Software

    Now I didn't want to be using a DOS program to run this forever.  For one thing, it would require it's own dedicated system.  This didn't make sense, since I already have a file server running at home that is more than capable of running this.  My server is an old Dell GX110, running a fairly modern version of Windows Server.

    I wrote a temperature logging program in VB.NET.  This was a bit of a challenge for me, since the last program I wrote was in Microsoft QuickBasic V2.0.

    I received a lot of assistance from a developer at work (Thanks Bob!), and eventually got something going that would read the data in from the QK145, and display it on the screen.

Snapshot of VB.NET app. Top textbox displays any errors encountered, the lower textbox display what has been received from the QK145.

    Again with Bob's help, I was able to store the values in a MySQL database.  I can do various things with the stored data; some of which can be seen on my home server at http://temperature.homeip.net/thermometer.  Please be patient - It takes a few seconds for the initial ODBC connection to get established.

    Due to the slow speed (2400 baud), it takes about 10 seconds or so to receive the data from the port. I've currently configured it to take a reading every 60 seconds.

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