HowTo AREXX Temperature logger

HowTo run an Arexx TL-500 or TL-300 with a Linux Box

Wireless USB Temperatur logging system
I sent a mail to Arexx to see if there would be a Linux Version in the meantime. The fast answer I got was promissing. It included a Alpha Version of the Program. So I decided to buy a set of the loggers. So I tried to use them with the newly received Alpha Version. I was reall disapointed to find out that the Program might work for the developer(s) at AREXX. But due to the lack of documentation i had no chance of getting it to work for me. So i tried to write a mail to Arexx asking for more information. ........ I'm still waiting for an answer.
After this I bothered the Search-engine of my choice and looked through some articles. The result where two Versions of Sourcecode I could find which read the Values of the AREXX TL300/TL500 Temperature Logging System. They were able to get the Values by reverse engeneering the Protocol. Since I already had the Loggers laying arround I gave it a try. With success! I choose the python Version since it's easier to handle. I then tweaked a little bit arround to better match my needs. I wanted to have RRD Files in order to see what happened over time.

Sourcen des Python Programmes zum auslesen und aufbereiten
  • This is the USB-Reading part. It reads from the USB-Device and writes a raw File to Harddisk. This is kept small for two reasions. One is that this has to be run with enhanced priviledges so the code should only do the really necessary things. Second is that this enables me to do a lot more testing with the Values in a seperate script without interrupting the data collection.
    tl500-raw-logger_v0.3-3.py.shtml
    If you need pyusb you can have a look at: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyusbg2/2.0.0-a1
  • This part reads the raw.log and interprets the Values. There is still a ASCII-log part in it, but the main purpose is to create and update the rrd-files.
    tl500-read-raw2rrd-v0.3-4.py.shtml

A sample of the scripts running and there result can be seen here

last update 03/2011