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TEMPer USB thermometer

Wed, 2007-12-19 12:23 — dumell


TEMPer USB thermometer

I now have a "server closet" where I keep my home server, terastation, switch, dsl modem, wifi station, ups and so on. In order to track the temperature inside the closet I ordered a "USB Thermometer" from usb.brando.com.hk. You just plug it into the USB port of a Windows computer and it will measure the ambient temperature.

The device arrived in an envelope within a few days together with a mini cd-r. That's right, not a factory made cd-rom but a normal burn-it-at-home cd-r with the software on it. And the software seems quite home made as well.

I read some review saying the device was "designed to be used in laboratories". Right.

You need two drivers to get it to work. First a USB-Serial -adapter and then a driver for the thermometer. It seems they use some old thermometer solution designed for serial-connection and simply put it on the same USB stick as a USB-to-Serial -adapter. But it works. And the temperature is very close to what my stand-alone thermometer says when placed nearby.

The software shows most of the captions in English and is capable of logging temperatures at different intervals - although only as a list on screen, not to a file. There is a "updata software" option in the software as well, but it is only a mailto: link to a suspicious looking address".

Not a great device but not very expensive either and it works. I just wish they had made logging to file available and used fewer colors in the user interface.

There are two alternative programs available for this device:

  • TermoHID (link updated 10.9.2011)
  • UTAC (link updated 28.4.2011)

Both of these are much better than the original one.

Comments

Mon, 2010-03-01 18:53 — micsolaire (not verified)

Mille mercis Tychoblin.
C'est exactement ce qu'il me faut.

Tue, 2010-04-06 17:32 — Chris (not verified)

Hi,

I want to use one of these to monitor our server room temp via Nagios, I am going to buy the one from amazon UK@

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-USB-Thermometer-UTE-00411/dp/B002T8PRY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1270563759&sr=8-1

In case the link doesn't work the model is Winter USB Thermometer "UTE-00411" [7747] my question is does the model number matter? The post suggests there are a few versions off the usb stick, and I want to use the Linux drivers created by Jason McMullan which seems to need the USB HID model of the TEMPer does anyone know if this will work or not? If not where can I get this model from.

Thanks for any help.

Chris

Thu, 2010-05-20 02:55 — itsisme (not verified)

It would be great if the tool at : http://www.play-time.demon.co.uk/ThermoHID/index.html would also support the newer TemperHUM HID device in the near future. It sees the device but after clicking read the temp it mentions issues with the devce.

Cheers...

Mon, 2010-05-31 01:33 — spanishgold (not verified)

Hi itsisme,

I have just ordered a TEMPerHUM device from China so give it/me some weeks and I'll see what I can do about adding it to ThermoHID.

It would be good if you could send me an email detailing the problems you found when plugging the TEMPerHUM into ThermoHID. My email is in the Help menu of the program.

Regards

Wed, 2010-07-14 09:47 — spanishgold (not verified)

TEMPerHUM, TEMPer2 and TEMPerNTC support added as requested.

Mon, 2010-07-19 00:27 — Anonymous (not verified)

it seems it supports HiTemper2 but as i can see there is only inner thermometer and no way to activate outter thermometer. Do I miss something?
thnx

Sat, 2010-07-31 14:33 — spanishgold (not verified)

Hi,
If you are talking about the ThermoHID software then the TEMPer2 device is recognised automatically and both inner temperature and outer (probe) temperature will be automatically displayed as text and on the graph.
If not, I suggest you email the author.

Regards

Tue, 2010-08-10 15:01 — Andrew Reid (not verified)

The Maxim Ds 18B20 1 Wire sensors may interest you. if you construct your own 1 wire measurement system you can use our ThermoSoft Mk1 software at no Charge. You can gain some insight into these devices on our site www.sustainabilitymeasurement.com

regards

Andrew

Mon, 2010-11-22 20:34 — Cougar (not verified)

Finally got my TEMPER1 device with outside probe working on Linux with the CPAN module out there. With a bit of code tweaking also got the "resolution" a lot finer than the half a degree it was previously.

I then tried to calibrate the thermometer by part freezing some water and dunking the probe into that. The response time of the probe is amazing... It shot down to zero withing seconds... But it seems the module code doesnt like temps below zero and was giving an error.. So something to go back and look at... But now I notice where before the temper device was agreeing with 3 other thermometers I have in the same area for measurement it is now showing about half a degree cooler than them all.

A little annoying.. but still for the price of the device you get a good ballpark figure I think :)

Tue, 2010-12-28 19:45 — Tom B. (not verified)

Hello,

I've been using the program for awhile but then when I restarted my computer today, it will no longer minimize to the toolbar tray.

Any suggestions?

-Tom

Fri, 2011-01-07 10:37 — Andrew Reid (not verified)

You may be interested in our site

www.sustainabilitymeasurement.com

Software is free even if you make your own hardware ---- Andrew

Wed, 2011-04-06 19:25 — JCP (not verified)

Does the TEMPer device need to be turned on via software, or will it start logging data when connected to a power supply?
In other words, could I use something like this (http://hackaday.com/2005/01/20/how-to-make-a-usb-battery/) for power, drop the device somewhere and pickup later, THEN plug it into a PC to retrieve the logged data? Or will the device not operate w/o software control?
Thx!

Tue, 2011-04-26 11:02 — dumell

All TEMPer devices I have seen are "dumb" devices that only reports readings when asked by a computer, in other words, the TEMPer device does not log any readings on its own but has to be connected to a computer all the time.

Mon, 2011-05-16 18:13 — GiBit (not verified)

Hi everybody
i'm tryin the TermoHID sofware, which seems the best fit for a recent USB TEMPer termometer.
It runs fine, but my goal would be running two different alarms for two different temperatures.
I mean i want it to send an email when temperature reaches 27 degrees and to run a program when it reaches 35 (i need to shudown servers in case of air conditioning fault)

I cannot get to this, unless i use two different sensors in the same place, and i set a different alarm for each of them.

May be there's another way to do what i need with this sw, anybody can help?

thanx a lot

Thu, 2011-07-07 09:45 — Jason (not verified)

Thank you!

Wed, 2011-08-31 21:20 — Adam (not verified)

Unfortunately, the latest hidTEMPer software does not work in windows 7 64-bit platform. It continues to crash my display drivers even after working fine for a week or so. I am going to see if the UTAC software may be a useful alternative.

Sun, 2011-09-04 19:05 — Mick (not verified)

Check version 22.2 at http://pcsensor.com/index.php?_a=viewDoc&docId=6
Works on my W7/64 - just found it this morning.

Sat, 2011-09-10 10:50 — RuudNL (not verified)

Is there any information available how to access the TEMPer dongle in Delphi? I scanned the Internet without success. I have contacted the manufacturer of the TEMPer stick and they sold me a DLL that does not export any functions, so it is not usable with Delphi. It was made for C# in combination with the .NET crap it seems. Any help would be very welcome!!!

Tue, 2011-09-20 11:02 — Frank (not verified)

Because it seems there is very little information avalilable on how to access the TEMPer USB thermometer in Delphi, I tried to work out a solution.
I have created a small DLL file, that can read the temperature in Celcius and Fahrenheit.
It is only 40 kB, and you don't need other support files.

There are 8 routines in the DLL:

procedure InitTemper; stdcall; // Initializes the USB routines
procedure CloseTemper; stdcall; // Closes the USB routines
function TemperReadC: Single; stdcall; // Read the temperature in Celcius
function TemperCtoF(Value: Single): Single; stdcall; // Convert temperature to Fahrenheit
function TemperFtoC(Value: Single): Single; stdcall; // Convert temperature to Celcius
function TemperGetCalibration: Single; StdCall; // Read the temperature offset
procedure TemperSetCalibration(Const AOffset : Single); StdCall; // Set the temperature offset
function TemperGetVersion: PChar; StdCall; // Get the TEMPer version information

The evaluation version can be found here: http://www.homesecuritysoftware.nl/Delphi/TEMPerDll.zip, a small demo is included to demonstrate the functionality.

Fri, 2011-10-21 15:19 — PedroKV (not verified)

Hello, thank you very much for the dll. Could you do the same for the TemperHUM version?

I would like to learn UTAC to work with this stick, but I'm not very experienced in C#.

Thu, 2011-11-10 16:59 — Frank (not verified)

@PedroKV: I don't have a TemperHUM at hand here, so I can't test the results, let alone: develop a DLL for it. Sorry...

Sat, 2011-11-26 15:44 — Frank (not verified)

In the meantime I have also written a DLL for the current version of TEMPerHUM.
It is only 42 kB, and again you don't need other support files.

There are 10 routines in the DLL:

procedure InitTemper; stdcall; // Initializes the USB routines
procedure CloseTemper; stdcall; // Closes the USB routines
function TemperReadC: Double; stdcall; // Read the temperature in Celcius
function TemperReadHum: Double; stdcall; // Read the relative humidity
procedure TemperReadTempHum(var T: Double; var H: Double); stdcall;
procedure TemperGetCalibration(var T: Double; var H: Double) stdcall;
procedure TemperSetCalibration(TOffset, HOffset : Double); stdcall;
function TemperCtoF(Value: Double): Double; stdcall; // Convert temperature to Fahrenheit
function TemperFtoC(Value: Double): Double; stdcall; // Convert temperature to Celcius
function TemperGetVersion: PChar; StdCall; // Get the TEMPer version information

The evaluation version can be found here:

http://www.homesecuritysoftware.nl/Delphi/TEMPerHumDll.zip

A small demo is included to demonstrate the functionality.

Tue, 2011-11-08 05:32 — bp (not verified)

can you recompile your dll for use from java? I am attempting to use java to interface the dll but getting java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError. I don't know much but may be that not using as intended. Email me if you have any questions

Thu, 2011-11-10 17:11 — Frank (not verified)

I don't work in java myself. The DLL is made and compiled with Delphi. In principle it can be used in any programming language that uses the standard calling convention ("stdcall") for DLL's. I will try to find out more about the java calling convention and maybe come up with another version.

Tue, 2011-11-29 00:47 — david (not verified)

hi all, i am a noob at vb2008 and have been trying to write a prog for the usb HidTemperHum ver10.5 ( the only version that will run it) . cant find much help anywhere. found what i thought was a vb2008 program for it but turns out its for the rs232 version of TemperHum and like i said im a noob. if i can just comunicate with with it to get the data onto my vb form

please can anybody help as i have spent many an evening scratching my head getting nowhere,
many thanks for your time

dave j

Tue, 2011-11-29 15:32 — Frank (not verified)

It is not completely clear which version you are using.
My DLL works with the current (HID-USB) version of TEMPerHUM.
A small demo application in VB2010 can be found here:

http://www.homesecuritysoftware.nl/Delphi/TEMPerTest.zip

Hope this helps.

Sat, 2011-12-31 14:22 — PedroKV (not verified)

I got this message. I'm very sad, because I have HID Temper online (http://meteo.pozorka88.cz) and I would like to change it for HID TemperHUM. I have this blue device one year and it is all the year lying on my desk, because original program is unusable and UTAC, which I had slightly modified, doesn't work with HID TemperHUM device. If someone can help, source of UTAC is here: http://pedrokv.com/smeti/utac-source.rar. It is in MS VS C#. I tried some modifications to work with HID-tHUM version, but was not succesful. I'm not programmer, I did programs long time ago in DOS Pascal. Original TemperHUM V10.5 can read values with no problem.

Sun, 2012-01-01 19:25 — Frank (not verified)

I see what the problem is! Your USB sensor is a different (older) type. It uses HidFTDll.dll, instead of RDingUSB.dll used by the current types. It will probably use a virtual serial port. The sensors simple aren't compatible! My (rather new) sensor doesn't work with the V10.5 software. So that proves the big difference.
The newer devices will work with the current software. Unfortunately I don't support the old version, for the simple reason that I don't have one to do tests with...

Mon, 2012-01-02 20:25 — Frank (not verified)

Together we worked out a solution for the older version:

// Declarations for HidFTDll.dll

function EMyDetectDevice (myhwnd:longint):longint; cdecl; external 'HidFTDll.dll' name 'EMyDetectDevice';
function EMySetCurrentDev (myhwnd:longint):longint; cdecl; external 'HidFTDll.dll' name 'EMySetCurrentDev';
function EMyInitConfig (b:longbool):longbool; cdecl; external 'HidFTDll.dll' name 'EMyInitConfig';
procedure EMyReadHUM (var t: Double; var h: Double); cdecl; external 'HidFTDll.dll' name 'EMyReadHUM';

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var H : THandle;
nr: longint;
b : boolean;
res: double;
temp, hum : double;
begin
H := LoadLibrary('HidFTDll.dll'); // Try to load the DLL
if H =0 then Exit; // Handle is zero, could not load DLL
nr:= EMyDetectDevice(0); // Get the number of devices
if nr=0 then
begin
FreeLibrary(H);
Application.Terminate; // No device found
end;
EMySetCurrentDev(0); // Set first device active
b:=EMyInitConfig(true); // Initialize
EMyReadHUM(temp, hum); // Read temperature and humidity
ShowMessage('Temperature='+FloatToStr(temp)+#13+'Humidity='+FloatToStr(hum);
FreeLibrary(H); // Free memory (Unload DLL)
end;

Wed, 2012-02-01 09:28 — Sandy (not verified)

Hi,
I have some problems with HidFTDll. I use win7 64-bit vs2008(compile platform x86), and I have tried various methods, but the "EMyDetectDevice(0)" always return 0, and EMyReadTemp(true) always be 888. Did you ever meet the same problems? Thanks.

Wed, 2011-11-30 21:12 — Frank (not verified)

For older VB versions, try this one:

http://www.homesecuritysoftware.nl/Delphi/TEMPerTestVB6.zip

(Made in Visual Basic 6)

Sat, 2012-01-07 18:29 — Frank (not verified)

Just released a new DLL (version 1.1) that supports the following TEMPer devices:

- Temper (internal temperature sensor)
- Temper1 (external temperature sensor)
- Temper2 (internal and external temperature sensor)
- TemperNTC II (internal and two external temperature sensors)
- TemperHum (temperature and humidity sensor)

The DLL can be used with the current devices that work with Rding32USB.dll.
Older versions that use HidFTDll.dll are NOT supported!
The DLL size is 45 KB and you don't need other support files. (Rding32.dll is not needed for your own applications!)
You can download the file from this location:

http://www.homesecuritysoftware.nl/Delphi/TemperHumDll2.zip

File size is 245 KB. Examples in Delphi and VB6 are included. (Source and .exe) Happy programming!

Sun, 2012-02-05 22:16 — Frank (not verified)

Just released version 1.3 of the DLL.
New features:
- Support for Temper_1K2 thermocouple
- Improved support for multiple devices in a single application
- Temperature returned for TemperHum was incorrect, fixed
- Some small fixes
- New 'simple' demo added

Try it yourself: http://www.homesecuritysoftware.nl/Delphi/TemperHumDll3.zip
(Filesize 820 KB)

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