Transmitting & Receiving Date/Time

Is there anyway of receiving the current date and time from the network?

I am just setting up a 3rd party touch panel and have got a settings menu that I'm working on for adjusting the time and date on the cbus network. This is working fine and I can transmit to the network and it will update as it should, but I would like to get feedback to display the current time before change on the touch panel.

I have read the protocol but can't find anything about receiving back information. Did I miss something?

Thanks

 

The command you are looking for is called "Request Refresh". It pushes a message out into the network asking for the current date and time settings. The unit that is the current time master will respond. If no response is received then there is no device on the network capable of operating as the time master device. It should all be there in the protocol docs for date and time.

If this is in a 3rd party Touchscreen then you'll need quite a long time-out after sending this message. I can't remember the fine detail but it's in the order of several seconds. This is to enable the correct device to respond.

If you ever get the idea that you want this touchscreen to send time and date information into the network then I suggest you don't do this unless you have to. There's quite a few different states and conditions to work through. In regular C-Bus-land this ensures that the devices with the most accurate time and date information always bubble to the surface as the devices in charge of regular time and date broadcasts. Participating in this process as a 3rd party can be done but it will take some time to get right and can muck things up if you get it wrong.

 

There are different documents for each C-Bus Application. You will need to read the one called "Clock and Timekeeping Application".

 

Thanks for the info.

I am not wanting the touchpanel to act as the time master in the system. This will be handled via the PAC interface.

What I am trying to achieve is to extract the date and time from the cbus network and display it on touchpanel.

I have setup on the panel a manual date and time entry, which I can transmit to the network but this will only be used in the event of either a large power cut where the system date/time is lost or for what ever other reason I want to change the date/time etc. I'm hoping not to have to use it often, but it's there if I need it.

I have read the protocol for "Clock and Timekeeping Application" and I did try "Request Refresh", however I did not see any message received back from the network. You mention about time-out? can you elaborate a little for me please.

In the mean time I will re read over the protocol docs again.

Thanks

 

Do you have a device on the network which supports the time application, like a touch screen, Wiser or PAC?

You don't have to use the Request Refresh command. If you wait long enough (up to 90 minutes) then you will see the regular date/time message broadcast by the Time Master.

You just need to allow enough time (a second or two) for the Time Master to reply.

 

Yes this helps!

Yes I have a PAC which is the device that is acting as the date and time master.

At the moment I will need to "Request Refresh" once per minute, until I can implement something within the touch panel to just update every 90min or so.

I now have this working OK, I reset the PAC unit and get a reply when I "Request Refresh" maybe it didn't set itself to act as the date and time master when it was first installed?

Thanks for the help

 

Sorry maybe I should have made it a little more clear, I am NOT intending to poll the network constantly hence the reason I mentioned I will be implementing something in the touch panel to keep track of time and will just keep this updated from the messages being sent out like you say.

When I refer to "At The Moment" I actually mean just during testing the modual I am writing, even then it won't be every minute just only when required to test.