checksummed data stream?

[sercona]

hi, I'm about to build or buy something like the current ranger. I have a ucurrent gold from eevblog but I really want/need that auto switch feature for full dynamic range.

I like the python viewer app. I'm trying to also use that for other data streams as it seems to be a nice framework for simple live data graph viewing.

one thing I would suggest: on both sides (sender and receiver), send checksums on each data line. I have some code for arduino and also ansi C and python that can encode and decode that. my trick is to use gps style (nmea) sentences and it just makes it simple and debuggable via human readable ascii.

for example, each line would be of the form:

"$ data,1727181432,1.234e01 *9F"

etc.

the dollar (and preceding newline) act as a reliable enough sync char. the 'star hex hex' is the checksum (simple xor).

I've been using this for a few years with good results. noisy lines (or even shared lines! like espnow 'lines') can be usable when you have an easy way to reject bad data.