H5000 Logger

An application to log an H5000 CPU websocket data stream to two files:

a raw log of all monitored data items (a .log file), and
an Expedition-style .csv file (with observations grouped by timestamp).

This application has been designed to run a Raspberry Pi, but it can be compiled and run on other machines as well.

This application was written for a single use case, but it is hoped that it will be useful to others. Comments on the documentation, functionality and, in particular, specific pull requests are encouraged.

Introduction

This application was developed for several reasons. Principal among them was to allow constant logging of vessel data on a lightweight computer as a historical log, for performance evaluation purposes, and for instrument calibration. (The latter two of these functions are provided by separate applications that interpret the log files created by this program.) For more detail, see "USE-CASE.md."

Building the Application - Debian

Install prerequisites

First, make sure that gcc and make are installed:

sudo apt install build-essential

Next, you will need to install the Boost library, version 1.70 or later. As of this writing (9-Jan-2020), the Debian buster repository is at 1.67.0, so you may have to build the Boost libraries yourself.

To build the Boost libraries

See the Boost Getting Started webpage for definitive directions on how to install Boost. What follows uses Boost V1.75.0 as an example. There may be later versions.

cd /tmp
wget https://dl.bintray.com/boostorg/release/1.75.0/source/boost_1_75_0.tar.bz2
tar --bzip2 -xf boost_1_75_0.tar.bz2
sudo mv boost_1_75_0 /usr/local
ln -s /usr/local/boost_1_75_0 /usr/local/boost
export CPLUS_INCLUDE=/usr/local/boost

To install using `apt`

Alternatively, if the Debian repositories are up-to-date (check using apt search libboost-dev), you may be lucky enough to be able to install Boost using a simple apt command:

sudo apt install libboost-dev

Compile the application

Having installed the pre-requisites, compile the application:

cd B-G-H5000-Logger
./make4linux

Running the Application

Examples

Display 'usage' information, with available options:

  h5000-logger

Test connectivity to the websocket.org echo server:

  h5000-logger -h echo.websocket.org -p 80 -t

Establish a live connection to a B&G H5000 CPU, with both CSV and "flatfile" output:

  h5000-logger -h 192.168.77.234 -p 2053 -c -f -o d:\

Convert an existing "flatfile" into the corresponding CSV file format:

  h5000-logger -l d:\flatfile.log -o d:\

External Requirements

A B&G H5000 CPU with access to its "webserver" interface. This interface is described in the B&G "H5000 Operation Manual."
In particular, you'll need to know the IP address of the H5000 CPU. Methods for determining this address are also described in the H5000 Operation Manual.
A suitable computer (ranging from a desktop(!) to a laptop to a single-board computer that can connect to the H5000 CPU webserver (i.e., has compatible—Ethernet or WiFi, as required—capabilities). This application was developed for a "headless" (no attached monitor) Raspberry Pi that connects to the CPU via GoFree WiFi.

Building H5000 Logger

H5000 Logger is distributed as source code, which means that (for now) it needs to be built by the user.

Two build environments are currently supported:

A Debian-based (such as Ubuntu) Linux machine.
A Windows machine with Visual Studio 2019 (including basic C++ components) installed.

For development purposes, it may be most efficient to alter and debug (to the extent possible) the code on an Internet-based Windows (or Linux) machine with a monitor and GUI, then to copy the code to the headless machine and compile it locally for execution using only command-line commands.

For detailed instructions on building the application in these environments, see "BUILD-LINUX.md" and "BUILD-WINDOWS.md."

staceyszigeti/B-G-H5000-Logger