I have discovered a strange issue that has been puzzling me. In short, I am using a batch file to send commands via Packet sender to the individual relays through a streamdeck to turn the individual relays on and off. It’s very simple and it works Rock solid. In my specific application, I also want to use the AD8 inputs that I currently set up for momentary controls for the individual relays 1-8. This works as you would expect - You Ground out AD8 input1 and then Relay 1 comes on - Unground and it goes off… This is where it goes weird - If I control the relays Via IP I have full control no issues - If I control the relays Only via the AD8 inputs No issues - If I turn on ANY of the relays on Via IP and THEN use ANY of the AD8 inputs it turns off ALL RELAYS First.
Certainly Not good in a situation where I want to have some wires switches but also want to have some relays that are just IP controlled.
Can anyone else replicate this and is it intentional? It took me several hours of troubleshooting to determine why I was having an issue until I finally discovered this unwanted behavior.
Hi Aaron,
Input control and Computer control are not intended to be used together. The board is receiving conflicting information from the inputs and the computer so it cannot decide how to react. When the input closes it reads all inputs and controls all relays on board accordingly.
What you should do instead is write something like a Pythons script to run on the computer which monitors the inputs and receives commands from the steam deck, then it can send commands to the board accordingly.
Thank you,
Travis Elliott
Travis - Thank you for your timely reply - I am saddened by that fact as I thought I had found a great product that I would be able to use in my broadcast Facility. We use many devices with GPI and GPI controls and I was planning on this relay board device controlling some of our ONAIR graphics from a few different devices. Specifically, I had located a few IP interface panels from Key Digital the KD-WP8-2. It can send HEX data to a specific port such as AA,03,FE,73,01,1F - in this example Turning on Relay 8 in bank 1. That would run the Graphics at the bottom of the screen such as Weather or school closings when needed). And it worked Great However I also send some switch Closures from our Production Automation system that would close one of its internal relays and I had that wired to the AD8 input 1 that when it was Grounded would Enable Relay 1 and in turn was wired to put the station logo in the corner of the screen…
In these examples - Everything will work just as planned as long as it is only ONE thing at a time. the IP interface panel works great and can enable and disable the relay over IP control and the Automated switch closure will turn on that logo and take it down when its told to but IF I happen to have those school closings up with relay 8 enabled and then i turn on my logo on relay 1 it will turn all relays off and only enable the one from the AD8 control. Outside looking in it should only be interacting with the specific task it was assigned to do and not just disable everything. is there a way to change this behavior in the firmware ? Can I make a development request because I believe your product is superior than other boards that are out there and I would like to be able to use this product in many other ways but with the board behaving in a “conflicting” way I don’t believe I will be able to do that
Its also as simple as this - I wanted to use one of the boards to remotely control some lighting circuits in our remote studio that is 50 miles away. I would use the computer control part to turn 8 different lights in that studio and have the ability to have a local switch wired into the AD8 of the relay board to quickly turn on any of them if needed. The way that it is set up now If a remote operator had on 5 of the lights and someone came into the studio and needed to enable a single light by the set to see something when they manually enabled that light it would actually turn off ALL the lights and only enable the one light if the AD8 was configured to momentarily control that specific relay . The same happens in any manner you configure the AD8. I Would like to continue to use your product …so respectfully is this behavior something can be changed??
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Is there any way this behavior can be changed> so that I can use the example I described?