Model Railroad System
2.2.2
Overall User Manaual
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The OpenLCB Program is used for configuring OpenLCB nodes and for testing an OpenLCB network. It can also manage a Layout Control Database, which can be used by the Offline LCC Node Editor and Dispatcher (see Dispatcher Reference manual) programs.
When the OpenLCB program starts it connects as a OpenLCB node to a network of OpenLCB nodes. This network could be over a CAN bus network or it could be over an Ethernet network using Tcp/Ip, or using some other form of networked interconnection. It could also use different interconnection network technologies.
The OpenLCB program takes some command line options that define how it will connect to other OpenLCB nodes. The first thing that is needed is the constructor class for the transport layer that will be used. This is the layer that is the software driver for the specific wire protocol layer that will be used. Next are the I/O options used by that constructor. Usually this is the name of the I/O device or other information needed to connect to the device. It might also include any additional connection information like the node identification.
These command line options are:
If the command line options are not specified or not fully specified, the program uses dialog boxes to gather the necessary options it needs to connect. The first dialog box selects the transport constructor to use. It looks like this:
This dialog box contains a drop down menu of the available (known) transport layer constructors, along with buttons to to either select the transport constructor or to cancel the process.
After selecting the transport constructor, the options for the transport constructor are selected with a constructor specific dialog box. The dialog box for the Grid Connect CAN over USBSerial one looks like this:
This dialog box selects the serial port device name and the Node ID to use for this connection. There are buttons to open the connection or to cancel the operation.
Once the transport constructor and its options are selected the program starts and displays the main window.
The main window of the application contains a list of nodes on the network(s) it is connected to. This looks like this:
Each node is listed by Node ID. The node trees can be opened to reveal both the simple node information as well as the supported protocols, as shown here:
The node information tree contains leaf nodes containing information about the node, including the name of its manufacturer, its model, and it hardware and software (firmware) version numbers. Sometimes nodes can be assigned user supplied names and descriptions. This information is also displayed.
The Memory Configuration and CDI protocol items can be clicked to open up configuration tools.
There are two configuration tools available. A simple memory read/write tool and a structured configuration tool that uses a GUI generated from the CDI information supplied by the node itself.
The simple memory read/write tool provides a map of what sorts of memory is available to be configured. This dialog box looks like this:
This dialog box displays the available commands bitmap, both in hex and with the textual description of the on bits. It does the same for the write lengths. It also shows the highest and lowest memory spaces and if there is a name, it displays that too.
The simple memory read/write tool is just a simple tool that reads and writes a block of up to 64 bytes of memory. The tool looks like this:
This dialog box displays a block of memory read back as pairs of hex digits. It has an entry area to enter sequence of bytes in hex to be written to the node's memory. There is a space for the count, the starting address, and a drop down menu of possible spaces to read from or write to. There are buttons to close, read, or write at the bottom.
The other memory configuration tool uses the node supplied XML coded CDI to define the structure of the node's configuration memory. It creates a node specific configuration window. Here is the one created for a RR-Cirkits Tower-LLC node:
The generated configuration editor is a generated configuration tool customized for the selected node. All of the configuration memory locations are labeled and organized for easy access.
In addition to configuring memory, the OpenLCB can be used to manually generate event reports and to monitor the network for event production. Actuators and sensors can be tested for proper operation.
Under the File
menu there is a Send Event menu item. This menu item pops up the send event dialog box, which looks like:
This dialog box can be used to send events manually to test node consumption of the sent events.
Additionally, if a node on the network generates an event, the OpenLCB program will display the event in a dialog box like this: