Greetings:

I gave up on using the built in Units in Mango. They seem to be.. Sort of broken and generally annoying, since there never seems to be the right M/k/u/m type for whatever I'm doing-- Megawatts, kilowatts, whatever. The Best Practice seems to be to just use the Text Renderer Properties, and set the Suffix to Whatever unit you want.

I tried using the built-in units a number of ways, but I got tired of dealing with the little "dot" for multiplied units which really aren't. I don't remember which unit, but it was something like kwh showing as kw<dot>h.. It's not kilowatt TIMES hours.. Anyways. I've run into trouble with import/export also using built-in units, where m^2 doesn't import right under some conditions (for example). Don't have these troubles using the "text renderer properties" Suffix box

Yeah. The general practice seems to be "use the text renderer properties"... Makes your life easier.

Thanks for the quick updates: @CraigWeb @Jared-Wiltshire

This fixed the Modbus tools, and I just tested it, so we're good to go. Thanks for that. These tools are Super Useful, as even thought Modbus has been around for longer than I've been alive, people who implement it still can't agree if it's 0-indexed or 1-indexed, or what the actual difference is between holding and input registers are.

Also, I verified the flashing save Icon issue with multiple tabs... I think I noticed this before, but in my exhausted stupor the previous night I was sort of not thinking straight.

Thanks!

Greetings, all:

I've been using USB to Serial converters on my little Linux Based Mango devices for my business. I've had varying luck by brand, and I figured this is as good a place as any to talk about by mest brand so far, and some troubles they've had.

The ones I use are the DTech USB 2.0 to RS 422/ RS 485 adapters. These units are based on the FTDI Chipset, and I generally have Good Luck. I've probably installed clost to 50 of these things, with so far 3 failures- One due to a direct lightning hit, and the other two Very Odd, Indeed.

It's this "very odd indeed" one that I want to comment on, as a sort of Use Case for how Super Useful the "Log IO" function can be in Mango. I was doing final testing on a product that was too ship, and found that the Modbus Serial data source was behaving all weirdly-- Sometimes polling correctly, but generally Failing Wholesale.

I was just about geared about to post a mango thread about wondering if the latest Modbus module had some bugs in it, but lo and behold, the "Log IO" showed me something was weird.

So:
The poll should look like this (Using the CAS Modbus Scanning Tool, if you ever need a Modbus Doodad, that's a great little test tool)
[22:21:24] => Poll: C8 04 00 00 00 14 E1 9C
[22:21:25] <= Response: C8 04 28 00 6E 00 9A 08 8D 08 84 08 81 08 8F 08 87 08 A1 00 D4 01 AF 20 E2 00 0E 00 21 00 20 00 00 00 6C 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 28 AD 11

Mango was seeing this:
2019/08/29-22:12:21,943 O c80400000014e19c
2019/08/29-22:12:21,955 I 6feeffffffd73d8efe
2019/08/29-22:12:22,023 I c80428006e00a708da08d808da
2019/08/29-22:12:22,025 I 08e708da
2019/08/29-22:12:22,026 I 08f5
2019/08/29-22:12:22,027 I 00
2019/08/29-22:12:22,027 I d401
2019/08/29-22:12:22,028 I c320
2019/08/29-22:12:22,049 I e1000a002a00250000007000000000000008f8eb71

I was thinking-- OKay, maybe there's a bug in the serial driver? You can see Mango originating the proper request "c80400000014e19c " which is a read input registers starting at 0 for 20.

Then, Mess starts coming back into the device almost immediatly after. You can see the start of my Slave device talking back, "c80428006e00a708da08d808da" .. But before that is this "6feeffffffd73d8efe"

Turns out that Mess was coming from the RS485 chip-- It looks almost as if the Serial device server isn't actually swapping RX/TX direction (It's a single duplex, 19200 link for this connection), and is scrambling itself up. So I plugged in that USB adapter into my Windows Box, and CAS Modbus Scanner says the same mess:
[22:19:12] => Poll: C8 04 00 00 00 14 E1 9C
[22:19:12] <= Response: 6F EE FF FF FF D7 3D 8E FE C8 04 28 00 6E 00 8F 08 6E 08 69 08 5E 08 71 08 65 08 7E 00 D4 01 B6 20 E2 00 0B 00 11 00 0D 00 00 00 6E 00 00 00 00 00 00 09 20 B2 34

There's the valid poll, followed by the Huge Mess of Whatever.

This was a brand new converter, right out of the box. If I have a chance, I'll look at it under the microscope and see if I can figure out why it's broken, just for my own edification.

So: Anyways, lesson learned here: If Mango is showing Bizarre Things with Serial, check your USB adapter first.. I had another one of these adapters fail sort of randomly, and that one is here on the floor next to me. I'll see if this one has the same random problem.

Speaking of this, does anyone have any other trustworthy but sub $50 USB to Serial 485 devices? There seems to be a certain lack of these things out there that don't suck, and I use a LOT of 485... I've used several brands, and these DTech ones are the least achy-breaky of the ones I've tried. If my projects had higher budgets, I'd be getting Name Branded Units , but I can't justify $300 converters on these devices...

Cheers,
-Greg Linder

@MattFox For other folks who come to this thread, I was able to use the Prologix GPIB Ethernet Adapter: https://prologix.biz/product/gpib-ethernet-controller/

I have a working set of Mango Configs that I've got working to talk SCPI using the GPIB <-> Ethernet device servers to make this work. I originally tried to get this working with the Serial data source, but ran into a host of issues related to this.

Mango's quite versatile, but apparently the Serial data source chokes on SCPI-style commands- One reason was noted by @MattFox earlier in the thread, but it's also part of a problem with SCPI: Mango expects all data sources to return data, and some (many) SCPI commands don't actually generate an acknowledgement.

The GPIB <-> Ethernet adapter has the same problem, but the timeouts are faster, and you can use a trick in the Prologix device (++auto 1) to basically stream data into mango in Real Time.

The Mango config I put together for this is quite large, but if you're looking for SCPI interfacing, I'd imagine this script would work well for Native Ethernet as well as Vintage GPIB devices using an Etherent <-> GPIB device.

The Prologix one I linked above is the more affordable of the choices- you can just telnet into it, and issue commands, and it spits stuff back. It's actually quite cool.

@MattFox For other folks who come to this thread, I was able to use the Prologix GPIB Ethernet Adapter: https://prologix.biz/product/gpib-ethernet-controller/

I have a working set of Mango Configs that I've got working to talk SCPI using the GPIB <-> Ethernet device servers to make this work. I originally tried to get this working with the Serial data source, but ran into a host of issues related to this.

Mango's quite versatile, but apparently the Serial data source chokes on SCPI-style commands- One reason was noted by @MattFox earlier in the thread, but it's also part of a problem with SCPI: Mango expects all data sources to return data, and some (many) SCPI commands don't actually generate an acknowledgement.

The GPIB <-> Ethernet adapter has the same problem, but the timeouts are faster, and you can use a trick in the Prologix device (++auto 1) to basically stream data into mango in Real Time.

The Mango config I put together for this is quite large, but if you're looking for SCPI interfacing, I'd imagine this script would work well for Native Ethernet as well as Vintage GPIB devices using an Etherent <-> GPIB device.

The Prologix one I linked above is the more affordable of the choices- you can just telnet into it, and issue commands, and it spits stuff back. It's actually quite cool.

Greetings, all: In Mango V3 it was possible to copy/paste data sources: Doing so would create a new data source with randomly generated XID's and the points and stuff as well.

Apparently, in Mango V4, this functionality is no longer present. I made continuous, epic, use of copy and paste for data sources.

I realize I can Export Json -> Change XID -> Create New Data Source -> Assign XID to JSON -> Import JSON, but this seems like something that maybe should be automated within Mango.

Does Mango V4 have a way to copy and paste data sources, that I'm not aware of, or is this really a feature that was removed from V3 to V4? I really want there to be a "copy data source" option in the little burger box where the "Export" and "Export with Points" options are. Exporting, JSON, importing by hand in 2022 seems weird to me for "copy and paste" since Mango has had this feature from V1.X up, being removed in V4.

Unless I'm wrong, and it's hidden somewhere: I was using the "legacy" view back in Mango V3.X, but that legacy view is gone in Mango V4. Are there plans to put copy and paste back in for data sources?

Cheers,
-Greg

@MattFox Indeed. I couldn't use the Serial Data source via Mango V4, because of this issue: I'd suggest maybe adding this to V4- A data source that can't auto-start isn't particularly reliable. I had to switch to using the TCP data source for my solution, and using an Ethernet to GPIB Adapter to parse the SCPI stuff to get the Source meter working.

It's working now, but the fact I had to use another set of adapters due to bugs in the Mango V4 serial data source is nonideal for this.

@MattFox I appreciate your helping out here- I already tried archive.org, but it apparently the wiki wasn't up long enough to store a copy of this.

I'm really struggling with the serial data source- I got the message terminate thing straightened out, but Mango doesn't appear to see anything coming back in from the serial port. With logging enabled, I can see the timestamp O: showing data going out, but nothing coming back int.

I know the device is responding, since I can talk with it fine using Minicom on the same machine using the same serial port. Was hoping one of those use cases would help me figure out what I'm doing wrong here.

Thanks for your help on this.

@MattFox Well hot dog- This seems to fix it.

Turns out that Mango escape-escapes the ending- So if you put "\n" in, the JSON escapes that again as "\\n". This means to make this work you have to edit the JSON back to just \n, and then it doesn't display in the data source edit window.

But, this fixed it.

Next question on this, maybe you can help: There's a previous thread with some examples that have wiki links that don't work. I think it would help to make those examples available again for download, since they're still up in the Forum:

https://forum.mango-os.com/topic/1448/how-to-use-the-new-serial-data-source-in-mango-automation-2-1/7?lang=en-US

There's a thread there referring to "wiki.infiniteautomation.com":
wiki.infiniteautomation.com/doku.php?id=serial_data_source

http://wiki.infiniteautomation.com/doku.php?id=serial_point_properties

http://wiki.infiniteautomation.com/doku.php?id=serial_use_case

Looks like that wiki is no longer avilable, but I think finding those use cases and posting / sharing them somewhere would be pretty helpful for others following in the chain here. The serial data source is cool, but not exactly intuitive to interact with.

Greetings, all:

I'm a long time user of Mango, and am finally using the Mango Serial Data Source. Based on other forum pasts (https://forum.mango-os.com/topic/1448/how-to-use-the-new-serial-data-source-in-mango-automation-2-1/20) for earlier, it appears that Mango should be able to accept \r \n style things as a message terminator in the mango data source.

However, when I try this, using \r or \n as a message terminator, the serial port sends "\r" or "\n" instead of the CR or LF characters.

I'm trying to talk to some SCPI stuff, and need to be able to have \r or \n as a msg terminator to get data back out.

Is there some secret I'm missing about this?

Is shown in the Data Source Config, and when I send a message out the port (using the "set" button in data point details), as follows:

I get this out of the serial port:

I was expecting to get Test Message CR LF, rather than the printed characters "\r" "\n"

This was discussed many moons ago and apparently fixed in the thread posted earlier, but in V04 \r and \n isn't producing the desired character over the serial port.

Can someone help me out here?

Greetings, all:

I'm trying to find out how to use the "Point Unreliable" status in Mango to select between bad sensors when one dies.

For example, I have (3) Sensors, all merrily logging data under Normal Conditions. Generally, we use an average of (2) of these sensors to do things with. Then, along comes a Badger who eats our comm cable (or whatever) and one of our sensors stops responding via Modbus.

Mango tells us that that that sensor's data point is now "point unreliable" and we raise an event to signal that someones' gotta fix it. However, in the meantime, we still need to run calcs with the other (2) good sensors. Basically, I need my meta point to automatically see that "this point is unreliable" and switch to the second (or third) sensor.

Basically, I'd like something similar to the getDataPointWrapper()'s "Enabled:True", but that instead returns "PointUnreliable:true" or something. It would make sense to me that such a thing would be available via getDataPointWrapper(), but it doesn't appear to be there.

Where does one find the "point unreliable" status via scripting / meta point? If possible, I'd like to avoid using the Events to detect this, as we have MANY cases of this kind of thing, some of which are already covered by other alarms /events / whatever.

Thanks!

Greetings, all:

Here's a new one for you.

I did an apt-get upgrade on our server and then restart Mango, and.. Now I'm getting dates that seem to make sense. I need to run this again tomorrow when I"m not so tired, but I think updating the server and rebooting mango.. Fixed this?

This is odd and slightly disconcerting, but yay for how software sometimes behaves.

I'll run some more reports, but I think resetting mango and apt-get updating our Linux install fixed this (for now anyways).

Thanks for your help..

Cheers,
-Greg

Thanks for the prompt response here- Something odd must be happening.

I've just been poking around again and here's what I've found:
(1) When in Watchlist, with a 1 week sum rollup type plotted over the "last 1 month" default setting, with a Line chart type, the data points displayed update on the Fridays (in this case, 4/23, 4/30, 5/7, 5/14, and 5/21) at midnight.

(2) When I run a report with the same settings, as seen below,

Mango says the same thing: I get the following timestamps out of Mango:

44309.00
44316.00
44323.00
44330.00
44337.00

Which, when converted to Date in Excel, are the same dates
04/23/21
04/30/21
05/07/21
05/14/21
05/21/21

As when we use the rollup as described before.

I'm also getting "previous month" data in the same way (1 month rollup sum), and that data outputs just fine: It timestamps as the START of the month, 4/1, and merrily outputs the proper sum for the month.

That's why I was investigating what Mango understands as a "week".

I just tried this on another Mango instance we run- And it did the same thing. Using the "week" rollup has end times starting on the FRIDAY of the week at Midnight.

Our systems are set to MDT time; I've gathered that it may make a difference for Java's internal time handling if we use the City-based time, rather than MST/MDT/etc (since midnight moves around).

Just now, to try this out, I set up the same report on out first machine to do "last 7 days", with the following settings:

With those settings, I would expect Previous 28 days and sum of 7 days, I would expect this to give me dates of Today (at midnight) or 7 days ago (at midnight). From right now (17:22 MST 5/26/21) that would give me 26, 19, 11, etc as the dates. Instead, I get this:

44309
44316
44323
44330
44337

Which excel turns into this
4/23/2021
4/30/2021
5/7/2021
5/14/2021
5/21/2021
Which is the same as when I used the "previous week" rollup type.

Anyways; The date shown by this instance is "Wed May 26, 2021, MDT"

Which means the clock isn't off by a few days, which would explain this.

Any thoughts on this?

Greetings, all:

I'm trying to get rollups to play better with weekly reports.

I've got a bunch of metapoints that run on times to calculate various things. These are all working fine.

However, I don't know how to get these to reliably output as "business week" style things in the report.

By "Business Week" I mean Last 7 days from Sunday night (So, say, Monday -> Sunday as a "business week"). We're outputting data that is compared to something else, and they use Business Week as Data. Mango's "week" is apparently DAY OF YEAR Modulus 7, which is fine, but provides difficulty for "business week" output.

Here's my report setup:
TIME PERIOD: Previous 7 days
Rollup Type: SUM of 7 DAYS
Configured Data:
Data calculated hourly

With that, when I run the report, I'm expecting the Time Stamp to be the START of the period or the END of the period. For example, when we do a "Previous 1 month" the timestamp stored in the excel spreadsheet is the 1st of the previous month.

However, with the time period / rollups I described above ,the timestamp stored in the excel spreadsheet tends to be like, the Friday in the middle of the period? I'm confused by this, and so are the customers.

So: Guess my questions are:
(1) How does Mango chose the timestamp when using Previous 7 Days time period and 7 day sum rollup, and
(2) Is there something I'm missing about how to get Mango to understand the concept of "business week" (Monday->Sunday) rather than modulus week (Day of Year % 7)?

This throws off our calculations a bit, since if you use a SUM on a month in the Watchlist viewer, you get fine data, and it all jives. But if you do SUM over a week, it looks odd, and insists on plotting values on Fridays rather than any other day. This presents a problem for us, since the data we're comparing to is done on Business Week (Monday -> Sunday) type basis.

Cheers,
-Greg