Gilderfluke&Co Sd-50 Audio & Show Controllers - Manual (Page 65)

Sd-50/0, Sd-50/8 or Sd-50/40 Serial Configuration
Sd-50/xx is normally configured through the ‘Mp3 Config.exe’ program. You can also configure much
of the Sd-50/xx through the serial port. You will use the serial port configuration commands for:
1)
For testing purposes. You can start and play shows and sounds to confirm everything is
where you expected it to be, and that they play as desired.
2)
Application which do not need or use a Sd/MMC flash card (only the animation part of the
Sd-50/xx is going to be used).
3)
Applications with sounds which use the default configuration can be used without having run
the ‘Mp3 Config.exe’ program. The Sd/MMC flash card used in these applications will not
have a Sd-50.cfg file on it. This tells the Sd-50/xx to ‘load defaults’ for the sound playback
configuration. SoundFiles are played in ‘Windows drag-n-drop’ order, the amplifier is en-
abled, and all the other sound settings are just as though you had run the ‘Mp3 Config.exe’
program and selected the ‘reload defaults’ command. The animation settings are left as they
were before the Sd/MMC flash card without the Sd-50.cfg file on it.
4)
Setting the endpoints used for the ServoMotor PWM outputs.
You must be aware that (with one exception) any changes in the configuration made through the serial
port configuration commands will only ‘stick’ until a Sd/MMC flash card is inserted with a valid Sd-50.cfg
file with a different date or time stamp than what was in the Sd-50/xx before you changed the configura-
tion. This means that the configuration will ‘stick’ as long as you use the same Sd/MMC flash card that
was in the Sd-50/xx before you changed the configuration (or a duplicate of it), or you only insert Sd/MMC
flash cards that have no Sd-50.cfg file on them.
The ‘one exception’ is the only function that MUST be configured through the serial port. These are the
ServoMotor PWM endpoints. They will ‘stick’ though everything but a mangled configuration in flash mem-
ory. When it finds this, the player will reload all the defaults in the animation control configuration. This
should never happen.
The Sd-50/xx can be accessed through the RS-232 serial port from any computer running just about any modem or
terminal program. The computer you are using doesn’t even need to have any PC•MACs software installed on it.
Typical modem programs you can use with Gilderfluke & Company equipment are Terminal.exe (which came with Win-
dows 3.1) and HyperTerm.exe (which comes with later versions of Windows), or our favorite, GilderTerm. Gilderterm is
also available from within PC•MACs.
GilderTerm is available free from Gilderfluke & Co. for use with all of our products. It can be downloaded from our web
page, and is included on all of our CD-ROMs. GilderTerm has been optimized for use with all Gilderfluke & Company
equipment. All of the commands are built in, and it will even let you use your mouse to select commands.
To use the Sd-50/xx with any other terminal program, just configure your terminal program for 9600 baud, no parity,
eight data bits, one stop bit and ‘xon/xoff’ handshaking. If you are using GilderTerm, all the settings are fixed at the appro-
priate settings. All you will need to do is select the appropriate ‘COM’ port.
Your terminal emulation program must support VT-52 terminal emulation (they all do!) to use it with the Sd-50/xx. You
should set your program NOT to insert an extra LineFeed (LF) character after each Carriage Return (CR) it receives. You
should also tell it NOT to scroll automatically after the eightieth column is filled. If either of these are on, the screen will be
Gilderfluke & Co.• 205 South Flower Street • Burbank, California 91502 • 818/840-9484 • 800/776-5972 • fax 818/840-9485
Sd-50/xx Manual / October 29, 2012 2:29 PM / page 65 of 120