Brand:

• AMX

Models:

• General

Overview:

Often in the course of working with an AMX product it becomes necessary to determine whether or not a unit has a faulty serial port. There is a simple way of troubleshooting this that requires only a laptop and the master.

We are assuming you are able to connect to the master and refresh the online tree. Look next to the programming port on the back of the master and flip the first dip switch up and reboot.

The Troubleshooting Process

First, locate pins 2 and 3 on the serial port in question. Short those two pins together.

Next, in Netlinx Studio, go to Diagnostics > Netlinx Device Notification options.

Here we have two options. The first and easiest, if the master is not heavily taxed, is to double click “All devices" and Click “Select All", enabling notifications on all ports.

The second option is to pick the specific port, as in the following illustration. In this example we are going to use Serial Port 2, address 5001:2:1. Notice the actual system number is being used “0" is not your actual system number,

“0" is “Local System". Do not use 0 as the system number. If you do not know your system number, refresh the online tree. The very top line is “System 1Devices" ‐ the bold underlined character (only underlined in this document, not the actual Studio window) is the system number.

After we go to notification options as show above, select “ADD", enter your device information, and hit the “Select All" button. When you are done, all the boxes for the device should be checked.

Click “OK", then check the box labeled “Enable Asynchronous Notifications" and click “ok" in the notifications options window. This will enable notifications.

Now we go to Diagnostics>Control a Device. Enter the correct Device:Port:System information. Again, use the actual system number NOT 0. Select the radio button next to “Command" and uncheck “String Expressions".

Put the phrase “RXON" in the window. All caps no quotation marks. Click “Send To Device".

Now Select the radio button for “String" and put something of your choice in the window with no quotation marks. In this example I am using the phrase “test my string". Click “Send To Device" and we should see the string come back in the notifications window in the bottom. In this case, the response is “String From [5001:1:1] – [test my string]". This indicates the port is working. If you do not get the response, check your pin 2 and 3 short; if it is good the port is likely bad.