Getting Started

Anatomy

The DAQAstra system consists of two main components, the DAQAstra boards and a computer or server that can run the middleware software, which we call the Application, which does the following:

  • Manages the connection to all the DAQAstra boards on a network
  • Builds custom firmware on-the-fly based on user definitions in natural language
  • Captures and records all time-series data from the DAQAstra
  • Generates interactive LAN-accessible dashboards to control the interfaces configured on a DAQAstra.

The basic system is extensible as the application can manage a large number of DAQAstras on the network. The single requirement to get the application to work with a DAQAstra is to simply have them both online on the same network.

Accessing the UI

Once you have the application running, given it is not a headless flavor of the software, the UI will open as a native application on your desktop. However, the user-interface will also be hosted at the IP address of the machine hosting the Application on port 5172. In the headless case, there will be no native GUI and the app will only be accessible via a web-browser at the same port.

If you have TLS certs configured on your instance, http:// requests to port 5172 will be re-directed to https:// on port 5174. See how to configure TLS.

User-Interface Tour

This video shows basic access to the main pages of the application which will be covered in order as shown in the video with the relevant pages of this user-guide linked.

  1. The first button pressed shows the light-mode/dark-mode toggle.

  2. The USB Recovery page, if a DAQ ever gets stuck in a certain firmware or is boot-looping, you can recover that device using an STLink programmer. The steps are laid out in this guide.

  3. Builder service history. This panel will display all of the firmware builds requested the an instance of the application. It does not persist through application restarts. The button itself displays the state of the service which is useful when multiple people are accessing the UI and concurrently requesting a build.

  4. Devices Page. Accessible via Ctrl/Cmd + 1. The side-panel is collapsible using Ctrl/Cmd + B or Ctrl/Cmd + \. The functionality of this page is covered here.

  5. Run Page. Accessible via Ctrl/Cmd + 2. This page displays the Node-RED dashboards as generated by the application. Your personal dashboards would appear here, too. The usage of this page is covered in the Operations section.

  6. Flow Builder Page. Accessible via Ctrl/Cmd + 3. This will show the Node-RED flows that act as the backend of the generated and user-modified dashboards and automations. If one wants to modify a dashboard or add alarms or other devices over the network to the DAQAstra ecosystem, this is where it would be done. See the demo to learn more.

  7. Analyze Page. Accessible via Ctrl/Cmd + 4. This will give you access to the bundled InfluxDB interface where you can see historical data and perform post-test analysis. A more in-depth look at how to use this tool is covered in the Operations section.

  8. User-Guide. Accessible via Ctrl/Cmd + 5. This is an embedded version of this documentation in the application.