I was wanting to accomplish a devastating relay board with as many features as possible and today was the start.
Premise:
This is a 8 channel relay board operating on a RS485 protocol and can be considered as a SLAVE Unit in the RS-485 network. This has a maximum of 16 addressable settings , which means you can connect upto 16 such boards in a given network with unique address.
DATA structure to be followed to communicate with this board is , you send in ASCII the following value : AT+ADDR+CMD+PARA
· “AT” in capitals is a prefix to initiate attention of the SLAVE units on the network. This is important to filter out noise from a valid data transmission start. Should be in capital
· ADDR , obviously stands for ADDRESS of the Slave unit that has been set. The max. allowable address to address the relay board would be 16, Should always be in 3 decimal notation
· CMD , is the Command code you send to the SLAVE unit. Should always be in 3 decimal notation
· PARA , is the extra parameter that would be required. Should always be in 3 decimal notation
· Followed by a carriage return (Chr,13)
The total length of the DATAGRAM to be sent should not be less or greater than 11 characters excluding CR (Carriage Return) code
I further list down the possible protocol that could be used to communicate with the Relay Board. The top rows of the protocol summary are generic commands that , I feel, are enough to offer good control of the relay board on a given network. Some advance commands, to be executed with care and knowledge, are highlighted in orange, Command highlighted in yellow is a meta command and should be executed with extreme care.
| PROTOCOL SUMMARY | |||
| ADDR | CMD | PARA | RESPONSE |
| XXX | 1 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY1 |
| XXX | 2 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY2 |
| XXX | 3 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY3 |
| XXX | 4 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY4 |
| XXX | 5 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY5 |
| XXX | 6 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY6 |
| XXX | 7 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY7 |
| XXX | 8 | 0 | TOGGLES RELAY8 |
| XXX | 10 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY1 |
| XXX | 11 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY1 |
| XXX | 20 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY2 |
| XXX | 21 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY2 |
| XXX | 30 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY3 |
| XXX | 31 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY3 |
| XXX | 40 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY4 |
| XXX | 41 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY4 |
| XXX | 50 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY5 |
| XXX | 51 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY5 |
| XXX | 60 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY6 |
| XXX | 61 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY6 |
| XXX | 70 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY7 |
| XXX | 71 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY7 |
| XXX | 80 | 0 | TURN OFF RELAY8 |
| XXX | 81 | 0 | TURN ON RELAY8 |
| XXX | 100 | 0 | TURN OFF ALL RELAYS |
| XXX | 101 | 0 | TURN ON ALL RELAYS |
| XXX | 102 | 0 | INVERSE RELAY OUTPUTS |
| XXX | 105 | XXX | CONFIGURE YOUR RELAY OUTPUT ACCORDING TO PARA VAL |
| XXX | 125 | 521 | RESET THE BOARD TO FACTORY DEFAULT |
| XXX | 250 | 0 | ACK BIT DISABLE (DEFAULT) |
| XXX | 252 | 0 | SENDS STATUS REPORT |
| XXX | 253 | 0 | SENDS FIRMWARE VERSION |
| XXX | 254 | 0 | SENDS PRODUCT ID |
| XXX | 255 | 255 | BOARD RESET/RE-START |
I would like your candid feedback on the features of this relay board. This board can be used in various configuration, but that’s another whacky brain storming session we could have. See, as a user , how you could benefit from this board, if you planned to use it in your project or around your home/office.
As I see it , it has vast opportunity, I would discuss, this in a different mail, with you.
I want to freeze the feature of this board with this development and your suggestion.
