Galil DMC-1700, DMC-1800 user manual Communication Settings for ISA and PCI, Galil Registry Editor

Communication Settings for ISA and PCI

The Galil SmartTERM application installation (as well as WSDK, ActiveX, and DMCWIN32 installations) includes the necessary drivers and .DLL files required to communicate with the Galil controller. The drivers are automatically installed and default communications settings are applied to the device by the driver when a card is installed as per the installation procedure outlined in Ch.2. However, some advanced settings are available to modify the communications methods and data record access. These settings are accessed through the Galil Registry Editor after the card is properly installed.

Galil Registry Editor

The “Edit Registry” dialog box (shown in Fig 4.4) can be accessed by selecting Controller Registration… under the Tools menu (or by selecting the toolbar icon with the magnifying glass) within DMC SmartTERM. The Edit Registry dialog shows the current controller models installed to the PC along with their associated I/O addresses, interrupt lines, and controller serial numbers. The Galil Registry is part of the DMCReg.ocx ActiveX object (refer to Fig 4.4). This ActiveX control is used to create, maintain, and modify the communication parameters, which are discussed next.

Figure 4.4 - Galil Registry Editor

Setting Communications Parameters and Methods

To access the Controller Communication Parameters dialog, highlight the desired controller in the Galil Registry Editor accessed through SmartTERM and select the Properties command button.

The timeout property under the General Parameters tab (shown in Fig 4.5) allows the user to select the timeout period that the Galil software waits for a response from the controller before generating an error. If the controller does not reply to a command with the data response and a colon (or just a colon for commands that do not invoke responses), then the Galil software API will generate the timeout error code -1 (A time-out occurred while waiting for a response from the Galil controller). The default setting for the timeout is 5000ms, which should be sufficient for most cases.

DMC-1700/1800 Chapter 4 - Software Tools and Communications • 57