Trouble getting started

[timoon]

After starting collectord with arguments set for command and data ports I am unable to connect to the command port, Telnet says "connection refused". telnet to the data port works although I am unaware how to close this connection without stopping collectord. ;-)
What was I missing?

[maniac103]

How do you connect to the target? In 'serial' mode command port doesn't work because TX isn't supported; in 'tcp' or 'tx-serial' modes it should work though.

[timoon]

Alright. Now I realized I only get IO in debug ('-d all'). No messages or states etc. I also installed the DB and it created all the tables but no values or states are saved to DB by collectord.

[maniac103]

Sounds like RX doesn't work (as in: receives incorrect characters) ... how does the IO log look like?

[timoon]

The thing is that I get reliable output (I believe) by another test tool called readEMS.py.
IO in debug looks like this:

IO: Got bytes 0x89 00
IO: Got bytes 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8c 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8d 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x90 00 0x10 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8e 00
IO: Got bytes 0xb0 00 0x30
IO: Got bytes 00 0x97 00 00 00 00 0xb5 00
IO: Got bytes 0x2 0x27 0x1 0xa 0xdf 0x5f 00 0x14
IO: Got bytes 0xe 00
IO: Got bytes 0x30
IO: Got bytes 0x8 0x35 00 00 00 0xec 0x22 00
IO: Got bytes 0x1 00
IO: Got bytes 0x30 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8f 00
(...)
IO: Got bytes 0x93 00
IO: Got bytes 0x90 00 0x10 00
IO: Got bytes 0x94 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0xb0 00 0x30 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8 00 0x2a 00 00 00 00 00
IO: Got bytes 00 00 00 00 0xdc 00 00 0x80
IO: Got bytes 00 00 0x80 00 0x80 00 0x80 00
IO: Got bytes 00 0x49 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8 00 0x34 00 0xa 0x2 0x36 0x2
IO: Got bytes 0x36 0x20 00 00 0x3 00 0x1 0x2f
IO: Got bytes 0xa4 00 0xe 0xe6 00 0x80 00 0x46
IO: Got bytes 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x90 00 0x10 00
IO: Got bytes 0x8 00 0x18 00 0x20 00 0xf1 0x34
IO: Got bytes 00 0x1 0x1 0x20 0x40 0x80 00
IO: Got bytes 0x2 0x36 0x80 00 00 00 0xff 0x30
IO: Got bytes 0x41 00 0xca 00 00 00 0x8 00
IO: Got bytes 0x95 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x96 00
IO: Got bytes 0xb0 00 0x30 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00
IO: Got bytes 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x97 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x99 00
IO: Got bytes 0x89 00 0x9 00
IO: Got bytes 0x90 00 0x10 00

[maniac103]

@timoon That data looks off in that it looks like raw EMS data, not preprocessed like expected by the collector. The expected framing (applies to both serial and TCP) is described at https://emswiki.thefischer.net/doku.php?id=wiki:ems:ems-gw-netio ... reasoning for the framing was that the break condition separating EMS telegrams can't be reliably detected on a machine running a full-blown operating system (be it Linux or Windows) due to the buffering involved.

What device are you using for reception?

[timoon]

Ah thanks very much for the explanation. I was already doing a lot of research but it was not as clear till now. I am using the level shifter from bqkees (https://shop.hotgoodies.nl/ems/). I have decided for that level shifter as it was the only one I found "ready2use" (w/o soldering). I already modified the python program readems.py which does that kind of "guessing" as you described and it works quite well. But I think sending a telegram with linux is quite a problem then?

Do you know about https://github.com/wnelis/EMSbus-raspberry-python? Is that not what I am looking for as for framing? Should be some kind of "driver" but I do not understand how it should work till now.

[maniac103]

I was already doing a lot of research but it was not as clear till now. I am using the level shifter from bqkees (https://shop.hotgoodies.nl/ems/).

This page links to his Arduino code which handles the framing ;-) It follows a different format though, as he doesn't use ems-collector at all.

You'll probably need a microcontroller either way though. Option 1 (cheap, simple, but limited) would be using an Atmega8 + the code in the 'framer' directory. Serial RX of the Atmega would be connected to the level shifter output; serial TX of the Atmega would go to the machine running the collector. An Arduino probably also would work, given it's an Atmega as well, but I don't have personal experience with that. Since the framer code is fairly simple, importing it to the Arduino stuff shouldn't really be complicated though.
Personally I'm using a Pollin NET-IO like described here ... this page wasn't written by me, but is based on what I'm using. You wouldn't need the breadboard, but connect the output of the level shifter to pin 1 of the NET-IO 10-pin connector; the input of the level shifter would be connected to pin 2 of the same connector.

Do you know about https://github.com/wnelis/EMSbus-raspberry-python? Is that not what I am looking for as for framing? Should be some kind of "driver" but I do not understand how it should work till now.

This repo looks like a stub to me; at least I don't understand how the code in there is supposed to handle EMS either (and I don't understand the 'driver' reference either).