Author Topic: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker  (Read 10920 times)

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Offline knaggsy2000

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Hello to everyone!

Today I've finally decided to sign up to this forum after debating it for a while!


I though I'll introduce a program I've wrote: -

StormForce: Real-time lightning data from your Boltek LD-250 and/or Boltek StormTracker PCI.  StormForce runs under FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows.  I've developed StormForce to fill the gap in the market.  Here's a few of the features: -

> Plots strikes on-screen (similar to NexStorm on Win32)
> Lightning image can be uploaded to your website
> Compatible with Boltek LD-250 (All supported OSes), Boltek StormTracker PCI (Linux-only due to the driver), and the Boltek EFM-100 (All supported OSes)
> Share the lightning data on your network so you can access your lightning data from anywhere via TCP, UDP, and multicast
> Works on multiple operating systems: StormForce is wrote in Python and is open source under the modified-BSD license
> Ability to track storms

http://code.google.com/p/stormforce/ is the main place to download it from.
Have a look at some screenshots on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/stormforce/


I've seen many questions on this forum asking whether the Boltek units work under Linux, well... This is your answer!

I hope you all like it.



Dan.

blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2009, 01:44:32 PM »
I noticed your software a while ago, but the installation is confusing me.  Downloading the software is not an issue.  But how to get it running is.  Could you please elaborate on what is needed to configure for Pista Home premium?

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2009, 02:00:51 PM »
Hmm, I haven't (or can't) test StormForce on Vista. ](*,)

However, the installation should be very similar!  Download all the EXEs mentioned in the README file and run them in order.  You may need to right-click on them and select "Run As Administrator" to get them to install.  You may have to find Vista specific versions of them but I don't know.  There's only one way to find out!

The environment variables will need to be tweaked, you might not want to worry about CURL for now.  Once you've done this, open up the command console ("Start"->"Run"->"cmd") and change to the StormForce directory and try running it with "python stormforce.py".

Your COM port defined in the XML settings file I believe will be "COM1:" or similar.

Let me know how it goes!

blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2009, 02:48:32 PM »
Thank you.  I will try.  But am I correct to surmise the program runs on windows xp?

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2009, 02:56:11 PM »
Yes, I've ran it successfully under Windows XP. :grin:  Also, there is a screenshot on SourceForge which shows it running under XP.

It should work on Windows 2000 as well, not sure about older Windows OSes...

Offline Weather Display

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2009, 03:40:33 PM »
should fill a good gap re OS choices
well done
Brian
info@weather-display.com
http://www.weather-display.com

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2009, 03:50:41 PM »
GBW - Thanks!  Since it's wrote in Python it should work practically on any OS!  In fact, it will entirely depends on the modules I use (e.g. pyserial) whether it's been ported to a specific OS and processor architecture.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2009, 03:53:22 PM by knaggsy2000 »

blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2009, 07:37:33 PM »
Some recommendations:
The readme file is a bear to extract the individual links.  Very difficult.  Maybe make the next readme file with the links on a new line.

The following links do not work and I have no idea what the file should be:
http://rene.f0o.com/%7Erene/stuff/Numeric-24.2.win32-py2.5.exe/pywin32-211.win32-py2.5.exe

http://chandlerproject.org/pub/Projects/MeTooCrypto/M2Crypto-0.19.win32-py2.5.execurl-7.18.2-win32-ssl-sspi.zip

http://curl.haxx.se/download/curl-7.18.2-win32-ssl-sspi.zip/ImageMagick-6.4.2-1-Q8-windows-static.exe and once I get to the link where it should be I have no idea what file to download.

http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/ImageMagick-6.4.2-1-Q8-windows-static.exewxPython2.8-win32-unicode-2.8.8.0-py25.exe


There is now a new version py2.5.msi.  2.6.1  Is this version compatible with the other links in the readme file?


It seems to me that it would be much easier if you included all of these files together as a download.  This seems to be a lot of work.

blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2009, 08:31:38 PM »
Also, for the links above that did not dwnld, do we need the file with source or w/out source?

Offline knaggsy2000

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blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2009, 10:51:24 AM »
Thanks.  I'll have a run at it now.  It does look interesting.

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2009, 03:28:19 PM »
MadALwx: How you doing with StormForce under Vista?  Been a week since your last reply!

blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2009, 03:49:01 PM »
It really looks like a great prog, but that was just too much config to run it.  I reaaly wanted to give it a go.  I guess if I had a mac or other OS, I would be more driven to config.

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2009, 07:36:37 AM »
From what I can tell from your reply, you appear to have an issue with downloading the extra packages for StormForce to work.

Unfortunately, this is unavoidable.  It is more of a pain on Windows than any other OS - they usually have at least one packaging system whereas Windows really doesn't have any.

If the problem is the environment variables, you could put them in a BAT file which then fires up StormForce.  Saves some messing around.


Or have I got this all wrong? :???:


PS.  You can use a later version of Python as long as it's in the v2.5.X range.

blackjack52

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2009, 12:16:38 PM »
Partly.  I was able to install the files, but then the actual config strings seemed a bit daunting.

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2009, 12:20:28 PM »
The XML config is quite extensive!  Better to have more options than not enough.

What part of the config are you stuck on?

Offline Kpalivec

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Trouble installing the StormTracker PCI Driver in Ubuntu 8.10
« Reply #16 on: March 25, 2009, 05:40:39 PM »
howdy!

I've been messing around trying to set up StormForce on an Ubuntu box. I have everything installed except the StormTracker Driver.  I've compiled the driver per the readme but when I try to do "insmod boltek.ko"
I get a segmentation fault error. I'm not sure I'm doing things in the right order.
Can  you provide a step by step guide on how to build the driver and install it?

Thanks!

Kevin Palivec :grin:

Offline knaggsy2000

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Re: Introducing StormForce for the Boltek LD-250 and Boltek StormTracker
« Reply #17 on: April 15, 2009, 04:06:43 PM »
Sorry for the delay, I haven't got e-mail notification on for this thread.

Do you need the StormTracker driver on?  You only need it if you have one, otherwise don't bother with it.


What version of Ubuntu are you running on?
What kernel version?
What CPU arch are you using? (x86, amd64, etc)

My test box ran Ubuntu 8.10 with my StormTracker fine.  Does any part of the compilation fail?

 

anything