Column: Electronics design
General I/O monitor for the ECIO40P development board
By Martin Whitlock, Applications Engineer, Matrix TSL
B
efore any of the free apps for the ECIO40P development board can be run for the fi rst time, you will need the ECIO40P app developer
fi rmware loaded on to your ECIO40P and the USB drivers installed. You can manually fi nd the fi rmware
for diff erent target devices by going to the web and searching for SCADA slaves. T e zip fi le will contain three fi les:
If ECIO is detected, leſt -click on the three dots, and a dialogue window will open:
Once loaded onto the ECIO40P, any of
the apps can be run without reloading the fi rmware.
Loading the fi rmware Extract the ECIO40P app developer fi rmware, ECIO programmer and USB drivers zip fi les into a folder. First, the ECIO40P drivers must be
installed. To do that, depending on your operating system double leſt -click on one of these exe fi les:
programmer folder. Connect ECIO40P to a USB port of the PC. If the round icon remains orange, then either the ECIO40P drivers are not installed properly or something else has taken over the port. You can see if the drivers are installed by looking at the device manager:
You can now run any of the app
developer’s soſt ware. With the ECIO40p programmed, a virtual port can be created.
Run Device Manager by right-clicking
on the windows key, and leſt -click on Device Manager, or within the taskbar search Enter Device Manager. Expand:
Look for USB serial and remember the
Com port number. Run the app by double leſt -clicking
on Open General IO Monitor ECIO40P bat fi le. You can also select Send To, then Desktop (to create a shortcut). Right-click on the panel and select Properties. Select the correct com port for the app. If the app developer is running
successfully, then all analogue dials will show random values. If they don’t, see Troubleshooting. T e mouse scroll-wheel can zoom in
and out. When happy with the size, right- click, select Look at the origin, which will centralise the app. T e General IO monitor off ers fi ve
inputs, fi ve outputs, fi ve analogue inputs and one PWM output. T e number within brackets represents either digital (B0 to B4) or analogue (A0 to A5) I/O. T e digital input is just monitoring pins
(D4 to D) for a voltage source. If nothing is connected, then the level could be either 1 or 0, depending on the present external fi elds, as the inputs are fl oating due to their high impedance. For the input LED to light, the input
must be equal or greater than 0.6Vcc; e.g., 3V or greater if Vcc is 5V, and no greater than Vcc + 0.5V. For the LED to be off , the voltage must
Alternatively, you can use Flowcode
to load the fi rmware then send it to the ECIO40P. Using Windows Explorer, run
mLoader (by double leſt -clicking on mLoader.exe) within the mLoader
Browse the ECIO40P fi rmware.hex fi le,
then leſt -click Open. You should see the fi rmware fi le appear in the large window. Leſt -click on Send, and once the fi le has been sent to ECIO40P, leſt -click on Execute; mLoader can now be closed.
14 December 2021/January 2022
www.electronicsworld.co.uk
be less than 0.3Vcc; e.g., less than 1.5V if Vcc is 5V. T e analogue input also has high
impedance, so it will fl oat if no voltage source is connected, causing random values to be displayed.
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