Controlling External Devices

[Sarah Reichelt]

> I've searched the archives, but found only limited information about
> controlling external devices with Rev.  As I need something somewhat
> more sophisticated and reliable than X-10 devices, I would like to
> ask anew if anyone is doing this kind of work?  What would be ideal
> is an external Programable Logic Controller that we could communicate
> with via Rev.  Any help will be greatly appreciated!
>

Like Troy, I have done a lot of this sort of stuff using either serial
or TCP/IP connections. Rev cannot yet handle USB comms, although I
understand Altuit is working on an external for this. If you need to
use a USB port, a USB-serial adapter works fine with Rev's serial
commands.

Serial comms are easy as you just open a port or driver, write, read
and then close the port. There is a sample stack on my web site which
might help you get going if you decide to use serial devices:
<http://www.troz.net/Rev/tutorials/SerialTest.rev.gz>

TCP/IP requires you to open sockets rather than ports, but apart from
that it's very similar.

If you are looking for hardware recommendations, I have lately taken
to using Weeder modules <http://www.weedtech.com/> which can do a
variety of I/O stuff.

That's some general advice, most of which I have already spouted on
this list, but if you have any more specific questions, please ask.

Cheers,
Sarah