Serial Ethernet

claity66 · Post by **claity66** » July 16th, 2006, 6:03 pm

Has anyone tried to connect a lcd display which is a serial type, using an Ethernet to Serial converter.

Would need to address the LCD by using an ip number along with port
e.g 192.168.0.1:4001

Is this possible as I would like to look at setting up multiple displays to run from one computer and display different information on each screen. Obviously it would mean running multiple instances of LCD Smartie.

Thanks

Charles

Post by **mattcro** » July 16th, 2006, 6:33 pm

At the moment it's not possible to use Smartie directly over ethernet (unless there is something under development I don't know about). I'm not sure that there is a standard for how ethernet-serial adapters function (protocols etc), so it could be difficult/impractical to implement.

You could do a remote display by using serial-to-ethernet and ethernet-to-serial converters, but that probably isn't what you want.

I assume you can run multiple instances of Smartie, provided they all use unique ports and have different installation paths. I've never run more than 1 instance because I only have 1 display...

claity66 · Post by **claity66** » July 16th, 2006, 6:43 pm

mattcro wrote:At the moment it's not possible to use Smartie directly over ethernet (unless there is something under development I don't know about). I'm not sure that there is a standard for how ethernet-serial adapters function (protocols etc), so it could be difficult/impractical to implement.

You could do a remote display by using serial-to-ethernet and ethernet-to-serial converters, but that probably isn't what you want.

I assume you can run multiple instances of Smartie, provided they all use unique ports and have different installation paths. I've never run more than 1 instance because I only have 1 display...

Yes I would run multiple instances of Smartie, and would like them to all look at different IP &/or port numbers.

I would like to run 16 displays from one computer all with different information pulled from text files/logs etc.

_X7JAY7X_ · Post by **_X7JAY7X_** » July 16th, 2006, 6:55 pm

This was a topic of another discussion and not much else came from it. Smartie would need a special driver to send data over Ethernet. I dont know enough about the test driver to know if it could be altered to make this work. Fast351 would be the person to ask.

My idea was to use a bus system (Two wire CAN BUS) to allow multiple displays on one or several computers. You could also connect keypads and other devices to the lcd or directly to the bus that can be software configurable. The main drawback to this over ethernet is that ethernet is (in most cases) already installed and its just a matter of plugging a LCD into it.

claity66 · Post by **claity66** » July 16th, 2006, 7:09 pm

_X7JAY7X_ wrote:This was a topic of another discussion and not much else came from it. Smartie would need a special driver to send data over Ethernet. I dont know enough about the test driver to know if it could be altered to make this work. Fast351 would be the person to ask.

In Smartie there is IRTrans which uses IP addresses could this be used to send to IP:port

_X7JAY7X_ · Post by **_X7JAY7X_** » July 17th, 2006, 1:35 am

I thought about this and talked to FAST351 (I think). He said IR trans uses its own command set. I have done no research to see if I could find the command set. I have no IRTrans to test with either.

J

claity66 · Post by **claity66** » July 19th, 2006, 8:40 pm

I Have now setup a serial-to-ethernet interface box and with the drivers installed on the local computer I just point LCD Smartie at one of the new com ports and all works great. the only other addition will be a stand alone 5v psu to power the display.

I know these serial-to-ethernet boxs are not exactly cheap but it certainly will do the job.

Thanks for the replys

Charles

ch424 · Post by **ch424** » July 27th, 2006, 10:19 pm

I've working on an ethernet LCD, costing about ?20 for all the stuff, plus LCD... Don't expect anything 'til september though...

ch424

_X7JAY7X_ · Post by **_X7JAY7X_** » July 27th, 2006, 10:30 pm

I have also been working on a version. I should have it done soon if all goes well. I have decided against the PIC ethernet chip for right now. Mainly because I dont have time to mess with it and there are many more features with embedded solutions. I have found an embedded ethernet to serial converter that also acts as a webserver that you can put pages on among other things. Dont know yet how useful these extra features will be until I get into it.

J