Instructions for Windows Users

[Jim]

Instructions for Windows Users - Windows 7, Vista, XP, ME, 2000, or 98

Do not connect the USB adapter from the kit until instructed to do so.

(1) Download and install Java Runtime Environment:

Windows Online Installation of JRE - 10MB

- Save this application file to your desktop and then double click the file "jre-6u18-windows-i586-iftw-rv.exe" or "jre-6u18-windows-i586-iftw-rv" to begin installation (version number may differ).

- Select "Typical Setup" and click the "Accept" button.

- Uncheck all optional installs and click the "Next" button.

- When installation is complete click the "Finish" button.

(2) Download and install 1-Wire drivers (choose one):

1-Wire Drivers for Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98 - 1.5MB

1-Wire Drivers (Beta release) for Windows XP SP2, Vista, 7 - 6.2MB

- Save this application file to your desktop and then double click the file "install_1_wire_drivers_v400.msi" or "install_1_wire_drivers_v400" ("install_1_wire_drivers_x86_v403beta.msi" or "install_1_wire_drivers_x86_v403beta" for XP SP2, Vista, or 7 users) to begin installation.

- Click the "Next" button.

- Agree to the license agreement and click the "Next" button.

- Important! Uncheck all custom install options (1-Wire API for .NET and OWCOM API) and click the "Next" button.

- Make sure the USB adapter from the kit is NOT plugged in and click the "Next" button.

- The default folder location for the installation is fine, click the "Next" button.

- When prompted, plug in the blue USB adapter and wait several seconds for the Windows "New hardware Wizard" to recognize it.

- If the Hardware Wizard does not launch automatically you may need to add this new hardware manually. To do this, open your control panels folder and select "Add New Hardware" to add the 1-Wire USB adapter to the system.

- Once the USB adapter has been added to and recognized by the system click the "ok" button on the USB Instructions window to continue.

- In the Port Selection Window click the "Next" button.

- Click the "Next" button.

- Installation is complete, click the "Close" button.

(3) Launch the OneWireViewer application by using this link:

Windows OneWireViewer

- If prompted, select "open with Java Web Start Launcher (default)" and click the "ok" button.

If this does not work for you, close all browser windows, relaunch your browser and try again.

You will be presented with Java Setup Wizard.

- Select Port: USB1 and click the "Next" button.

- 1 second is fine for the device polling rate, click the "Next" button.

- Select "Normal Devices" only and click the "Finish" button.

If the application launches without errors you have successfully set up your system to interact with the temperature logger:



You'll notice that the Device List contains a single unselected device with the number "DS1990A" - this is actually the USB adapter itself, which contains a chip programmed with a unique 64-bit serial number.

If you receive an error message please tell us about it!

Using OneWireViewer

Now that you know everything is installed properly you can initialize a new mission for your logger to carry out. With the OneWireViewer application running touch the probe to the temperature logger (or press it on to maintain a hands-free connection), select the new device (with the "DS1921G-F5" designation) in the Device List, and then click on the "Thermochron" tab and you will see:



Your logger may or may not have an active mission running ("Is Mission Active?" set to true or false). Click the "Start New Mission" button and you will see:



Duplicate these mission parameters and click "OK" to enable the mission.

That's it for now! Disconnect the probe and install the logger on the north side of a post or other structure within your monarch habitat at a height of .5 meters (about 20 inches) with the metal logger facing the ground. Allow the logger to collect data for several days and keep checking back here for further details.

[Jim]

I will test the software/hardware installation on as many systems as I can but I would appreciate any feedback from all of you as well. Please post your experience with these installation instructions - were you able to get things running without issue? Are the instructions clear? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? When reporting problems or other feedback, please include as much information about your system as you can, for example:

Gateway M320 Notebook
1.4GHz (Intel Centrino)
Windows XP Home Edition
512MB RAM

Also, if you receive an error message, please make note of the exact wording.

Thanks!

[MILW]

The first time I tried the install, I left the default items checked, including the one I circled in red

And I get this error:


I tried installing again with only the first choice checked, the second NOT checked, and it worked fine.

I'm on WinXP SP2 Media Center Edition
HP Pavilion ZD8110US laptop
2 gig RAM

The rest of the instructions are fine, I had no trouble getting the mission running. I've retrieved the first couple of days of data, but noticed a bug (?) in the OneWireViewer when looking at the temperature graph. I'll collect some screen shots and show you.

thanks! -Scott

[MILW]

OK, so I hooked my logger on to the connector (by the way, it's a tight fit- to remove, it works best to twist the connector, not just pull straight off. I was afraid the double-sticky foam might let go of the orange board. It also works to just hold the iButton loosely against the black connector- if you can work the software one handed!).

In looking at the temperature graph, it says "right-click on graph for options"
so I right clicked near the top row of the graph and got one option...
(and yes, the logger is set to Fahrenheit, but you can see the graph is set to show as Celsius)

Right-clicking a bit lower gave a different option!

I finally clicked below the center of the graph, and then got the (expected) menu of several options all at once!


I had no trouble copying the data with labels, and pasting into a text document, then opening it with Excel. I suppose a "paste-special" into Excel would let it interpret the commas as cell delimiters?

cheers- Scott

[Jim]

the logger is set to Fahrenheit, but you can see the graph is set to show as Celsius

You can toggle the display between Fahrenheit and Celsius at any time, but it seems that your preference dowsn't always "stick" when you relaunch the OneWireViewer (sometimes it will default to Celsius). Folks will just need to be aware of this when they go to retrieve the data.

Right-clicking a bit lower gave a different option!

Hmmm...this little glitch occurs in the Mac application as well. I'll be sure to include a note in the OneWireViewer guide I'll post soon.

I had no trouble copying the data with labels, and pasting into a text document, then opening it with Excel. I suppose a "paste-special" into Excel would let it interpret the commas as cell delimiters?

Details are coming...I don't believe "Paste Special..." will do much for you in this case; an intermediate comma-deliited text file is necessary, which can then be opened by Excel and converted to columnar format.

Thanks!

[Jim]

The first time I tried the install, I left the default items checked, including the one I circled in red

I've added a little formatting to make this important step in the instructions stand out a bit more. The truth is we don't need either of these components installed for our purposes.

I have screenshots of the entire process but thought it might be overkill to include the bazillion windows (ok, closer to 30) the installation wizards goes through - what do you think?

[MILW]

I think just the one where the default (boxes checked) can be changed... do you want me to edit the post above to remove the screenies? (sorry for the heavy load time!)
-Scott

-actually now that I see your red "Important" above, you don't even need the screenshot- it is quite clear-

[Pat]

Everything worked - however just to note, when I first touched the probe to the logger (the "Using One Wire Viewer" step) and looked at the Thermochron tab, my screen came up with "Is Mission Active?" set to false and most other settings were consequently irrelevant. After "Start New Mission", everything fine as per instructions. I'm going to check it in a few hours to make sure it's recording.

I'd also like to make a plea to folks to please just post links or thumbnails for included images, not the images themselves, if they are too wide to fit the normal posting window size. An 800 x 600 picture forces the entire thread to horizontal scroll and you can't read Jim's directions easily, you have to left- and right-scroll each individual line to see all the text. This makes them harder to follow unless you increase your screen resolution to the point where the whole picture fits on-screen, but then the text is so small you can't read it without a microscope. Come on, gang, have mercy on us who are already wearing VDT glasses! I had to reset my display to 1280 x 800 to fit this thread without horizontal scrolling.

Thanks!

~ Toshiba Satellite
2.8 GHz, 512K, WinXP Pro
nVidia GeForce

[whiteelise]

The instructions were perfect. Now I need to get the thermochron installed in the garden.

[James Langhus]

went well. I've initialized the thermocrom and will install it in the gardens tomorrow.

Thanks for the complete instructions. My only problem was that the window printed was only half of what was on the screen-found a way around that.

[Pat]

Everything's working fine, but here's my minor grumble -- after only a couple of days of rainy weather, the nifty MonarchWatch sticker on the top of the orange plastic panel completely delaminated and all I have left is a big adhesive square. And that's already peeling up around the edges.

Re: parsing the data, if you copy-with-labels from the thermochron graph and paste that into Excel starting at cell A1, Excel can parse the strings in many ways to separate the data fields. Here's one:

8/29/06 8:45:00 AM,F,74.3 <-- typical data string, assume it's in cell A1.

in cell B1, enter the formula: =LEFT(A1,SEARCH("M",A1)) <-- date/time stamp
in cell C1, enter the formula: =MID(A1,SEARCH("M",A1)+2,1) <-- units (F or C)
in cell D1, enter the formula: =MID(A1,SEARCH("M",A1)+4,5) <-- temperature reading

There are lots of other ways to do it (you could search for the 1st and 2nd commas, for instance), this is just one quick example that's easy to read.

Highlight those 3 cells and copy them; then paste them downwards to populate the rest of columns B, C and D.

If you need the data as values instead of formulas, just copy columns B,C,D and paste-special them as Values to some unused columns.

[Jim]

he nifty MonarchWatch sticker on the top of the orange plastic panel completely delaminated and all I have left is a big adhesive square. And that's already peeling up around the edges.

Yeah, that's been mentioned and is certainly not surprising - the "actual" logger graphics will be much more weatherproof

[Ruthy Simonton]

We have a few questions about the logger: Do we have to bring the logger in to retrieve the data? Where do you find the program that reads it? We've got everything loaded, but can't figure out how to restart the program without going on-line.
How often do we need to retrieve data and what do we need to do with it?

Would it be possible to have the entire program on a disc that is sent out with the logger, so those of us who are not computer savy can do it easily? Thanks, Ruthy

[SWAMPMILKWEED]

Last I believe I read for instructions was to leave the thermochron outside until told to bring in and hook up? I am terrible - I am chomping on the bit to see what will come out of that gizmo.....

[Don Spearance]

I think that I have the unit connected accoring to directions, but on the intial attempt to download data from the button, I got a message at the bottom of the screen that says "Error reading data". should I start over and try to reinstall again?
I am working with a Dell Dimension 4300s
Windows XP 2002
Intel Pentium4 1.60GHZ
Thanks, Don

[Judy Molnar]

Jim
The instructions here ended with....
"Allow the logger to collect data for several days and keep checking back here for further details. "

The logger collected data from Thursday and through our little bout with the remnants of Ernesto over Labor Day weekend. The garden got over 5.5 inches of rain in that time! As I bounced around in the forums I noticed the computer savy folks have already downloaded and graphed data. Did I leave it out too long? I'm dying to see the data, so, now what do I do?

Techno-klutz, jargon free directions, please! This monitoring is being done amidst many other projects, going away and coming back to it, and it's very easy to forget details. Explicit written directions are helpful so one can refer back to them and retrace previous actions.

For example "go out with the black cord connected to the blue stick and go to your logger and....."[what? just touch it? screw it on? for how long? How do you know the data transferred? Does it light up or beep? Can I download in the rain?]

"Insert the blue stick into your USB port and then...."[click on the icon?"]
I assume I put the stick in the computer's port before I open the "1-wire" icon, right? Then select the port?

"Click on the ____tab and the data will download and open into your spreadsheet program...."[?] I hope!

Bless you Jim for keeping it all together and making it clear enough to work on lots of systems, it is a challenge! Especially with someone who is an easily confused "lowest common denominator" for understanding directions.

Judy Molnar

[wbl56]

Just an observation...My computer indicated there was an update available for the Java Runtime application, so I downloaded the update and installed it. As a result, however, I had to re-initialize the OneWire application the next time I downloaded temperature data to my computer. Not a big deal, really; I just accepted the defaults and it worked fine. The only thing I noticed was the temperature values had defaulted to Celsius, which was easily changed in the thermochron/temperature window. There was no effect on the data it had already collected, or on the mission parameters.

Wade

[tcannard]

Instructions for installing the software and starting the "mission" went well as did retrieving the data, but I had a little trouble getting the data to appear in any cell other than cell A1 of the OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet. For others using that program, here is what I did:

Start OpenOffice.org Calc

In its upper left corner, Click on File -> Open (or use Ctrl-O if you like keys).

Change the File Type box from "All Files (*.*)" to "Text CSV (*.csv or *.txt)" by clicking on the triangle on the right of that box and scrolling down the list of file types or pressing the letter "t" 4 times to have it jump to that file type and press enter to get it into the box.

In the top left of the Open box, click on the button labeled "My Recent Documents" and if you saved your temperature data to a file, that file name should be on (usually the bottom) that list - click on the file and it will transfer the name to the File Name box and click OK.

In the Separator Options section of the Text Import box, click on the empty box next to Comma (it is fine to leave the Tab one checked or unchecked - both worked for me) and you can see a preview of what your data will look like at the bottom. Click on OK and you can now save the formatted file in whatever format is required.

[tcannard]

I seem to remember Jim mentioning somewhere on one of these many forums we should feel free to "experiment" with the thermochron. I see from the data sheet:

http://datasheets.maxim-ic.com/en/ds/DS1921G.pdf

it should be able to record about 2048 "readings" (about 85 days worth at one per hour).

I noticed when I first started the thermochron's "mission", it was 21 minutes after the hour. That meant each sample after that would be 21 minutes after each hour. I found that rather inconvenient for timing my downloads (I wanted to allow time for the thermochron unit to readjust to outside air temperature so as not to have an unusual spike in the sample), so I stopped that mission, waited for an even hour and started it again to make the sample occur on the hour. Not exactly "convenient" (but it worked fine).

Much more convenient is to use the "Mission Start Delay" box (see Initialize New Mission screen shot under either MAC or Windows instructions). Put the difference between the current time on your PC (assuming it and your time zone is correctly set there) and the next hour and click OK. The next sample should start on the next hour.

I also noticed the nice, bright orange plastic "mount", when exposed to the sun, seems to get quite a bit warmer than say the wooden post. My wooden "post" is not as wide as the plastic so doesn't "shield" it completely. I guess I need to either get a wider one or maybe another material might absorb less of the infra-red from the sun and stay cooler?

I'm not trying to 'bug' Jim about the Degree Day Spreadsheet, but I'd be interested in what the rest of the procedures are to send the data in. I know winter temperatures will not exactly compute well for "Monarch Degree Days", but I think it might be an ideal time to get procedures ironed out for when we really want to start collecting actual data.

[Jim]

I'm not trying to 'bug' Jim about the Degree Day Spreadsheet, but I'd be interested in what the rest of the procedures are to send the data in.

I'll try to get it online sometime this weekend with some instruction - it should be pretty easy to use though and will basically involve copying and pasting on your part if I do it right

[jbardwell]

Is it ok to begin monitoring temperature now. December 9, 2006?

Thanks, Jenny in Mt Morris, PA

[tcannard]

I have mine out - awaiting the Degree Day Spreadsheet (no Jim, I'm not trying to 'nag') and further instructions on reporting!
So far my Thermochron is within about 1 degree F of my LA Crosse monitor. Don't know which one is "correct", but the Thermochron reads about 1 degree lower. Maybe since there are no more monarchs around, I'll move them next to each other for a while and see if that "evens out".

[jbardwell]

Hello, I am out in southwestern PA. Have tried to install the java and 1 wire driver, but they don't install as instructed. Have uninstalled and reinstalled 2-3 times now. Still no luck. Please advise.
Jenny

[Jim]

Have tried to install the java and 1 wire driver, but they don't install as instructed.

What Windows Operating System are you using? What types of errors are you receiving? At what point in the instructions above are you encountering problems?

You can test your Java installation here: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

Please provide as much detail as possible and we'll get you up and running

[jbardwell]

After I install java8.0 and 1 wireless viewer, I get this message when I hook up the recording device:
Error reading device! com.dalsemi.onewire.adapter.OneWire10Exception: OneWireContainer21_Can...

any advice?
Thanks, Jenny

[Jim]

After I install java8.0 and 1 wireless viewer, I get this message when I hook up the recording device:
Error reading device! com.dalsemi.onewire.adapter.OneWire10Exception: OneWireContainer21_Can...

Can you provide the entire text of the error message you are receiving or is that all you were seeing?

At what point are you receiving this error message? Your steps should be:

1. Connect USB adapter/probe assembly to your computer
2. Launch OneWireViewer
3. Touch/connect logger to probe

-Jim

[katcole9]

just wanted to report that when I installed the temperature logger, the computer gave me this message: "This application's digital signature has an error. Do you want to continue?" I selected continue, and it seemed to work OK with the rest of the information that I entered.

[Pat]

Everything arrived and we're up and running - only minor glitch was that I had to physically delete the older driver before the Vista beta version installed correctly.

Now all I need is some monarchs! It's been chilly and raining / hailing here for the last week; the milkweeds are blooming but nothing much is flying in this weather.

[Teresa]

I'm getting the same error as jbardwell? it is all you can read. What do i do next?