tfd128 python package

Based on TFD128 v2.1.5 by Andreas Engel with a few changes for packaging and documentation. Most of the work was done by the original author

Homepage: http://projects.nesrada.de/tfd128/

First steps:

See installation steps below

Commandline usage

Quick start

Start recording, 5min interval, temperature only:

./tfd128 --start --interval 5 --mode t

Start recording, 1min interval, temperature and humidity:

   ./tfd128 --start --interval 1 --mode th

Stop recording:

   ./tfd128 --stop

Write recorded data points to a file, using the time and date format of the current locale. The filename will be automatically determined from the recorded data:

   ./tfd128 --dump-values --time-fmt "%c"

Write recorded data points to file 'data.txt', using the default date/time format, but change the data format to "" instead of the original csv format (which is "%c;%d;%t;%h"):

   ./tfd128 --dump-values --output data.txt --data-fmt="%d\t%t\t%h"

Full commandline documentation

In the following, all options are described. Some of them have a short alternative. See output of --help for a complete list.

• --help: Print some help.
• --device <device>: The device to be used. Use this when the device is not found on /dev/tfd128 or /dev/ttyUSB0.
• --start: Start recording. Uses the current date and time as starting time. Requires both '--mode' and '--interval' to be specified.
• --stop: Stop recording. Uses the current date and time as stop time.
• --interval <value>: Required with --start, ignored otherwise. Specifies the recording interval in minutes. Valid values are 1 and 5.
• --mode <value>: Required with --start, ignored otherwise. Specifies the recording mode. Valid values are:
  • t temperature only
  • th temperature plus humidity
• --version: Print the device's internal version number.
• --status: Prints BUSY and exits with 1 if the device is currently recording. Else prints 'IDLE' and exits with 0.
• --dump-count: Print number of recorded data points.
• --dump-info: Print info on the recorded data set.
• --dump-values: Dump recorded data values into a file or to standard output.
• --output <filename> To be used with --dump-values. Use given filename for output data. Use -' as filename to print the data to standard output. The default filename if this option is omitted is "tfd128-YYYYMMDD.csv" where "YYYYMMDD" is the stop date of the recorded data.
• --no-progress To be used with --dump-values. Suppresses the progress bar when reading the recorded data values. The progress bar will be suppressed automatically when reading the data to standard output.
• --time-fmt <value>: To be used with --dump-values or --dump-info. Changes the output format of date/time values. The specified value will be directly passed to time.strftime(), so see its documentation for valid values. The default if this option is omitted is "%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S".
• --data-fmt <value>: To be used with --dump-values. Changes the output format for data point values. The default value if this option is omitted is "%c;%d;%t" for temperature only recordings and "%c;%d;%t;%h" for recordings with temperature and humidity. The following is a list of special values to be used in the format string:
  • %p will be replaced with a single percent sign
  • %c the number of the data point; starts with zero
  • %d the date/time of the data point
  • %t temperature value
  • %h humidity value
• --debug: Prints some debugging info when accessing the device.

See ./tfd128.py --help for an up-to-date list of all available command line options.

Class usage

Tfd128(device)

Create a Tfd128 device. device must be the full pathname to the serial device.

Attributes:

• time_format: The time format to be used for all returned time/date values. This value is unset initially, meaning to use the number of seconds since epoch. The value will be directly passed to time.strftime(), so see it's documentation for valid values.
• debug: If this value is set to true, some debugging data will be printed when communicating with the device.

Methods:

• data(): Return a list of all stored data points. Each list element is a tuple of either two or three values. The first value is the time of the measurement point, the second is the temperature in degrees celsius. The third value - if available - is the humidity in percent. Note that since the data is read via a slow serial port, depending on the number of stored data points this method may take some time before it returns (worst case ~45s). If you want to give some user feedback, consider iterating over the instance, which splits reading the data points into smaller chunks.
  • Raises Tfd128.Busy if the logger is currently recording.

Example: if logger is an instance of class Tfd128, you can read the data values via:

for values in logger:
    print "Processing next data block..."
    for value in values:
    print value

• is_idle(): Return true if the logger is idle and false if the logger is busy.

• is_busy(): Return true if the logger is busy and false if the logger is idle.

• start(interval, mode):Start recording using the current time as starting time. 'interval' must be either 1 or 5, indicating the number of minutes between each measurement point. mode is a bit-mask of Tfd128.TEMPERATURE and Tfd128.HUMIDITY (with Tfd128.TEMPERATURE always being set implicitly).

  • Raises ValueError if the parameters are not valid.
  • Raises Tfd128.Busy if the logger is currently recording.

• stop(): Stop recording using the current time as end time.

• params(rawtime=False):Return a dictionary with the device's last recording parameters. The valid keys are start, stop, mode', interval and count. If 'rawtime' is specified and True, the start and stop time values are always returned as number of seconds since epoch, regardless of the current setting of time_format.

  • Raises Tfd128.Busy is the device is currently recording.

• version(): Return the device's internal version number.

  • Raises Tfd128.Busy is the device is currently recording.

Installation Notes

Note: Most are for very old OS version. I will just update instructions for the systems I am using. Feel free to add instructions for more operation systems

Linux (OpenSuse 10.2)

Add the following entry to /etc/modprobe.conf.local:

options ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0xe0ec

Add the following entries to /etc/udev/rules.d/10-private.rules:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", ACTION=="add", ATTRS{product}=="ELV TFD 128", \
    RUN+="/sbin/modprobe ftdi_sio"
KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTRS{product}=="ELV TFD 128", SYMLINK+="tfd128"

Linux (OpenSuse 10.3)

Add the following entry to /etc/modprobe.conf.local:

options ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0xe0ec

Add the following entries to /etc/udev/rules.d/10-private.rules:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{product}=="ELV TFD 128", \
    RUN+="/sbin/modprobe ftdi_sio"
KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTR{product}=="ELV TFD 128", SYMLINK+="tfd128"

Linux (Debian 4.0)

Add the following entry to /etc/modprobe.d/ftdi_sio:

options ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0xe0ec

Add the following entries to /etc/udev/rules.d/10-private.rules:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb_device", ACTION=="add", ATTRS{product}=="ELV TFD 128", \
    RUN+="/sbin/modprobe ftdi_sio"
KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTRS{product}=="ELV TFD 128", SYMLINK+="tfd128"

Linux (Ubuntu 9.04)

Add the following entry to /etc/modprobe.d/ftdi_sio:

alias usb:v0403pE0ECd*dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip* ftdi_sio
options ftdi_sio vendor=0x0403 product=0xe0ec

Add the following entries to /etc/udev/rules.d/10-private.rules:

KERNEL=="ttyUSB*", ATTRS{product}=="ELV TFD 128", SYMLINK+="tfd128"

Mac OS X

(from: Pascal Bihler [email protected])

1. Install the FTDIUSB Mac OS X driver from http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
2. Copy the following lines to the file

/System/Library/Extensions/FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext/Contents/Info.plist
at the appropriate position (e.g. behind the other ELV-Entries):

<key>ELV TFD 128</key>
<dict>
    <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
    <string>com.FTDI.driver.FTDIUSBSerialDriver</string>
    <key>IOClass</key>
    <string>FTDIUSBSerialDriver</string>
    <key>IOProviderClass</key>
    <string>IOUSBInterface</string>
    <key>bConfigurationValue</key>
    <integer>1</integer>
    <key>bInterfaceNumber</key>
    <integer>0</integer>
    <key>idProduct</key>
    <integer>57580</integer>
    <key>idVendor</key>
    <integer>1027</integer>
</dict>

3. Delete /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache and /System/Library/Extensions.mkext
4. Reboot the system

Uninstall:

To remove the drivers from Mac OS X, the user must be logged on as root. Root is a reserved username that has the privileges required to access all files. Start a Terminal session (Go > Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and enter the following commands at the command prompt:

cd /System/Library/Extensions
rm -r FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext
cd /Library/Receipts
rm -r FTDIUSBSerialDriver.pkg

The driver will then be removed from the system.

To remove the port from the system, run the application SystemPreferences and select Network. Selecting Network Port Configurations from the Show menu will display the port as greyed out. Select the uninstalled port and click Delete. Confirm the deletion to remove the port.