I'm messing around a little bit with talking to the Stoker through Visual Basic. This is just a little logging application "proof-of-concept".

You can download it here.
http://www.appler.net/StokerLogger.exe

I wouldn't set the interval below 10-15 seconds (the Stoker isn't real fast in responding). The log file you use will be APPENDED to. The URL for the Stoker should be of the form http://192.168.0.7/

Just set up the items and click the "enable" button. It should start writing to your log file and it will report status on the screen.

The log file is in comma seperated variable format (same order of fields as the stoker web interface). You can import it into Excel or something and graph your temperatures.

As I said, this is just a "proof-of-concept", so use at your own risk, etc, etc....

You'll require the .NET framework from Microsoft to run it. If you don't know how to get it just let me know.

-Matt

Matthew
I haven't tried your app. (haven't even got a stoker) but it is just what is crying out to be done. I tried one cook with a data logger borrowed from work but was embarassed by the state of the cables when I returned it. I've also thought about burying an iButton in a butt, but then I've just left the WSM to get on with it and it's just as good!
Good luck - I'm sure we'll see data logging as part of cook logs soon.

Matt,

First, I am not a computer guru by any means. What I know is mostly from trial and error. Anyway, I experimented with telnet to obtain info from the stoker. I received more info than I knew what to do with.

Will your application allow me to get info on a timed interval, such as once a minute? Will the application allow me to obtain the info from a browser or will I still need to telnet into the stoker? I am really interested in this because I would like to have a graph or something that I could show others. I would also like something that would track all of my cooks.

I can't wait to try it out!!

Enjoy,
Dan
3 Dogs BBQ

Dan - Oh, you can telnet to it? That is good info to know. I didn't try that....

Right now the app is grabbing data from the interface. You can configure the interval (in seconds) to anything you like. I was using every 15 seconds last night when I was writing it. It stores all data in Comma Seperated Variable format (I can change this to whatever you want) so you can read it into Excel and make charts and graphs. You can specify the filename of the log file, so you could track all your cooks seperatly.

As I said, this was just a proof of concept...an evening of messing around. If there are features you want I'd be happy to take a crack at coding them up for you.

-Matt

Dan,
I can get into the telnet interface and log in...but I can't figure out a command to run. What are you running to get all the sensor data?

Thanks,
-Matt

Matt,

Here are the instructions that John Jackson at www.rocksbarbque.com gave me to telnet into the Stoker.

You can use hyperterminal (windows accessory) to communicate with the Stoker. In hyperteminal your connect using winsock. You need to provide hyperteminal the IP the Stoker got from your PC.

To get the output:
telnet to stoker
login (root, tini)
at the prompt, type bbq -k
wait you see "bbq stopped"
at the prompt, type gc
this previous command simply refreshes the system a bit
at the prompt, type bbq -st
after a while you should see a bunch of stuff like this

340000116EEFC230: 3 22.1 71.8 0.6 0 0 0.9 0.9
24.7 76.5
query: begin
SEN:2 SWT:2
67108864 67108864 100
5A0000116EF69830: 3 22.4 72.3 -1.3 0 0 0.9 0.9
24.6 76.3
67108864 67108864 100
340000116EEFC230: 3 22 71.6 0.6 0 0 0.9 0.9
24.6 76.3

The last number in the rows with the 16 digit sensor id is the temp for that sensor. Depending on how many sensors you have connected determines how many samples you get.

I use hyperterminal as a telnet client and capture the data to a text file.

My Steps in Excel:
open file as delimited with spaces
number all of the rows
sort primary by Sensor Id Column secondary by the new row # you entered.
delete all of the rows that do not have Sensor ID's
if you had 2 sensors connected cut and paste the sensor data to the adjacent sensor data above in a new column. That should give you side by side data from 2 sensors to chart

I hope this helps. Like I said I am no computer Guru!!

Enjoy,
Dan
3 Dogs BBQ

I've logged every cook I've done on the Stoker using Telnet. For some reason, I couldn't get Hyperterminal to work at all. The stoker doesn't have a controllable time interval yet, so you get data pretty fast. Maybe every 5-8 seconds. I use telnet in a terminal window on my Mac, as it is more reliable than Hyperterminal, and I can redirect the output directly to a file. I would guess that a future upgrade to Stoker firmware would include some feature to control sample rate and trim some of the output. The method John Jackson has sent should be attempted by experienced users only, it's not meant as a real product feature yet, but I hope it will get productized and simplified in the future.

Some additional tips to what Dan said, which is basically what I've done:

To number all the rows, create a new column at the left side, enter the value "1" in the first row, then select the range from the first row with sensor data to the last row of sensor data, and use the "fill" function, edit->fill->series and select "column", step value "1" and leave stop value blank. This gets each row numbered with a sequential #.

The last value in each sensor record is the temperature. I delete all the other columns so that each line has record #, sensor serial #, and temperature. There are a bunch of lines that don't have the sensor ID #s, delete those after the sort. do the cut/paste of successive sensor temp value as Dan said for each sensor, so now you have a set of columns with a seq #, the sensor ID of the first sensor, then temp1, temp2, temp3, etc. Now you can delete the seq # and Sensor ID of you want, and you have a table of time (going down) and temp with a series of columns, one column for each temp. You can graph it or whatever.

The time does not correlate to a timestamp, so you can't tell precisely when, say, 3:00PM is. If this gets productized, I assume that the timestamp would accompany the sensor data.

Other tips, don't turn the unit off when you take off the lid to turn the meat or baste or whatever, but disable the fan in the web interface for 5-10 minutes until after you put the lid back on, so you don't get a temp spike from taking off the lid. This is similar to what you would do with the Guru. With the Stoker, it's easier to do with the web interface, and it won't interfere with a temperature logging telnet session.

-gbeck

Thanks for the telnet information. That helps a lot.

"gc" is almost certainly the Java garbage collector being run.

My app may be simpler than what you are doing now. You should download it and see what you think. I am timestamping everything already since I can pull the time from the host computer. You can also set the interval that you want to measure at, rather than just taking a raw data feed from the Stoker.

Very cool. If the web interface is unreliable for data acquisition I could easily switch to this interface for getting data. It should also be fairly straightforward to add a single "snooze" button on the application interface to allow lid pulls. I'll look into adding something like that.

-Matt

Matt,

I can't seem to get your application to open. I get a message that says windows cannot open it and needs to know what program created it.

Any help is appreciated!!

Enjoy,
Dan
3 Dogs BBQ

Go to Control Panel - Add Remove Programs.

Check to see if you have Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.

My guess is that you do not. If you do not, you should be able to get it through the Windows Update service. If not, let me know and I can find you a direct link to get it from Microsoft.

If you already have .NET Framework 2.0, let me know and I'll try to troubleshoot further.

-Matt

Matt,

Thanks for the app. It works great.

Just ran some data from a 16 hr. pork butt cook.

Pork Butt Data

Worked like a charm!

Thanks again,

Dave

Dave,
Any thoughts on why it took 5.5 hours to get the smoker to the target temp of 240? Doesn't make much sense to me unless the top vent was completely closed, or the bottom one the fan was on was closed down. Thanks for sharing the data!

I'm glad it worked for you! I have a bug in it I need to chase down that I exposed. Let me know if you want source code or need it to do something else. It is pretty easy to modify.

-Matt

Todd,

I think I didn't use enough briquettes to start up my minion load of fuel. I only used 15 of the new Kingsford. I don't think I spread them out enough either.

Also, I am kind of new to all this, and didn't want to "mess something up", so I didn't intervene until the mop handle stirred things up a bit around noon.

Matt,

Will do!

quote:

Originally posted by Todd D.:
Dave,
Any thoughts on why it took 5.5 hours to get the smoker to the target temp of 240? Doesn't make much sense to me unless the top vent was completely closed, or the bottom one the fan was on was closed down. Thanks for sharing the data!

quote:

Originally posted by DaveS:
Todd,

I think I didn't use enough briquettes to start up my minion load of fuel. I only used 15 of the new Kingsford. I don't think I spread them out enough either.

Also, I am kind of new to all this, and didn't want to "mess something up", so I didn't intervene until the mop handle stirred things up a bit around noon.

Matt,

Will do!

Dave, I think there's something else going on there, no offence. 15 lit coals should be plenty to bring your pit up to temp assuming you're cooking on a WSM or similar. Below is a graph (the only graph I've made) of a cook on my WSM using a Guru with a 10 CFM blower and one 8 pound butt lit with 12 original Kingsford coals. It took 30 minutes to get to my target of 240º and I can say from experinece that even with the 4 CFM blower and 4 butts on the WSM, it never took more than 45 minutes to get to temp.

I chalk it up to inexperience. This is only my third cook, and I didn't layer my briquettes very well. I piled them up, and didn't let them get going before I assembled the cooker.

I am, however, a big techno-geek and wanted to play with the logger that Matt put together... So, you all got to see my attempt at data manipulation, with a slow fire.

As a Firefox user, I'm out of luck on the data, Dave:

"This document is a Single File Web Page, also known as a Web Archive file. If you are seeing this message, your browser or editor doesn't support Web Archive files. Please download a browser that supports Web Archive, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer."

Sorry Bob, IE shop here (yeah, I know, depressing), and I suppose I was being lazy, and just made an .mht file out of my excel spreadsheet.

Matt,

Just wanted to say thanks for the logging application. Worked like a charm and gave me all kinds of useful data on my cook.

Matt:
I'm just starting to try my Stoker, could I get a look at the source code. I have a friend at work that is going to help me with capturing the data in MS-Access...I hope.
Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Matthew Appler:
I'm glad it worked for you! I have a bug in it I need to chase down that I exposed. Let me know if you want source code or need it to do something else. It is pretty easy to modify.

-Matt