Toolkit with Ethernet to Serial converter

Hi All,

Does anyone know if this is possible?. I have a PC Interface that I have now connected to a Brainbox Ethernet to Serial box but can?t get connected to with the Toolkit, does anyone know is it actually possible to use the PC Interface with a Ethernet to Serial converter so that I can access CBUS over network? I have gone down this route as I already have a PCI and the CNI is expensive.

I am playing around with the Baud Rate, Data Bits, Parity, Stop Bits, Flow Control settings of the Ethernet to Serial converter with no luck yet but just need to know is it actually possible to use a Ethernet to Serial converter or am I wasting my time.

Many thanks in advance,

 

It is certainly possible. This is done quite often with C-Bus.

Does Brainbox provide a piece of software to make the Brainbox unit show up on the PC as a virtual serial port? If so, then you need to point Toolkit at this. If it does not, then you'll need the IP address and port number to enable Toolkit to connect to the Brainbox unit directly.

 

Hello stonecoldbossman
I have been using a Moxa NPort 5100A to connect to an RS232 CBus interface for Toolkit Piced etc.
Since I also have a CNI it allows me to run Piced and CBus Diagnostic utility at the same time or use it as an interface for iPhone Touchsoft application.
It's been working well for the past 6 months.
Baud rate Data bits Stop bits Parity FIFO Flow ctrl Interface
9600 8 1 None Disable None RS-232.
I set the operating mode as TCP server but I am not sure what options you have on your interface.
Then I can connect using Toolkit with the interfaces ip address and port just the same as with the CNI.

 

Thanks for the replies

Hi Guys

thanks for your replies I will have a tinker with the settings of the converter and let you know how I get on, I really want to use without the driver they supply for the pc as I was hoping to write an andriod & windows app just for personal use so want to connect to the IP address direct

here are the settings I have which dont connect at the moment.. will let you know if I get it working thanks again.

 

Hi stonecoldbossman
What are your options on protocol type?

 

Connected

Hi Guys,

Finally got connected but really hate to admit this..... the serial cable had been disconnected as I hadn?t screwed it in correctly , still think that I needed help with the Baud rate etc. which was different to the default settings though?

Off to see if I can get my existing windows app that sends commands to cgate to work direct over the serial converter

Thanks again.

 

Glad to hear it's working
Maybe start off with Toolkit and check that works.

 

Toolkit works

Hi DarylMc,

Toolkit works great so just seeing if there are any examples of .net serial commands with CBUS (need to read the C-Bus Lighting Control via the C-Bus PCI Quick Start Guide), up until now I have been using TcpClient to talk to CGATE wich is reasonably simple but using serial looks a bit more difficult and not even sure if I am sending TCP or serial commands as I have a converter in the middle, could take me a while to work this out

anyway I have main thing was to connect the toolkit so that I know it works and im not wasting my time I have now connected with the app I have written and I get some sort of mnessage back wich I think is CBUS message so its a start....

 

Good to hear.
Let everyone know how you go with it.