Velleman K8055 USB I/O Board Extension plugin

[mugurg]

Back again with a question for the plugin:
i want to use one "analog-in" to measure and display weight. Any ideea what should i use for the sensor? Or how can i display how comprimated my suspensions are... Should i make it optical based, because seems to be the most reliable, having a optocoupler installed under the feather or similar idea ?

P.S. i read somewhere that are actually "pressure" sensors available..

[lambosprit]

Hi all, Firstly I like to say thanks for all the hard work you've put into this plugin. I have my board all built and now I'm testing but cant get it to work.
The test program works fine but the test screen doesn't. I get the indicators but all zero.
I'm running the k8055d.dll from this thread. I have 2.1.06 version of the plugin and road runner is on latest version. I have registered the RRK8055.dll in road runner directory and have the K8055.dll in road runner directory as well.

Is there an indicator that tells me I'm connected to the board? Any other ideas?
attaching my debug log in case this helps



thanks in advance

[mugurg]

if you have registered the rrk8055.dll using the regsvr32.exe it is near to impossible not to work...very strange. You have had the succesfull registration message?
i had my XP reinstalled 2 days ago, therefore 5 min ago i have also reinstalled the k8055 (just demo mode on the CD) then registered the DLL from here in the RR folder, pluged the board and everything works great...

be sure that your relays.skin to have the X,RRK8055 part, meaning like this:

MEDIACAR Skin
MEDIACAR MainMenu Skin
relay_off.jpg,relay_off.jpg,relay_on.jpg,relay_dow n.jpg
X,RRK8055

/, I, x, y, w, h, Code;INDICATORCODES
etc...
etc...
etc..
etc...

[mugurg]

Some info for K8055 users...
If the board is not connected, every skin that has X,RRK8055 (to load the plugin for the board) overload the CPU to 98-99%. Forever, even if you leave the skin to enter one without X,RRK8055. This is happening on a P4-3,6GHz machine. If the board is connected, even with the music playing, the CPU stays on 6-8% maximum. I think this is a weakness, if for no matter what reasons the plugin fails to find the board, the RR is doomed.

[307SW_NLD]

@mugurg,

Never noticed it but you are right. It must be in my code. I'll check to see if I can fix that.

[mugurg]

No problem at all. You already did more than i have ever anticipated.
It would be possible for the plugin to check 2-3 times then to give up??
That way if it finds the board, perfect, if not...not to try untill a re-initialisation of the X,RRK8055. This way the things could work smooth with or without the board connected...

[W3bMa5t3r]

This is awesome, I ordered my board two days ago and I can't wait to build it and start fooling around with this plugin. Looks Like Some Great Work

[307SW_NLD]

Quote: Originally Posted by mugurg

No problem at all. You already did more than i have ever anticipated.
It would be possible for the plugin to check 2-3 times then to give up??
That way if it finds the board, perfect, if not...not to try untill a re-initialisation of the X,RRK8055. This way the things could work smooth with or without the board connected...

But what about when you plug in the board at a later time? I would like to prevent that you will have to stop RR and restart it.

The initialization of the board is done whenever a label, indicator or command is executed from Road Runner. What I will do is try to connect the board once and if that fails only try to connect every x times a RRK8055 control is called. Since the time between the connect retries is dependant on the number of controls in your screen (which are called every second) I will make this configurable in the RRK8055.ini. If no entry in the RRK8055.ini exists then a default value of 100 is used. (So every 10 seconds a connect retry if 10 controls on the screen)

What do you think?

[mugurg]

That is ok , if we can specify that number it is perfect. I will like to have mine checking every 30 sec or so.

Another question i have in mind is: can't be checked only once when a X,RRK8055 is loaded? Meaning if the board is connected at a later time, it is enough to re-load a skin that have X,RRK8055 ? Of course i have no idea about programming

[307SW_NLD]

Quote: Originally Posted by mugurg

That is ok , if we can specify that number it is perfect. I will like to have mine checking every 30 sec or so.

Another question i have in mind is: can't be checked only once when a X,RRK8055 is loaded? Meaning if the board is connected at a later time, it is enough to re-load a skin that have X,RRK8055 ? Of course i have no idea about programming

No, the plugin dll gets loaded using the X,RRK8055. The dll is is connecting to the board. Once RR has loaded the plugin it is not going to try to reload it again.

Getting the plugin to init the board every 30 seconds depend on the number of controls to the RRK8055 plugin you have on your skin. If your in another screen it could mean that the plugin checks with another interval because that screen has another number of controls.

I will see if I can use an interval in seconds.

[lambosprit]

@mugurg
Thanks for the reply. I did get a successful message for registering the dll. I've also written my own app that talks successfully to the board. I'll keep looking.
@307SW_NLD Could you create an indicator that says the connection state to the board or have I missed it in the help file?

thanks

[mugurg]

@lambospirit, i am sorry i could not help you more.
Wish you luck...

[307SW_NLD]

New version released. See first post. Fixes high cpu usage when board not connected. Configurable number of seconds between init retries. New indicator added which shows connection state of board and initialize board when clicking on indicator.

[mugurg]

Trying right now. Thank you for your work.

[mugurg]

I have registered the new DLL , and tried with both my skin files and the one attached. I can't get it to work at all. Using back my previous DLL/INI files everything works perfect. Where should i see the new indicator to click on it? the one "invisible" named k8055_menu is doing nothing when i am pressing it. What i am doing wrong?