changing Digi-ME baudrate remotely

Embedded Devices Plug N' Play
1

Hi,

My company builds lab equipment which is normally controlled using a PC via a RS232 link.

We’ve now replaced the RS232 chips in our equipment with Digi-ME modules. The embedded processor in the equipment still ‘thinks’ it’s connected via RS232.

We are re-writing our software drivers to send data to the Digi-Me’s TCP port. During one point in the program, the baudrate of the serial connection between the embedded processor and the Digi-ME needs to change from 9600 to 115200 baud.

Our PC driver currently handles this by starting a telnet session and issueing a ‘set serial baudrate’ command. The telnet session seems to take a little too long and the embedded processor is already transmitting before the Digi-ME has switched over.

Is there any other way to change the baudrate on the Digi-ME? We are currently using the Digi-ME integration kit in our equipment and Delphi 7 for PC software development.

regards,
Jan

2

Jan,

Sounds like an interesting problem. Have you looked at using the RCI protocol? You can send commands to the ME over the network instead of telnet. I don’t know what kind of response times you would see though.

Keith

3

Keith,

I initially dismissed RCI as ‘too complicated’ as I know nothing of XML. I’ll look through the documentation and examples again. I probably dismissed the possibility too early.

I am also in the process of convincing my employers that the embedded software in our instruments needs to be made aware of the fact that it is connected to ethernet. The baudrate switching procedure made sense when it was RS232, but now it is rather silly.

regards,
Jan