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#14925 - 03/31/03 10:18 AM Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
I have been looking at putting my Leopard on my home network for some time. While there are quite a few Serial port servers on the market which would allow this, the price has always stopped me.

I just did not see spending $150 - $300+ as a good investment. A few weeks ago I found just what I was looking for, a 20 pin chip (46mm x 28mm x 13mm) that converts serial ports to Ethernet for only $50 US. Besides the chip (EM100) all that is required is a watchdog timer chip (Max1232) and a Max232 chip to convert from TTL level to RS232 voltages. You will also need a 5v regulated power supply, DB9 pin and RJ45 jack for connecting to Leopard/Ocelot and network.

I have been playing with my new toy for a couple of weeks and finally put all the pieces together this weekend. I ran C-Max against the adaptor over night and have received zero errors while monitoring my Leopard. My Rs232 connection, 150+ feet, has never been that stable.

The chip also comes with redirector software and configuration software. Everything you need to talk to the Leopard/Ocelot from any PC over your existing network. The EM100 is capable of several different configuration. I have found that Master mode appears to work best with the Leopard.

Anyone who is interested can visit the manufactures website http://www.tibbo.com/em100.php?&. The documentation, schematic and software for the chip is available on the company website as well.

I am not affiliate in any way with this company just a happy user.

In the United States the distributor for the EM100 is http://www.proxid.com
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#14926 - 03/31/03 10:47 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Ken Mitchell Offline
newbie


Registered: 01/14/03
Posts: 20
Loc: San Jose, CA
Thanks Jim, I just ordered the EM100SK eval kit.

I've been successfully using a DIGI RealPort One device server, although it does run about $169. The one thing I have noticed is that the RealPort doesn't seem to work very well from a PC with a wireless LAN card. My theory is that the RealPort device driver doesn't seem to handle e-net retries very well, which seem to be quite common with wireless.

Ken
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#14927 - 03/31/03 03:36 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
dominicv Offline
junior


Registered: 02/01/03
Posts: 40
Loc: Pincourt, Quebec
Good evening Jim,

What is the purpose, into networking the Leopard or the Ocelot.

Dominic
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#14928 - 03/31/03 04:40 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
There are a couple of reasons to put your Leopard/Ocelot on the network.
1. Distance. You can reliable communicate with your Leopard/Ocelot from a greater range than you can with RS232 communication.

2. More than one computer can communicate with the Leopard/Ocelot with out changing the wiring. If you have multiple computers that need to send data (i.e. Temperature & Humidity Sensors) to the Leopard it is much easier.

3. Wireless communication back to your Leopard/Ocelot is now possible. Set in your favorite chair and communicate with the controller.

I sure there are many more, but this was my reasons to put my Leopard on the Network.
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Non Solum fumo speculisque, sed etiam tintinnabulis fistulisque factum est

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#14929 - 03/31/03 05:53 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
ken-h Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/13/03
Posts: 100
Loc: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Jim

Does the chip allow more than one computer to talk at a time or do you have to drop the socket from the first connection before the second can be established?
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Ken H To Automate is all right.

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#14930 - 03/31/03 06:56 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
The Tibbo chip has support for a Multi-Ip table which allows for more than one computer to communicate with the chip. I have not played with this and don't know if two computers can communicating at the same time or if the socket connection has to be dropped first. I will look through the documentation to see if it says. If I don't find anything I will talk to the vendor, they have been very helpful with information.
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Non Solum fumo speculisque, sed etiam tintinnabulis fistulisque factum est

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#14931 - 03/31/03 08:01 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Ken Mitchell Offline
newbie


Registered: 01/14/03
Posts: 20
Loc: San Jose, CA
ken-h,

Can you give us an example of when you would want more than one computer at a time talking to your controller? The one thing I could think of is for a redundant control system with a primary and secondary PC both using the same controller. In this case, the primary may hang and leave the connection up and the secondary may have to take over. I'm curious because I'm in the process of investigating fault tolerant systems management for my real job.

Thanks,
Ken
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#14932 - 04/01/03 06:33 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
I went through the documentation about having multiple PC's connected to the EM100 this morning and this is what I found. According to the doc's if you are using TCP/IP (which you would want to do) if "one client is already connected to the EM100 others won't be able to gain access to the same EM100 until this client disconnects".

So if you are writting your own applications to talk to the Leopard/Ocelot you want to disconnect after sending/reading data so that other PC's can do the same.
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Non Solum fumo speculisque, sed etiam tintinnabulis fistulisque factum est

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#14933 - 04/01/03 06:43 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Brian Raynor Offline
addict
*****

Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 454
Loc: Columbia, SC
Jim,

What you have tried sounds Great! I might want to try this at some point in the future...

I assume with this device, an external machine (PC etc), has to be the "initiator", ie: the client machine that opens the socket...

Is there anyway to set it up so that the Ocelot, for instance, can initiate a connection with another PC? I imagine if this were possible you'd have to configure the EM100 with the specific IP address, as the Ocelot or other serial device wouldn't probably be able to do that...
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#14934 - 04/01/03 06:45 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Brian Raynor Offline
addict
*****

Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 454
Loc: Columbia, SC
Ken,

I used to develop high availability products for fault resiliance/fault tolerance.

Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions. You can send me a private message here and I'll respond back to you.
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#14935 - 04/01/03 09:09 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
Brian, you can configure the EM100 so that the Ocelot can start a communication.
The two main modes are Slave and Master. In Slave mode only the PC could start a conversation. In Master mode either side can start a conversation. In the configuration tool you must define the destination TCP/IP address. See documentation below:

[QUOTE]When to use the Slave and Master Routing Modes:

Use the Slave Routing Mode to network-enable serial devices that never send out the data by themselves but instead are "polled" for data from the PC. Examples of such devices are time recorders, access control panels and other "hardware terminals".

Use the Master Routing Mode to network-enable serial devices that send out the data "spontaneously" i.e. without waiting for the request from PC. Examples of such devices are barcode scanners and other "readers" that just output the data after each successful read.

Also use the Master Routing Mode in cases when the serial data must flow independently in both directions (i.e. Ethernet serial and serial Ethernet). This is the case, for instance, when you are creating a "network modem" that must pass the data in both directions simultaneously.

Required network settings for the Slave and Master Routing Modes:
In the Slave Routing Mode the EM100 only "responds" to other stations on the network. When the EM100 receives the data from remote station it memorizes this station's IP-address and data port number. When routing the data in the serial Ethernet direction the EM100 will reply to this IPaddress and data port number. Therefore, the only network settings that must be set in the Slave Routing Mode are the EM100’s own IP-address and the Data Port Number. This is true even if there is a router between the remote station and the EM100. You don’t have to set the Netmask and Gateway IP when using the EM100 in the Slave Routing Mode;

In the Master Routing Mode the EM100 needs to be able to send the data to a predefined remote station at any time. This means that not only EM100’s own IP-address and Data Port Number must be set but also the Destination IP-address and the Destination Data Port Number. If the destination remote station and the EM100 are residing in different network segments then the Netmask and Gateway IP-address must also be set.

[/QUOTE]
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Non Solum fumo speculisque, sed etiam tintinnabulis fistulisque factum est

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#14936 - 04/02/03 06:56 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Guy Lavoie Administrator Offline
Beyond All Hope
*****

Registered: 12/21/02
Posts: 5809
Loc: Montreal, QC, Canada
Jim and I were discussing this module for the past little while and I must say that Jim has made an interesting find! I've also experimented (and haven't finished) with a Lantronix print server that has a serial port that can be accessed in raw mode, but it hasn't been successful yet. The module that Jim has not only works but has a pretty attractive price. Maybe ADI could use something like this to offer some IP connectivity options...
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"If you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly..."

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#14937 - 04/02/03 07:26 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Mike Chwojdak Offline
journeyman


Registered: 01/15/03
Posts: 80
Loc: Rochester, NY
Check this out to see if fit what you guys are doing. Netmedia Siteplayer
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#14938 - 04/02/03 08:36 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
I have looked at the Siteplayer device but I don't think it will work at this time. Maybe in the future when they support Telnet the Siteplayer might be a good option. Their website lists Telnet as coming soon but it has said that for over a year. When I talked with the technical folks about 6 months ago they said Telnet would not be available soon.
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Non Solum fumo speculisque, sed etiam tintinnabulis fistulisque factum est

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#14939 - 04/02/03 09:59 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Ken Mitchell Offline
newbie


Registered: 01/14/03
Posts: 20
Loc: San Jose, CA
I had looked at the siteplayer about a year ago and it looked very promising. Once I dug a little deeper I figured out that it wasn't quite as easy to use as I thought. The device that has the siteplayer attached (the far end device) has to know about the siteplayer because it actually has to write data into memory locations of the siteplayer in order for the siteplayer to present it via webserver. I don't think the telnet version would be alot different from the device interface side of things. This is in contrast to the DIGI RealPort One or Tibbo EM100 that present a standard serial interface to the far end device. The far end device doesn't need to know that it is talking to anything except a serial port.
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#14940 - 04/02/03 06:29 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
ken-h Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/13/03
Posts: 100
Loc: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
[QUOTE] ken-h,

Can you give us an example of when you would want more than one computer at a time talking to your controller? The one thing I
could think of is for a redundant control system with a primary and secondary PC both using the same controller. In this case, the
primary may hang and leave the connection up and the secondary may have to take over. I'm curious because I'm in the process
of investigating fault tolerant systems management for my real job.

Thanks,
Ken [/QUOTE]Ken Mitchell

The reason I would like to have two computers talking at the same time is. I use Homeseer as and HMI to monitor my Ocelot. When I make program changes for the Ocelot or want to do some debugging I have to shut down Homeseer to free the port. If I had an IP conected device that would alow two sockets at the same time I could go in and use CMAX to monitor or debug without have to shut down Homeseer.

At work we are using some Digi One IA Realport devices that will do this in the Industrial portocal mode. They are a little expensive for home use so I am looking for an alternative.

I hope this answer you question.
_________________________
Ken H To Automate is all right.

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#14941 - 04/02/03 08:27 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Ken Mitchell Offline
newbie


Registered: 01/14/03
Posts: 20
Loc: San Jose, CA
ken-h,

Thanks for your reply. If I understand correctly you don't really have to have multiple hosts connected at the same time, you just need to interrupt one connection long enough to do a download and some debugging.

Would you really want Homeseer monitoring the device while you were downloading and debugging?

If it was possible to have Homeseer close its connection and then re-establish it; would that do what you needed?

Thanks for your input,
Ken
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#14942 - 04/03/03 06:19 PM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
JC Offline
journeyman


Registered: 02/12/03
Posts: 67
Loc: Mascouche, Quebec, Canada
Jim

The proxid link does not seem to work. I get taken to a Dell Host site.

JC
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Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein

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#14943 - 04/04/03 04:20 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
JC, looks like something odd is going on, My link is now going to Dell also. The direct link to the Tibbo product is still working though. Give this a try: http://www.proxid.com/Tibbo/tibbo.html
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Non Solum fumo speculisque, sed etiam tintinnabulis fistulisque factum est

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#14944 - 04/04/03 04:24 AM Re: Networking LeopardOcelot
Jim Beersman Offline
active contributor


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 158
Loc: Springfield, MO
I found the problem with the link, it had a period after the .com which is what was causing the problem. The link has been edited and now works.
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