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K8055 Commander

Monitoring, logging, manual and automatic control of outside world from the PC.

(Using K8055/VM110 hardware from Velleman.)

            

K8055 Commander - new software for automation.

I have been experimenting with K8055 board for some time using provided demo software and realised it would be good to be able to perform more complex actions. A friend of mine wrote a new application with these additional features:

• logging of all channels to a file and viewing in different programs (sampling time from 50 ms up)
• saving the state of all controls to a file for later reuse
• continuous adjustment of counters debounce time
• automatic control of channels:
• state of digital outputs based on the state of digital inputs
• state of digital outputs based on analog inputs, including hysteresis (regulation, schmitt trigger)
• level of analog and PWM outputs based on analog inputs (positive or negative gain, with offset) (buffers, amplifiers, negative feedback control loop)
• scheduled operation of all outputs and resetting of counters (using time of day or separate time)

I have already used the software in a couple of ways:

• To monitor and control charging of lead-acid battery. I could set the voltage levels at which the charging current is to be lowered and at which the charging should stop. Using recorded values of voltage and current I obtained detailed profiles of charging.
• To switch periodicaly the air conditioning fan and record the changing voltage of the battery serving as a power supply.
• To record the frequency of an AC power line. It reflects overall loading of electric power distribution system, which is interesting to observe.
• To quickly measure (scan) an entire range of values of a given quantity (voltage, current, etc.) for making plots and charts.

This software has been under a slow development for couple of months and now reached the release 1.0 version. Further development may take place. All comments are welcome, especialy bug reports, code improvements and suggestions for additional features. Please, send an e-mail.
Currently the software runs under Microsoft Windows only.

last updated: december 2011