RomRaider

Hi guys,

I am trying to replicate the build environment as I would like to create a plug in for an unsupported gauge. I am running into this issue where there are character embedded in some strings that can't resolve to UTF-8.

While I am digging to figure out what to do, I have already tried to change the ressource property in project/preference to no avail.

What character encoding am I supposed to use or what knob in the environement should I tweak to get past this error.

JDK 1.7
Win 7
Eclipse Kepler release

Thanks

Looks like its the degree symbol, it appear properly in the editor once I set the character set to cp1252 in the editor ... now just need to figure out how to tell the compiler to use that encoding vs cp1252

I don't normally have to deal with s**** like this when writing verilog

Ok well I edited the those character out for now and it compiles. Noticed that there is a generic MTS plug in nice ... for some reason it doesn't work with my setup.

(EDIT : I originally said that the release build and my build had different behavior, that was incorrect they fail the same way)

The issue is this : The plug in connector gets called and it elaborates the sensor properly (find types, etc). But when its time for the runner to start, the MTS object cannot connect and it errors out saying that there is no input channels

The MTS object has a whole bunch of COM calls. Are we using the innovate SDK to interface with these gauge ? (I know this is the case now)

Not sure how to debug this ... I am going to bed, will take a look at it some other time.

Btw, changing log verbosity doesn't seem to work for me. I change the root log property to trace in the file but I still just get info level messages in eclipse terminal and in the log file

Ok a bit more information. I did a small code change in the connector where it seems to be able to connect to the gauge and read its properties fine to basically have it loop a few time just to see if it can disconnect and re-connect properly. Looks like it might be the issue. In my particular setup, the plug in can connect once to the gauge but after you issue a MTS.disconnect(), MTS.connect will all result in connection with 0 input channels. I checked the SDK documentation and the connect has some status information (not alot), I'll try to get it to figure out what its doing.

I'll also maybe try to get a serial dump of what is going on the serial port to see what the connect/disconnect transaction looks like.

You don't need the SDK, just make sure LogWorks is installed to make the DLL available on your system.

Did you set the MTS port to use in the Logger Externals menu?

To set the RR system logging verbose, change it in the Logger Help menu under the Debugging Level.

Is something else on your system enumerating the connection and attempting to connect via a COM serial port?
There's a Test app in the MTS package you can play with too.

BTW: just switch the ° symbol to "\u00b0" and that will fix the compile problem. It's fixed but not in the main code base yet.

Hey thanks for getting back ! So after you mentioned did you set the MTS port to use in logger external, I went and fiddled with that and I got it working. It seems that there is something inconsistant that is causing it to work sometimes and not in others.

I'll keep looking at it and see if I can understand what is going on. Oh well that was some pretty deep down digging for something that already exist. If anything, it made me appreciate all the hard work that went into maintaining romraider. Thanks alot for your time its a great tool.

BTW does AEM have a SDK or a documentation of their protocol ? I am using a AEM failsafe through a phidget interface (works awesome btw) but it could be cool to write a native interface and be able to log other parameters (alarms etc). Now that my project to write a plug in for the egt prope has already been done, maybe I could try something else ...

Thanks

This is an important step. When the Logger starts the MTS plug-in queries the MTS DLL to learn all it knows about sensors. This is to be able to populate the Externals tab with items to log. But the Logger does not keep any reference between those found items and the port that it was found on. So you have to go and specifically set the port in the Externals Menu MTS item. This is what tells the Logger how to access the data stream for the sensors found. I know that seems odd but the way the Logger creates parameters for logging, there is no info about the physical source retained, hence we have the Externals menu for port selection.

As for the failsafe, I have not seen an API doc but from reading about the gauge it appears to use CAN bus to communicate with other devices and enabled EMS (page 21 has the message format). So you would need the AEMnet cable, a CAN converter with one side connected to the gauge and the other to the computer to log the data with an appropriate plug-in.

Thanks,

Really ? It has a USB interface, there is gotta be a way to talk to the gauge that way, they application software can pull realtime data out of it that way. I sent them an email asking to provide the information.

Its a really neat gauge, their logging software is also pretty amazing.

If you can get the API document for the USB interface then you're all set.