WheatNet Blade ACI

This connection type implements the WheatNet Blade ACI protocol.

At this time, the following parts are supported:

  • Software LIOs (SLIO)
  • Physical LIOs
  • Salvos

Configuration

Network Connection

Enter the IP adress or hostname of the Blade, and the port number (default is 55776). The keepalive interval (in seconds) defines how often BTConnect will send a dummy <SYS?> command to the Blade in order to keep the TCP connection alive.

Device Properties

Click Retrieve from Device to connect to the blade and retrieve the relevant properties of the particular model, in particular:

  • The number of Software LIOs (SLIOs)
  • The number of physical LIOs
  • The number of Utility Mixers (for future use)

You can also enter the numbers manually, although it is recommended that you use the retrive from device function to make sure they match the actual configuration of your particular Blade.

SLIO

On this tab, you can configure the available Software LIOs. In particular, the following settings are available:

  • Mode: Choose between Disabled (SLIO is not available in BTConnect), Tally or Pulse.
  • Direction: Can be Input or Output (from the Blade’s point of view)
  • Description: An optional description

SLIOs that exceed the number of SLIOs set on the General tab will be displayed grayed out.

LIO

This tab provides configuration for the physical LIOs. See SLIO above for a description of the settings.

Parameters

The connection provides the following parameters:

  • slio/<id> (boolean or trigger, read-only or write-only) - provides access to a Software LIO (SLIO). Depending on the mode set in the configuration, the parameter type will either be boolean (for tally) or trigger (for pulse). Input SLIOs are write-only, output SLIOs are read-only.
  • lio/<id> (boolean or trigger, read-only or write-only) - provides access to physical LIOs, similar to the SLIOs above.
  • salvo/<id> (trigger, write-only) - fire the Salvo with the specified ID (1..256).

Note: For input SLIOs and LIOs, sending a Trigger value to the parameter will always result in a pulse (SLIO set to 1 and then back to 0 immediately), even if the mode is set to Tally.

Last modified December 19, 2021