RowH2O General Information
Licence Information
RowH2O is available on a single PC, single-location licence basis. RowH2O may not be redistributed, copied in part or otherwise, given away or modified in any way - it is not shareware or freeware.
Equipment Requirements
Waterrower Rowing Machine with a Series III computer fitted.
S4 / SIV monitors are NOT supported by RowH2O. The software will not function fully because data which was output from the S3 monitor has been removed from the S4 'improved' design.
Note - RowH2O should work with the older SII monitors also as the specifications are identical other than lack of heart rate data, but SII monitors do not appear to transmit any data as specified.
Polar Chest Transmitter belt and WaterRower SIII receiver option if heart rate monitoring is required.
Note - at time of writing, SIII V2.5 monitors appear to have a bug where heart rate data is not transmitted via RS232 so RowH2O will not 'see' any heart data although the SIII monitor will display it. SIII V1.0, V1.5 and V1.8 monitors transmit heart rate data correctly.
PC System requirements
CPU - Pentium class 200MHz or better (300MHz recommended for faster screen updates)
Serial Port - a free COM port
MS Windows - W95/W98/WinMe/NT4/Windows 2000/Windows XP (some Mac users have also reported success using Virtual PC software although measurement accuracy may be impaired due to inaccuracy of windows timing emulation)
Screen Resolution - 600 x 800 small fonts (1024 x 728 or better recommended).
Data Cable - A Waterrower computer -> PC serial data cable is required. These are available from Waterrower.
The SIII monitor either requires a 9 pin female D-type to 9 pin male D-type cable with straight-through wiring i.e. pin 1-1 pin 2-2 etc. (these are commonly sold in computer stores as serial port extension cables) OR if you have the original SIII or SII model then a 9-Pin female to 5 pin 240° DIN plug is required with wiring as follows:
Note - If you are making your own cable, the pin numbers are usually molded into the connectors for reference.
Wiring details are also available on the WaterRower Web Site.
Troubleshooting
RowH2O is designed to 'plug in and go'. Assuming the correct COM port is selected there is no other setting required to configure in RowH2O.
If no activity is seen when you start rowing, then there are some things to check.
1. Laptops and port disable - Some laptops are known to disable ports when nothing is connected as a power saving measure. Ensure that the SIII is connected and switched on before booting the laptop in this case.
2. Correct, working COM Port - Windows HyperTerminal can be used to check the COM port. To use HyperTerminal do as follows:
First close RowH2O if it is running.
Run START, then ACCESSORIES, then COMMUNICATIONS, then HyperTerminal - this launches a dialog.
Enter a name (e.g. 'WaterRower-COM1) and Choose an ICON - (any you like), then OK - a 'Connect To' box should then appear.
In 'Connect Using', select (Direct to) COM1 (or whatever port you have connected to)
Then click Configure button and set the COM port properties to:
Then select OK - this should then run a terminal window and in the bottom left you should see 'Connected'
Baud Rate: 1200 bits per second, Data Bits: 8, Parity Check: None, Stop Bits: 1, Flow Control: None
Now switch on the SII/SIII and pull a stroke to start comms messages.
You should then see a load of gobbledygook characters produced each time you pull and when you stop a single blob character should be generated on a 1 second tick.
(The characters are binary data rather than ASCII which is why HyperTerminal doesn't recognise them as alpha-numeric).
If you don't see any data, check the cable is securely fitted at both PC and SII/SIII end and you have the correct COM port selected. If it still does not work, by far the the easiest way to check that cable and monitor are functioning correctly is to try another PC if available (e.g. borrow a laptop) and try either HyperTerminal or RowH2O on that. If the other PC does work, then you should suspect the COM port on the original PC (e.g. wrong port, faulty hardware or wrongly configured/disabled in BIOS). If another PC does not work, this suggests that the cable or monitor is probably faulty.
3. Cable Length - there have been a occasional reports of long cables not working well with the SIII monitor. Probably advisable to try a reduced cable length if your cable is over around 3m long and you are suffering data transfer problems.
4. Other software - if you run other software concurrently with RowH2O which places heavy demands on the CPU, timing accuracy and/or data transfer reliability may be compromised, particularly with lower specification PC's.
Links
Further Information
If you have any questions, comments, feedback, or suggestions please E-mail us.