FieldServer FS-8700-115 User Manual

-

A Sierra Monitor Company

Driver Manual

(Supplement to the FieldServer Instruction Manual)

FS-8700-115 General Purpose ASCII

APPLICABILITY & EFFECTIVITY

Effective for all systems manufactured after May 1, 2001

Driver Version: 1.00
Document Revision: 4

FS-8705-06 GPA (General Purpose ASCII) Manual Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. GPA (GENERAL PURPOSE ASCII) DRIVER DESCRIPTION.........................................3

2. DRIVER SCOPE OF SUPPLY...........................................................................................4

2.1. Supplied by FieldServer Technologies for this driver ...................................................4

2.2. Provided by the Supplier of 3rd Party Equipment..........................................................4

2.2.1. Required 3rd Party Hardware.....................................................................................4

2.2.2. Required 3rd Party Configuration...............................................................................4

3. HARDWARE CONNECTIONS ..........................................................................................5

4. CONFIGURING THE FIELDSERVER AS AN GPA DRIVER CLIENT..............................6

4.1. Data Arrays/Descriptors ...............................................................................................6

4.2. Client Side Connection Descriptions ............................................................................7

4.3. Client Side Node Descriptors .......................................................................................8

4.4. Client Side Map Descriptors.........................................................................................9

4.4.1. FieldServer Related Map Descriptor Parameters......................................................9

4.4.2. Driver Related Map Descriptor Parameters ..............................................................9

4.5. Map Descriptor Example. ...........................................................................................10

5. CONFIGURING THE FIELDSERVER AS A GPA DRIVER SERVER.............................11

APPENDIX A. ADVANCED TOPICS ......................................................................................12

Appendix A.1. Separating Data Streams..............................................................................12

Appendix A.2. Interaction with the WebServer Driver...........................................................12

APPENDIX B. TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS............................................................................13

Appendix B.1. Timeouts........................................................................................................13

APPENDIX C. DRIVER ERROR MESSAGES........................................................................14

FieldServer Technologies 1991 Tarob Court Milpitas, California 95035 USA Web:www.fieldserver.com

Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll_Free: 888-509-1970 email: [e-mail]

FS-8705-06 GPA (General Purpose ASCII) Manual Page 3 of 15

1. GPA (General Purpose ASCII) Driver Description

The serial GPA (General Purpose ASCII) Driver allows the FieldServer to accept data from
remote devices which produce an ASCII byte stream. A typical example of such a device is an
electronic scale producing an output similar to the one below.

:weight 0.57 Kg Tare 44.3 Kg 1 2 3 4 -5 -6.7

The driver waits passively for messages. When a message is received the driver converts each
space delimited string of characters/numbers into a number. The numbers so formed are stored
in consecutive elements of a Data Array. Referring to the example above, the driver will store
the value .57 in the 1
value 1 in the next, the value 2 in the next etc.

The driver can process negative numbers.
This driver has significant limitations

Only one data stream per connection - if two different streams of string data are sent to the
same port, the data from the one will overwrite data from the other.
The driver can only process numbers that are presented in a simple numeric form.
Hexadecimal, Exponent-mantissa and other complex forms cannot be processed.

Max Nodes Supported

FieldServer Mode Nodes Comments

Client 1 Only 1 node per port.
Server The driver cannot serve data

st

element of the Data Array (DA), the value 44.3 in the next element, the

:

FieldServer Technologies 1991 Tarob Court Milpitas, California 95035 USA Web:www.fieldserver.com

Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll_Free: 888-509-1970 email: [e-mail]

FS-8705-06 GPA (General Purpose ASCII) Manual Page 4 of 15

2. Driver Scope of Supply

2.1. Supplied by FieldServer Technologies for this driver

FieldServer Technologies
PART #

FS-8915-10 UTP cable (7 foot) for Ethernet connection
FS-8915-10 UTP cable (7 foot) for RS-232 use
FS-8917-02 RJ45 to DB9F connector adapter
FS-8917-01 RJ45 to DB25M connection adapter
FS-8705-96 Driver Manual.

Description

2.2. Provided by the Supplier of 3rd Party Equipment

2.2.1. Required 3rd Party Hardware

Part # Description

None

2.2.2. Required 3rd Party Configuration

Consult your vendor documentation. It is not possible to provide direction here as this
driver can be connected to a huge range of devices.

FieldServer Technologies 1991 Tarob Court Milpitas, California 95035 USA Web:www.fieldserver.com

Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll_Free: 888-509-1970 email: [e-mail]

FS-8705-06 GPA (General Purpose ASCII) Manual Page 5 of 15

3. Hardware Connections

The FieldServer is connected to the vendor device as shown in connection drawing.
Configure the ASCII Passive Client according to manufacturer’s instructions

Ethernet Network

Connection via std networking
interfaces such as hubs, switches,
routers.

Use 8917-02 or a 3 wire cable
where you connect the remote
device Xmit to RJ45-01, the remote

ASCII Data

Source

Eg. Scale

Receive to RJ45-08 and, the gound
wire to RJ45-04.

FieldServer Technologies 1991 Tarob Court Milpitas, California 95035 USA Web:www.fieldserver.com

Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll_Free: 888-509-1970 email: [e-mail]