial2, or Serial3 on the Due
  • Wire the power from the Due (5V and GND) to the Angular Clock ICSP header
  • Wire the SerialN RX, TX pins of the Due to DIG12 and DIG13 on the ICSP header
  • Do the software thing

Side note, you could also wire the Angular Clock Reset on the ICSP header to a Due GPIO pin to enable the Due software to reset the Angular Clock board on demand (by issuing a GND pulse for a few milliseconds), if that's useful to you.


Angular Clock bug at 56 minutes past the hour

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@ambanmba sorry for the delay in responding... that is pretty strange! I don't really have a clear understanding of what could be going on. It sounds like a software issue, but you're the first person to have reported it as an issue. I wonder if it's related to the meter calibration somehow.

Let me check my understanding here, the time sequence you're seeing is:

1:55 -> 1:00 -> 1:01 -> 1:02 -> 1:03 -> 2:00 -> 2:01 -> 2:02 -> ...
2:55 -> 2:00 -> 2:01 -> 2:02 -> 2:03 -> 3:00 -> 3:01 -> 3:02 -> ...

and so forth... Is that right?

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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That all makes great sense. Thanks so much for your help. Thanks for the ICSP header map, and the tip about the LED.
My only question left is, do you have a reference I can use to learn all the commands/functions/constants, etc. associated with the RTC and time library?

Thanks,
Steve

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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The Angular Clock uses the Microchip MCP79410 RTC, and the stock software that runs on the Angular Clock interacts with that chip using this Arduino library.

So with minimal effort you could hypothetically expose any functionality that library supports over a SoftwareSerial interface. But I think your easiest path is to do something along the lines of what I suggested previously (i.e. just use the tm.* variables already in the code).

How best to send RTC time info to DUE board?

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Great, thanks for the links. That should be more than enough to get me going.
Steve

Angular Clock bug at 56 minutes past the hour

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That is correct.

Also, when I am in clock setting mode, setting it forwards and backwards through the magic 56 minute mark causes the effect and reverses the effect. For example, 1:55->1:00 then set it back one minute and it goes back to 1:55.

I also have a feeling that it is caused by the calibration function.

-Alastair

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