Laurel Electronics LAUREATE SERIES 2 SERIAL INPUT METER & REMOTE DISPLAY - Manual (Page 12)

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10. SERIAL INPUT METER / REMOTE DISPLAY CONFIGURATION
Serial input meter / remote display operation of a counter utilizes a Basic counter main board
and a serial interface board. A signal conditioner board is not required, but will not interfere
with remote display operation if installed.
A serial communications board is required. This can be any of the following: RS232 board,
USB Board, USB-to-RS485 board, RS485 board, Modbus RS485 board, Basic Ethernet board,
Etherned-to-RS485 converter board. Please see the next section of this manual.
An optional dual or quad relay output board (contact or solid state relays) can add alarm or
control capability. The meter can be programmed so that the relays respond to the displayed
reading or to received control characters. For setup information, please see the Dual & Quad
Relay Output Options section of this manual.
An optional single or dual analog output board can provide one or two isolated, scalable
4-20 mA, 0-20 mA, 0-10V or -10 to +10V analog outputs which track the displayed reading,
thereby serving as a serial-to-analog converter. For setup information, please see the Analog
Output Option section of this manual.
Front panel setup required for serial input meter (or remote display) operation is shown on
the next page. Two items require special explanation:
• The first digit under ConFig item is set to a value 6 thru C. Since no signal conditioner
board is detected, the meter defaults to setting 6, where H, L, K commands are enabled. H
means display the remote data only. K means that the received value is stored as Item #3,
to become the source for alarm comparisons and analog output. L means both H and K. In
slave mode (8, 9, A, B), the remote meter can display any item of up to four data Items (or
string values), such as the Sum of Rates A & B (Item #1), Rate A (Item #2), or Rate B (Item
#3).
• A timeout ti-Out can be set to a value from 10 ms to 199.99 sec. This is how long a serial
reading will be displayed in the absence of a new serial input. If timeout is set to 0, the
display will persist indefinitely in the absence of a new input.
Additional programmable features of the serial input meter are detailed in the “Command
Mode for Remote Display Operation of Counter / Timer” and “Data Formats” sections of the
Custom ASCII Protocol Serial Communications Manual. In particular, remote display mode C,
which is invoked by setting the first digit under ConFIG to C, allows extraction of data from an
ASCII string that contains multiple data values or non-numeric characters. This mode can
accommodate selected Start and Stop characters. Any number of characters between the
Start character and the data can be masked OFF. Up to 8 display characters (including sign
and decimal point) can be masked ON. Characters between the last displayed character and
the Stop character are ignored.
Instrument Setup software is required to set up parameters for the Remote Display in Mode C
display mode, which allows data extraction from long strings. This software is downloadable
from our website.