Aqualine

I have recently integrated C-Bus with an Aqualine pool controller and everything went fine except retrieving temperature readings.

Upon installation, the Aqualine interface attempts to create three applications:

114 to control inputs and outputs (working fine)
223 Clock and timekeeping (to synchronise it's time with C-Bus for scheduling)
228 Measurement application (to pass water/air temperatures to C-Bus)

The 228 application was not created, and Toolkit will not allow this to be created manually. My understanding is that once this application is in place, then you can use system I/O in Piced to 'pull' the values out.

Of course, the module builder in Piced cannot see 228 so I've hit a dead end.

Is the Aqualine interface no longer fully compatible with the latest build of c-gate??

I noticed one of the latest features with Piced 4.3 is '13038 Support the Temperature Broadcast application'. Is this related??

Am I going about this the wrong way, in which case, what is the right way??

Cheers

Colin

 

Hi Colin,

Applications are an often misunderstood concept in C-Bus land. There are predefined applications that you cannot created or delete yourself (115 and above).

To make use of these reserved applications first you need to have a device which talks on that application. In your case it sounds like the Aqualine pool controller already talks on the Measurement application. Next you need to program PICED to read the information from this application.

PICED has a series of inbuilt functions for handling these predefined applications.
For information on programming PICED to display information on he Measurement application see topic 'Measurement App In-Built System IO' in the PICED help file. It has information and links regarding what it does and how to use it.

Regards,

Matty

 

Ok....

It wasn't my imagination - the official line from Aqualine is that their interface 'no longer works' with Piced v4. As I discovered, the inputs and outputs will respond to C-Bus control, but you cannot get the temperature readings out via system I/O any more.

Apparently I just happened to be the first to find out.

Colin

 

If you read

http://www.cbus-enabled.com/news-6.htm

"It has a certified C-BUS interface."

I would have thaught to get this it should have been using all the right application addresses etc...

Charles

 

As long as the Aqualine device sends messages on the correct applications they can be read in and displayed in PICED v4. This includes clock and measurement info. If not the Aqualine unit will need to be addressed to ensure that appropriate messages are sent on the proper application.

For application 114 it is within the user editable range, you should be able to create this in toolkit and display stuff in PICED. Assuming the values are sent correctly by the Aqualine device they can be disaplyed in PICED by using the inbuilt systemIO tools.

To display these values in PICED do the following:
1. Start a project
2. go to project menu
3. go to C-Bus applications
4. go to Measurement manager
5. Add the details of the measurement item you would like to display.
6. go to component menu
7. go to place tool
8. select category measurement app
9. select the function you would like to display
10. place the item on the page and double click to open the properties
11. select the measurement item you added to the measurement manager.

Charlie that is correct.

Regards,

Matty.

 

According to Aqualine, their interface used to fully work, but no longer allows retrieval of temperatures because of the way the measurement application and system I/O is managed in the latest versions of Piced.

A representative of Aqualine thought I was doing something wrong until further feedback prompted them to test it.

Thanks Matty for your response, and I hope you are correct. According to the Aqualine documentation however, temperature values are sent over application 228 and I believe this may be where the problem lies. The interface does allow you to modify the application addreses for input/output control, but not this one.

If the temperature values are on 228 and cannot be changed (by us) could you see a problem then, or will your procedure still work??

Colin

 

The procedure should still work. The measurement application requires a few pieces of information.
These are:
a unit ID
a channel
a measurement value
units that the value represent

When you add the measurement item to the measurement manager you will need to know the unit ID and the channel. PICED will then extract the value and the units. Without knowing what Unit ID they have used open the measurement manager and leave it open while the Aqualine sends these messages. You will see them appear in the manager as they occur. Highlight the ones you want monitored and click the 'monitor' button.

Regards,

Matty