Today, we are going to start first part of new serie of articles about wireless data loggers. Today, we will do simple temperature logger for short periods. This temperature logger uses TMP112 device assembled on DCTR module and stores value into MCU EEPROM.

As you can read in documentation, NODE EEPROM is directly accessible via DPA protocol from coordinator. So, If you store something to EEPROM, you can use simple DPA packet to read it:

• NADR: 0x0001
• PNUM: 0x03 (EEPROM)
• PCMD: 0x00 (READ BYTE)
• HWPID: 0xFFFF
• DATA: 0x10, 0x04 (START ADDR: 0x10, no of bytes: 0x04)

Now, you need some custom DPA handler for node device. So let’s do it.

Temperature logger node device

We can use source code from this post as base for our new DPA Custom handler, because we need timer6 interrupt for measurement timing. If “can_record” flag is set “do_record” flag is set every 5sec.

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//  If TMR6 interrupt occurred
if ( TMR6IF )
{
    // Unmask interrupt
    TMR6IF = 0;
 
    if (cntr > 0)
    {
        cntr -= 1;
    }
    else
    {        
        // Decrement counts
        cntr = 500-1; // = 5sec
            
        if (can_record)
            do_record = 1;
      
    }
          
}

Temperature measurement and storage is done in DpaEvent_Idle event:

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case DpaEvent_Idle:
// Do a quick background work when RF packet is not received      
if (do_record == 1)
{
    if (eep_addr<100)
    {
        temp = getTemperature();
        // store temperature
        eeWriteByte(EEPROM_DATA_OFFSET + eep_addr,temp);
        // increment eeprom data index
        eep_addr+=1;
        // store eeprom data index
        eeWriteByte(EEPROM_INDEX,eep_addr);
    }
    else
    {
        can_record = 0;
    }
    do_record = 0;
    pulseLEDG();
}      
break;

If “do_record” flag is set, and number of records (eep_addr) is lower than 100, temperature conversion is executed and value is stored inside MCU internal EEPROM. If number of record is 100, then “can_record” is cleared and data logger is stopped. Every conversion and data storage is indicated by green LED.

Now, let see, how data logger is executed and stopped:

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// Handle peripheral command
if ( _PNUM == PNUM_USER + 0 ) // ?
{
    // Check command
    if ( _PCMD == 1 )
    {
        // Check data length
        if ( _DpaDataLength != 0 )
            DpaApiReturnPeripheralError( ERROR_DATA_LEN );
        eep_addr = 0;
        do_record = 1;
        can_record = 1;
        goto DpaHandleReturnTRUE;
    }
 
    if ( _PCMD == 0 )
    {
        // Check data length
        if ( _DpaDataLength != 0 )
            DpaApiReturnPeripheralError( ERROR_DATA_LEN );
        eep_addr = 0;
        do_record = 0;
        can_record = 0;
        goto DpaHandleReturnTRUE;
    }		
 
    DpaApiReturnPeripheralError( ERROR_PCMD );         
}

As you can see, you can use two DPA packets to control temperature logger:

• NADR: 0x0001
• PNUM: 0x20 (TEMP LOGGER)
• PCMD: 0x01 (RE-START)
• HWPID: 0xFFFF
• DATA: —-

and

• NADR: 0x0001
• PNUM: 0x20 (TEMP LOGGER)
• PCMD: 0x01 (STOP)
• HWPID: 0xFFFF
• DATA: —-

Testing

If you (re)start and stop temperature logger after 20 seconds, you will have four records of temperature inside EEPROM. Additional, you will have stored EEPROM index. EEPROM index is stored at address 0x00. Temperature is stored from address 0x10. So for EEPROM index readout use this DPA packet:

• NADR: 0x0001
• PNUM: 0x03 (EEPROM)
• PCMD: 0x00 (READ BYTE)
• HWPID: 0xFFFF
• DATA: 0x00, 0x01

For temperature readout use:

• NADR: 0x0001
• PNUM: 0x03 (EEPROM)
• PCMD: 0x00 (READ BYTE)
• HWPID: 0xFFFF
• DATA: 0x10, 0x04 (START ADDR: 0x10, no of bytes: 0x04)

You should get something like:

temp logger DPA response

In this case, four numbers represents temperatures: 28°C, 28°C, 27°C, 27°C.

This simple temperature logger has a lot of limitations. The biggest one is small number of possible records. During the following days, I am going to prepare another article, where external EEPROM (EEEPROM) will be used for data storage.

Full source code is attached.