Touch Screen Communications

Does anyone know if I can install an ethernet comms module (5500CN2) then comunicate from a touch screen ethernet port though the comms module to the cbus network?

 

No, Unfortunately you cannot.

 

What problem are you trying to solve? Do you think the Cbus module in the touch screen has died?

 

Yes. The cbus module is dead. The unit was sent back to Schneider and it was confirmed. All else works with fine the screen.

 

I was playing around this morning and if I run my project with Piced 4.13.0 and run the simulation mode I can turn loads on & off. I believe this is because I'm going through my Ethernet c-bus module. How can I do this using my c-touch screen?

Thanks for any help.

 

Assuming you have the windows XP embedded touch screen you could theoretically redirect Cgate running on it to connect to the CBus network via either TCP and a CNI or the external serial port and a PCI. Just pull out the SD card, stick it in a Windows computer and hunt around in the directories and see if you can find where it sets up the interface. The default is probably COM1:

This is all theoretical of course

Given that the touch screen isn't much use as it is you don't have a lot to loose. You could also make a copy of the card before you start experimenting. You will need a copy utility that does a direct block to block copy. I can't remember what I used last time I did this. It was a long time ago. But the directory structure is much the same as on a PC.

I'm sure someone at CIS could tell you straight away, but Schneider seems to have hidden them all somewhere

 

Ashley, thanks for your help. As you said I have nothing to loose trying this.

 

While you may be able to work out how to connect a CNI to homegate in the CTC directly, I personally think you will struggle. What I would look at to start with is using a serial redirector program if you can get it to run on the embedded XP and making it COM1, that way homegate and the cutdown version of cgate that seems to be part of the homegate guts, wont know any different.

There are quite a few redirectors out there - I'd start with the Lantronix one, and if you did that you wouldn't even need to pull the CF card out of the screen!

 

So as a follow up to this, I have spent a good couple of days trying to get CNI comms from a CTC-V3, with the Embedded XP being very stripped down and kinda old now, I was not able to find any redirectors that would work or install.

I got to a point that without breaking the current install, not much more could be done. The CTC does not seem to use C-Gate at all, Homegate talks to the bus directly.

Just hope to save some people some hairpulling time on this, however if anyone thinks of anything I would love to know!

J

 

What about using a USB serial port connected to a PCI? Obviously you'd need one that had a driver for Embedded XP.

 

To be honest I was mostly looking at using an CNI as this would give the greater benefit, however if you wanted to use a PCI, you could probably change the COM numbering and use the hardware DB9 port on the CTC if it isnt already in use.

 

So just to keep this thread updated, I have managed to get Homegate to talk out of COM1 rather than COM3, COM1 is the RS232 DB9 port on the screen. This is ok, unless you are using the serial port in logic for something. If you are, you would have to venture down the road of getting a USB adapter to work on the screen, this is probably possible with the V3 screens, but highly doubt it would be possible with V2.

What I have then done is connect the screen to a serial server and created a TCP tunnel between the server and a CNI. This now means I have a CTC talking C-Bus over ethernet! A bit of a work around but it works and seems solid.

If people are interested in what you have to do to change the port in Homegate let me know and I can email you, but you basically have to take the registry file and load it on another computer in regedit, edit the value and then replace the file on the CTC again. Please note that this *may* void the warranty on the screen. However you can do this on the V3 screens without pulling the CF card out. The V2s are a bit harder.