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Purchase of service: Read and save data from piko measuring cart.
lgrfbs:
To those of you reading this, I posted in another thread but that thread went in a different direction, so I try in my own thread.
I am in need of someone who can write together a program described below.
I am in Sweden and am NOT a company, but am willing to pay for the job (within reasonable levels that both can live with)
What do you consider to be the minimum amount for a small job that has the following parts: WiFi, reads data and saves to CSV file?
Please specify which version of my idea (1 to 3) you can build and what it will cost.
--- More info ---------------------------------------------
Some time ago I went and bought PIKO's measuring cart which in itself is a nice cart but the software for Windows has some bugs that PIKO has not done anything about, to get rid of the errors.
The main problem with PIKO's software is that the radius of the curves is not saved in the CVS file.
Values for the radius of the curves are displayed live in the program, so I know that the cart transmits the measure value and that the program receives the data, but the CVS save function does not include the real measurement values for the radius of the curves, but it will only be 0 at that position in the CVS file.
PIKO's measuring cart homepage: https://www.piko-shop.de/?a=mw
This is a model railway wagon in scale HO (1:87).
What is measured is:
* DCC data
* DCC Volts
* Track inclined width - right/left (dosed curve)
* Track inclined length - up/down (hill)
* Track Radius
* Mileage
* Speed
--*---
This is what I want the program to do:
1 - Basic function:
* Connects to the measuring cart's WiFi AP
* Reads streamed data from the measuring cart.
* Saves the received raw data as a CSV file locally on the computer/drive.
* Target OS Windows, MaC & Linux
* Open source and publicly downloadable.
2 - Luxury version 1:
* The received data is decoded to human readable values before being saved in the CSV file.
* The program has a GUI that presents received data live in some neat way.
3 - Giant luxury version:
* All measured data is saved as CSV and STEP/STL (3D) file.
* GUI has a 3D window where measuring data is presented as 3D graphics.
* A function to be able to virtually "ride around" on the virtual model railway that collected data has created.
Some row data from Wireshark:
http://lgrfbs.org/SEF/MW20190216.zip (140 Mbyte)
MarkMLl:
Looks fun, but I suggest that the place to start is asking them if they'll share their source with you, and if they decline a very careful examination of the binary to see if in actual fact it includes anything which is GPLed: they have download links for .pfw files and from elsewhere "The pfw file is basically a filesystem for an embedded linux system. It is in the ext3 format, and can be mounted on linux."
Does the wagon really contain a WiFi access point? Decoding that data looks non-trivial, and you'd be far better finding a community of people with the same interest to attack it.
MarkMLl
https://pacemakerdevice.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=165
lgrfbs:
PIKO does not normally respond to technical suggestions or complaints, I have informed them that there is errors in the Windows program.
They have simply considered (my guess) it is NOT worth answering me regarding questions like if there is an API or what license the software is under and this has been going on type since I bought the cart.
Presumably PIKO has purchased the service "create windows programs for us" and that the contract on this service has ended and PIKO does not have or owns the program code themselves.
Have researched a bit and the Windows program is written in Visual Basic.
"Does the wagon really contain a WiFi access point?"
Yes, it does - a small one with a maximum of 4 connections and it can even connect to your local router and thus support more clients as I understood it.
MarkMLl:
It doesn't look particularly difficult to duplicate. You'd need something like an ESP32 board, an OLED display, and a small handful of sensors (voltage, accelerometer, optical sensor looking at a reflective patch on a wheel to count chains and furlongs or whatever your equivalent is :-)
MarkMLl
lgrfbs:
You are absolutely right, with a little time you can build your own measuring trolley that has the same or better specifications than the PIKO wagon.
Now it is that I'm not very interested in building my own measuring cart right now, the problem with PIKO's Windows program is that once you save your run , so it will be only zeros for curve radius and when you load the CSV file, the diagram for the radius of the curves is just a straight line which means that the railway track never turns in any direction.
So I have some choices:
A; I find someone who is awesome at editing windows EXE files and just goes into the file and fixes what's wrong with PIKOS's program.
B; I get someone to build me a new listening program that fits the measuring cart.
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