RelayControl 4.0 User Manual

© 2007 by Bernd-Ludwig Wenning

www.b-l-w.de

bernd-ludwig@b-l-w.de

Main Window

Introduction

This program is designed to control relays attached to serial ports, especially to the DTR (pin 4 of a 9-pin serial port) and RTS pins (pin 7 of a 9-pin serial port). It can manage up to 4 serial ports (the screenshot just shows 2 because the machine where the screenshot was taken has just COM1 and COM2, and the program hides the controls for ports it has not found - COM3 and COM4 in this case).

Manual Switching

For each possible relay, there are buttons to manually switch on and off.

Oscillator

The oscillator controls consist of "on" and "off" buttons and a trackbar to change the oscillation interval. The interval can be varied from 1 second to 30 seconds between two relay state changes.

Countdown Timer

Here, a possibility is given to set a countdown for switching a relay. When clicking the "Configure Countdown" button for the countdown timer, the following window opens:


Here, two values have to be given: One for switching on, the other for switching off. A click on the "Start Countdown" button then starts it. The countdown is visualized by the progress bar in the main window.

Preset Timer

This timer can be used to define switching events for preset points of time. The "Configure Timer" button opens this window where the hour and minute (time of day) for the events can be specified:


As it can be seen, 4 events can be configured per relay. In case not all 4 should be used, leaving h and min blank means this one is unused. The timer is activated by checking the "Activate Timer" checkbox in the main window.

The "Open Manual" button

Opens this user manual.

The "Exit" button

Terminates the program. If a relay is still switched on, it is switched off.