Author Topic: Serial Port Splitter for Windows  (Read 3212 times)

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Offline ocala

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Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« on: December 01, 2017, 03:25:07 PM »
Downloaded the above program from here https://www.eltima.com/products/serialsplitter/
Having some issues though and thought someone else here could give it a crack.
While running Cumulus I opened WL. Going to set up under comport I hit auto detect and it did find the station on com port?. The problem is when it tries to download the data it gets a crc error.
Can't figure out why.
What you do is split whatever port you want into virtual ports but you have to make one of the virtual ports the main one. Each software, Cumulus/WL will work on the main virtual port but the other ports it will not.
Before you even get into it the download is a 14 day free trial but if you want to buy it's $100!!
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Offline ocala

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2017, 03:58:36 PM »
Quick update.
Both Cumulus and WL seem to be playing nice now.
Must have been a glitch.
Will let it run and see what happens.
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline WeatherHost

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2017, 05:08:30 PM »
What type of machine are you using this on?  Serial port cards for PCs are cheap, plentiful and come in at least 2 and 4 port versions.


Offline ocala

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2017, 05:20:35 PM »
What type of machine are you using this on?  Serial port cards for PCs are cheap, plentiful and come in at least 2 and 4 port versions.
A PC.
Was looking for something similar to Virtual VP.
Want to run run both Weatherlink and Cumulus at the same time.
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Offline PaulMy

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2017, 08:23:48 PM »
That would be a good consideration if it works, but looks like a 5 year old program.

I've downloaded and installed Eltima.  One thing I've learned that I didn't know before is that while running Cumulus I can open WL and see the graphs, etc. but not Bulletin or connect to the station.  If Running WL I was not able to open Cumulus.

In WL settings when I search for Comm when Cumulus is running I get "No Station could be found.  Try once more to make sure."  and trying again gets the same result, so not working here, yet!

Paul

Offline ocala

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2017, 06:59:57 AM »
Paul what I did was assign the main virtual port to WL and assigned  one of the remaining virtual ports to Cumulus.
At first everything was fine but what I'm seeing is that Cumulus will sometimes not download the data for a period of time then it will work fine. The same think happened when I had Cumulus on the main port and WL on the secondary one. Occasionally WL would not  download any data then after a while it would start working again. Cumulus is a little more robust then WL so that's why I went that route.
Unfortunately this morning I see Cumulus has not downloaded any data since 7PM last night. Although, changing the com port it did start working again but no archive data since it stopped last night.
It's kind of frustrating how the port  sporadically stops and starts working again. Don't really see any tweaks you can make but it did say there are more options if you purchase.
Don't think I'm ready to drop $100 yet though.
Will let it keep running and see what happens.
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline PaulMy

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2017, 09:54:25 AM »
Hi and thanks for the explanation, but I am not quite getting it :oops:
First - using the [Split] tab
COM 4 is SiliconLabs CP210x USB to UART...
I have added a Virtual port COM14
Then click [Add split port] and get an error.  I've tried it a few times.
Quote
01.12.2017 17:59:05  - ------------------------------------
02.12.2017 09:30:14  - New bundle "SPLIT PORT (1)" was added
02.12.2017 09:30:14  - Error: Cannot add "SPLIT PORT (1)\IN\COM4". Port "COM4" is inaccessible.
02.12.2017 09:30:14  - Bundle "SPLIT PORT (1)" was disabled
02.12.2017 09:30:15  - Bundle "SPLIT PORT (1)" was removed
02.12.2017 09:32:32  - New bundle "SPLIT PORT (2)" was added
02.12.2017 09:32:32  - Error: Cannot add "SPLIT PORT (2)\IN\COM4". Port "COM4" is inaccessible.
02.12.2017 09:32:32  - Bundle "SPLIT PORT (2)" was disabled
02.12.2017 09:32:32  - Bundle "SPLIT PORT (2)" was removed
02.12.2017 09:33:09  - New bundle "SPLIT PORT (3)" was added
02.12.2017 09:33:09  - Error: Cannot add "SPLIT PORT (3)\IN\COM4". Port "COM4" is inaccessible.
02.12.2017 09:33:09  - Bundle "SPLIT PORT (3)" was disabled
02.12.2017 09:33:09  - Bundle "SPLIT PORT (3)" was removed
Attached screen shot.

Then using the [Share] tab and get similar result that "Cannot split this port"

Maybe one of the differences is I have a USB logger, and you Serial?

Disappointing...
Paul
 

Offline ocala

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2017, 10:37:56 AM »
First of all make sure the both WL and Cumulus are not running.
1- Choose real port for splitting. Select the port you usually use with Cumulus.
2-Add port. I added 3 ports.
3-Set Main. When you click that the last port you created will become the main port. You'll see the icon slightly change from the others.
4-Add split port. Click that and your done.
I started WL first. Go to select port and choose com port 3. Port 3 is the main port you selected in #3 above. Click auto detect and it should find it. Download the data from the logger and see if everything is working. You may see issues with it trying to download the data but eventually it will download everything after several tries.
Start Cumulus and select comport 1 or 2. It should work. You will probably see it stop reading archived data sporadically but it will still send data to WU, Weathercloud etc. Of course that data is dependent on whether any archived data was downloaded. 
It seems that the main port is more stable then the other ones , thus less issues when downloading data.
 
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Offline waiukuweather

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2017, 01:10:18 PM »
I don' think this is really going to be stable using a com port splitter
it  works OK for a weather station like a Ultimeter that just sends the data and does not need any command sent to the station to ask for the data
but with the davis station there is 2 going back and forth..and a splitter means you are going to get commands colliding etc

Offline PaulMy

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2017, 03:32:22 PM »
Quote
I don' think this is really going to be stable using a com port splitter
Correct, found out the hard way.  Don't think I'll use it again, at least in its current state.

p.s. thanks ocala, your post did certainly help to set it up and understand it better and get WL and Cumulus to run; just not stable in downloading from logger and updating data logs in both WL and Cumulus.  And will be cheering for the Browns!

Enjpy,
Paul

Offline ocala

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2017, 03:46:01 PM »
LOL. Thanks Paul but unless there is some divine intervention in regards to the Browns I don't think they have a chance.
As for the serial splitter I shut it down too. I didn't know it was a two way communication.
Thanks for that waiukuweather.
Actually shut down Cumulus and going to go with WL for a while. I got used to seeing those nice graphs again. Going to miss the rapid fire updates to WU but I guess I can live with 2 minutes.
Also no updates to PWSweather.com but Weathercloud and Weatherlink.com took it's place for now.
Man I miss the days of Virtual VP.
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Offline ValentineWeather

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Re: Serial Port Splitter for Windows
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2017, 04:36:20 PM »
I can see where the WL main page looks better than Cumulus because having a website I prefer website over Cumulus and rarely look at Cumulus. Its needed however for website making all data easy to find with 3rd party scripts on website.

For graphs nothing is equal to the WU graphs on dashboard https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=KNEVALEN2 and #1 reason I'm still sending WU my data every 4 seconds to graph data for my personal use.

I can't give up Cumulus being website depends on it, but if I decided to run WL just for main page I would get a second data logger and Vue console keeping Cumulus also going.
Randy

 

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