User Manual

Table Of Contents
Serial (RS232/USB) Operation
182 Advanced Digital Motor Controller User Manual V2.1 December 3, 2020
CAN Commands
Commands arriving via CAN have bigger priority than serial commands and will not con-
flict with motor command arriving via serial, TCP or USB. CAN commands are also subject
to the serial Watchdog timer. Motors will be stopped and command input will switch ac-
cording to the Priority table if the Watchdog timer is allowed to timeout.
Script-generated Commands
Commands that are issued from a user script have bigger priority than serial and CAN
commands and will not conflict with motor command arriving via serial, TCP, USB or CAN.
Script commands are also subject to the serial Watchdog timer. Motors will be stopped
and command input will switch according to the Priority table if the Watchdog timer is al-
lowed to timeout.
Communication Protocol Description
The controller uses a simple communication protocol based on ASCII characters. Com-
mands are not case sensitive. ?a is the same as ?A. Commands are terminated by car-
riage return (Hex 0x0d, ‘\r’).
The underscore ‘_’ character is interpreted by the controller as a carriage return. This alter-
nate character is provided so that multiple commands can be easily concatenated inside a
single string.
All other characters lower than 0x20 (space) have no effect.
Character Echo
The controller will echo back to the PC or Microcontroller every valid character it has re-
ceived. If no echo is received, one of the following is occurring:
echo has been disabled
the controller is Off
the controller may be defective
Command Acknowledgment
The controller will acknowledge commands in one of the two ways:
For commands that cause a reply, such as a configuration read or a speed or amps que-
ries, the reply to the query must be considered as the command acknowledgment.
For commands where no reply is expected, such as speed setting, the controller will issue
a “plus” character (+) followed by a Carriage Return after every command as an acknowl-
edgment.
Command Error
If a command or query has been received, but is not recognized or accepted for any rea-
son, the controller will issue a “minus” character (-) to indicate the error.