Description
The DS18x20 temperature conversion is quite slow, up to 750ms for 12 bit resolution and the application is unresponsive until the conversion is complete. My enhancement request is for an asynchronous conversion, much like the Arduino DallasTemperature library by Miles Burton et al.
It works something like this (I'm using the RBD::Timer library for timers to avoid delay() ):
void setup() {
/* Start up the DallasTemperature library
* IC Default 9 bit. If you have troubles consider upping it 12.
* Ups the delay giving the IC more time to process the temperature measurement
* (Miles Burton)
* The conversion is very slow (approx. 750ms). As a workaround, the
* temperature conversion command is sent to all devices on the bus
* but the program thread is not blocked. Later, the temperatures are
* read back one device at a time.
*/
sensors.begin();
// Do not block during conversion (read later)
sensors.setWaitForConversion(false);
}
void loop() {
/* The temperature converstion takes approx. 750ms,
* therefore the conversion is handled asynchronously.
* The conversion is started but the program is not
* blocked. Later, the program gets each temperature.
* This is a simple state machine but not implemented
* with a formal structure.
*/
if(thermo_timer.onRestart())
{
// Issue a global conversion command to all ICs on the bus
sensors.requestTemperatures();
thermo_conv_in_progress = true;
thermo_conv_timer.restart();
}
if(thermo_conv_in_progress && thermo_conv_timer.onExpired())
{
thermo_conv_in_progress = false; // mark complete
// Why "byIndex"? You can have more than one IC on the same bus.
// 0 refers to the first IC on the wire (Miles Burton).
temp_reading_heatsink = sensors.getTempCByIndex(HEATSINK_THERMOMETER);
temp_reading_case = sensors.getTempCByIndex(CASE_THERMOMETER);
}
}I would like to help implement this but I'm quite new at CircuitPython, Git, GitHub and all that. Before starting, I would like to better define an API addition that doesn't break previous code while keeping with the learner friendly mandate of CircuitPython: keep the temperature property and add a method to kick off the conversion.
Perhaps something like this:
# keyword argument to wait, defaults to waiting
DS18X20(bus, address, wait_for_conversion=True)
def request_temperature(self):
# Similar to _convert_temp(self) but without the timeout check
with self._device as dev:
dev.write(_CONVERT)
# EXPECTED_CONVERSION_DELAY need not be a constant,
# it can be based on resolution as given in the datasheet.
return time.monotonic() + EXPECTED_CONVERSION_DELAY
@property
def temperature(self):
"""The temperature in degrees Celsius."""
# Caveat utilisator: if you cleared the flag and check too soon,
# the temperature is invalid.
# Alternatively the bus or device can be polled to check for completion.
# The method would still block if the routine didn't wait long enough,
# but you would never get an invalid temperature.
if self.wait_for_conversion:
self._convert_temp()
return self._read_temp()Thoughts? Where's the best place to discuss this? (I'm not on Discord but I can PM you my work email.)